Philosophy 'Mind-Body Dualism' Essay

Assess the plausibility of ‘mind-body dualism.’

I will argue that considerations of the ‘mind-body relationship’ have been around for a very long time and even today parts of ‘mind-body dualism’ as presented by Descartes play an important role on thinking on the subject. There is a long line of ancient thinkers who grappled with this ‘mind-body relationship,’ starting in the West with Plato and Aristotle, then as with much of the Western history of ideas, these notions were developed through the First and into the middle of the Second millennia by theologians until they were taken up again a few hundred years ago. A mind-body distinction of some sort forms an integral part of almost all major religions, so it could be said to be still very plausible to many. It was really Descartes method that led to his presentation of the material and mental worlds as distinctly different substances that resulted in his ‘mind-body dualism’ having so much longevity. This then led to people consider the interactional causation between the physical and mental and the uniquely subjective nature of mental events as apposed to physical events. I will then look at some of the strengths and weakness of ‘mind-body dualism’ arguments and finally explain my thoughts on the subject.

Ever since the appearances of whatever we consider to be the first ‘conscious’ beings there has been an unresolved relationship between mental and physical worlds we all experience. We have a body, and a ‘conscious’ mind. Through our bodily senses we can all touch, hear, see, smell and taste physical events and objects. We can all also locate where these occurrences take place physically but ‘If you hear a bell ringing, where does your auditory experience occur?’[1] Is it somewhere in the brain? When someone else is in pain, for whatever reason, you may feel you are able to empathise with the pain that the other person is experiencing but it is exclusively their experience. In fact although logically your reaction should be broadly similar the experience may be different in some way but as we have no way of comparing unique personal experience we do not know for sure.

There is a long established development of mind-body considerations within Western Philosophy. Plato (b. 427 BC) was one of the earliest to touch on this subject with his ‘doctrine of ideas or forms’[2] where ’whenever a number of individuals have a common name, they also have a common idea or form. For instance, though there are many beds there is only one ‘idea’ or ‘form.’[3] These he says are universal concepts, independent non-physical ideas that are only conceivable to those who can understand the bigger picture of their role in the universe. Of this Bertrand Russell said that it ‘contains a number of obvious errors. But in spite of these it marks a very important advance in philosophy, since it is the first theory to emphasise the problems of universals, which in varying forms, persisted to the present day.’

Aristotle (384 BC- 322) revised this theory when he developed the ‘Third Man Argument’ but also developed his ideas of a non-material world. This argument that that was proposed initially by Plato highlighted that if there is an earthly form and a virtual form then there must be a third similar form to make the likeness. From this he developed his ‘essence’ argument but still not believing that intellect can be conceived as material because “if the intellect were material then it could not receive all of the forms. If the intellect were a specific material organ (or part of one) then it would be restricted to receiving only certain kinds of information, as the eye is restricted to receiving visual data and the ear is restricted to receiving auditory data. Since the intellect is capable of receiving and reflecting on all forms of data, then it must not be a physical organ and, hence, it must be immaterial.”[4]

The next Western incarnations of the mind-body relationship were developed by the only intellectual class of the times, the theologians, so naturally had a heavy spiritual element attached. Saint Augustine (354-430) ‘believed that I am a soul that is “chained” to a body.’[5] Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) came to develop Aristotle’s theory of forms into a trinitarian notion of forms that mirrored the trintarian doctrine of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: forms, intellect and soul were three parts of the same singular phenomenon. For him, the soul was the substance of a human but you need a body for the soul to manifest itself within, the soul can exist without the body but it could not be said to be a person. Upon death the soul was all that remained of the person, everything bodily inculding your memories would be wiped out.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is considered one of the most influential philosophers due to the paradigm shift that occurred after his recognition of the importance of mind-body dualism. He developed an approach to philosophy that has become known as ‘Cartesian Doubt’ where he doubted everything he could possibly doubt to see what (if anything) he was left with. After dismissing the senses because it could all be a dream or an evil demon misleading him for some unknown reason he was left with his single most famous line: “I think, therefore I am.” This became the first principle of his philosophy and is important in the history of ideas because it ‘makes mind more certain than matter, and my mind (for me) more certain than the minds of others. There is thus, in all philosophy derived from Decartes, a tendency to subjectivism, and regarding matter as something only knowable, if at all, by inference from what is known of the mind.’[6] He also claimed that this showed that the mind, a thinking thing, can exist apart from its extended body. And therefore, the mind is a substance distinct from the body, a substance whose essence is thought. This is became known as Substance Dualism or Cartesian Dualism.

This led straight to the what has become known as the ‘Problem of Interactionism’ where somehow these two distinct substances have to find a way of bridging this gap between mind substances and body substances. Descartes himself later came up with an explanation along the lines of men ‘have a soul, which resides in the pineal gland. There the soul comes into contact with the ‘vital spirits’, and through this contact there is interaction between soul and body.’[7] Even his protoges where not happy with this and this quickly led to alternative explanations like, Geulincx his Dutch disciple to come up with his ‘two clocks’ theory. This theory suggests that with two running clocks at identical times, it could seem like, if you could only see one and hear the chime of the other, that one, caused the other. This is not the case, they are just runnining parallel to each other, and it is not our will that moves our body at the same time as our mind requests, but as Leibniz further developed this theory of a ‘pre-established harmony’ set in place by God creating the appearance of interaction.

This interaction causation is important to me, not least because it is also an intuative commom-sense notion that physical and mental events interact but also because of the implications of this interaction on any real dualism. This can be called ‘Interactionism’ and in this view, mental states such as desires and beliefs, causally interact with physical states. We have all seen something like this. A child falls over and cuts its knee(physical) so he feels pain(mental) shouts out(physical) in agony and this alerts and causes brief panic(mental) for its parent. So any mind-body dualism for me would need to deal with this interaction keeping them distinctly separate entities.
Within this argument it is important for me to acknowledge that mental and physical experiences have very different, and prehaps irreconcilable, properties. There is a certain subjective quality to mental events but this is not the case for physical events. For example, what does the pain from a burn feel like? What does a particular colour look like? What does pleasant music sound like? These subjective aspects of mental events has been called by philosophers ‘Qualia.’ This is the particular ‘what it is like’ to feel pain, sorrow, etc. It is extremely difficult to try reduce these Qualia into anything remotely physical.
I find parts of both Property Dualism and Predicate Dualism appealing. The former suggesting that when matter is organised in an appropreiate way as in the human body, mental properties emerge. With Predicate Dualism people maintain that while there is only one ontological category of substances and properties of substances (physical), the predicates that we use to describe mental events cannot be redescribed in terms of physical predicates of natural languages.
Apart from the intuative objection I raised earlier about the causal interactions of these two different types of substance there is a more scientific approach to the argument. Even with mystical explanations that violate normal conceptions of Newtonian mechanics, these causal interactions must violate the laws of physics. Similarly, it could be said that dualistic interactionism violates a general heuristic principle of science: the causal closure of the physical world. Critics of this suggest that mental events could be causal overdetermined and that some features of an effect may not be fully explained by its sufficient cause.
There is an argument formulated around the effects of brain damage on mental performance that questions the clarity of any distinction between body and brain/mind. It is simply that when the brain suffers some sort of damage, either by an accident, drug abuse or pathological diseases, it is always the case that the mental properties of that person are significantly compromised. If the mind were a completely separate substance from the brain, how could it be possible that every single time the brain is injured, the mind is also injured? Experts can even predict and explain the kind of mental or psychological deterioration or change that will take place when specific parts of their brains are damaged. So the question for the dualist to try to confront is how can all of this be explained if the mind is a separate and immaterial substance from, or if its properties are ontologically independent of the brain.
The final argument against dualism I will present is that of ‘Occam’s Razor.’ It is another example of dualism going against the heuristic principles in science and philosophy. Why would we assume the existence of more entities that is necessary for a clear explanation and prediction? Why believe in two, onotologically distinct entities, mind and body, when you could try explain it in one?
I think that our ‘conciousness’ is just a quirk of nature, an emergent property of the neureological evolution of living organisms and, it is this, that has caused for us the mind-body ‘problem.’ The only things that exist are physical things. All mental things appear to exist to us in our heads as thoughts and memories but these are just functions of our brain. When your heart pumps it is doing the major part of its job within the body, when your brain thinks it is doing the major part of its job within the body. Physical occurrences run in parallel with mental occurrences, the physical leading the mental. It may appear to us that what is going on within our heads is somehow just as real as the physical world (if not more) but it is in part due to the subjective nature of our mental world.

In conclusion mind-body dualism is still not resolved for most people so it must be plausible. Mind-body considerations have been with us since our evolution gave us ‘consciousness’. It could be said be intuitive to believe in some sort of dualism and it is certainly very important for people of a religious persuasion. Descartes rejection of anything he could doubt led to an introversion that has been very rewarding in the history of ideas. He was first to establish the subjective nature of thought and how hard it is to reconcile with the physical world. This led to investigation into the causation interaction of these two separate worlds that has not yet been resolved. There are strong arguments against mind-body dualism but it is subtly a well established concept for many people for many different reasons but I believe the authority of subjective thought established by Descates is the principle. I feel we have progressed as far as we can with this line of enquiry into a relationship we can fundamentally never totally understand. Others are still looking to the future:

”What is needed is something we do not have: a theory of conscious organisms as physical systems composed of chemical elements and occupying space, which also have an individual perspective on the world, and in some cases a capacity for self-awareness as well. In some way that we do not now understand, our minds as well as our bodies come into being when these materials are suitably combined and organised. The strange truth seems to be that certain complex, biologically generated physical systems, of which each of us is an example, have rich non-physical properties. An integrated theory of reality must account for this, and I believe that if and when it arrives, probably not for centuries, it will alter our conception of the universe as radically as anything has to date.”
Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere

Sebastian O’Brien Jan 2007

[1] 173 hospers Introduction to Philosophical analysis
[2] Bertrand Russell- History of Western Philosophy 123
[3] ibid
[4] Aristotle
[5] hospers 171
[6] 516 hist western
[7] 514 western

Role of Propaganda in 'War on Terror' Essay

Examine the role of propaganda in the ‘War on Terror’ after the attacks of 9/11.

I will argue that propaganda has played an extremely important role in justifying the actions for the chief Western participants of the ‘War on Terror’ after the attacks of 9/11. It started with the choice to declare a ‘War on Terror’ and after that propaganda has been used to create the impression that ‘Al Qaeda/Islamo-fascism’ is a global threat on the level of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. We have seen propaganda being used to overstate the threat posed to Western interests before in certain stages of the Cold War. The similarities continue with the aims of this propaganda being broadly the same and the focus of the threat being massively inflated by similar propagandistic methods. To achieve this there needs to be systematic propaganda mechanisms and I will try to outline one model that fits these ends. I suggest that public opinion has been recognised as a ‘second superpower’ and that this is why propaganda is so important. I finally outline Britain’s role in the propaganda around the ‘War on Terror’ and show example of ‘pseudo-information’ being used to mislead for political purposes in both the US and UK.

Soon after the multiple terrorist attacks on key targets within the United States of America on September 11th 2001, the president, George W Bush chose to re-declare a ‘War on Terrorism.’ This was a choice. Other less dramatic courses of action could have been taken. Consider this alongside the House of Commons Defence Committee suggestion that ‘the sources of instability that affect our fundamental interests…are often driven more by how we, our allies and partners choose to react to particular crises, rather than the crises themselves.[1]’ This decision soon led to a total rejection of ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s old approach of not giving ‘Terrorists’ the ‘oxygen of publicity’ with Al Qaeda quickly becoming a familiar organisation to anyone with access to a television.

Not long after the initial declaration of war American Vice-President Dick Cheney asserted that this ‘‘War on Terrorism’ could last fifty years or more[2]’ with critics suggesting that we now have to ‘live with the threat and illusion of endless war.[3]’ The role of propaganda was therefore to create a real-life evil Goldstein, as in George Orwell’s prophetic novel 1984, in Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. It is not unusual for politicians to try consolidate power by inspiring fear within a population. There is a historical precedent for this practice, it was said that that these tactics were used ‘throughout the Reagan-Bush years, as the leadership conjured up one devil after another to frighten the populace into obedience.[4]’ But could this ‘rag-tag’ group of Islamic extremists really be considered to be a global threat to American hegemony?

For many people the propagandist demonisation of ‘Al Qaeda’ was a throw back to the middle to late stages of the Cold War. As with the Soviet Union it could not be said that they were not a threat but are similar propaganda methods being used to inflate the threat level? It is interesting listening to ex-Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talk about the threat of both Terrorism and Communism, there is a striking similarity. It would be possible to exchange the words Communism and Terrorism in some of his defence speeches without knowing which was current and which was over 15 years old. Going back even further ‘the Truman-McCarthy Red scare helped inaugurate the Cold War and the permanent war economy.[5]’






After the end of the Cold War it was still necessary to have some kind of threat to ensure it could be ‘business as usual’ for Western geopolitical strategists. The propaganda inflating ‘terrorism’ was a parody of ‘the ‘Soviet threat’[that]served four main purposes: it provided a pretext for Western military intervention abroad as ‘defence’ against Soviet expansion; it allowed repressive governments to be supported on the excuse that they were bulwarks against communism; it allowed clampdowns on domestic dissent to take place by referring to infiltration by the enemy; and it allowed huge profits to be made by military industry, which produced the weapons demanded by a permanent arms race.[6]’ This may not be a bi-polar world anymore and Western objectives have not changed noticeably since the end of Cold War but it is the threat of ‘terrorism’ that helps ‘oil the cogs’ of the Industrial Military Complex now.

To achieve these aims a ‘Propaganda Model’ has to be implemented resulting in ‘the modes of handling favoured and inconvenient materials (placement, tone, context, fullness of treatment) differ in ways that serve political ends.[7]’ This model is articulated as having five features within Herman and Chomsky’s book ‘Manufacturing Consent- The Political Economy of the Mass Media.’ It states that ’In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda.[8]’ I would simplify the features of this model as: concentrated ownership of media outlets; advertising revenue being their primary income source; reliance on government/business as primary source of material; ‘Flak’ that is created when expected reporting norms are breached and Anti-Communism that has now been replaced by ‘Anti-Islamo fascism.’

Chomsky has described a ‘second superpower, world public opinion[9]’ and suggested that ‘problems of domestic control become particularly severe when the governing authorities carry out policies that are apposed by the general population.[10]’ It is a threat to powerful elites when ‘popular perceptions, rather than governments [are] setting the pace for international diplomacy.[11]’ This in turn leads to ‘the enemy at home often has to be controlled by intensive propaganda.[12]’


Propaganda has played a major role in the ‘War on Terror’ with respects of re-enforcing and exaggerating the threat from Islamic extremists. To look the output in this area from a single primary government source, ex-US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is revealing. He has said that ‘today, the world does face a new threat to peace and freedom. It’s not Adolf Hitler, fascism. It’s not communism. But it’s one that can be as destructive as any-or all, for that matter- and one that has implications for the future that are every bit as monumentous as those we have faced in the past.[13]’ So we are to understand that this ‘War on Terror’ could be as important to the peoples of the world as the Cold War or Second World War. He also warns that ‘we now know thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us’ and that ‘the gathering storm of terrorism will unleash its fury on us all.[14]’

The Iraq Invasion 2003 illustrates that ‘the most important weapon in this ‘war’ is pseudo-information.[15]’ This was used by the American administration to link Saddam Hussein with the attacks of 9/11 to help justify the immanent invasion of Iraq. This ‘government media propaganda assault[16]’ created the illusion that he was “an immediate threat to the US[17]” and was said to have ‘succeeded brilliantly in linking the war in Iraq with the trauma of September 11[18]’ This propaganda campaign resulted in one poll showing that nearly ninety percent of Americans believed that Saddam was ‘aiding and abetting terrorist who are planning future strikes against the US.[19]’

Britain’s chief role in this ‘War on Terror is to act as ‘the leading apologist for US policy[20]’ and as ’international coalition builders in support of US strategy.[21]’ This involves Britain offering ‘token military commitment’ whilst ‘its more useful function being to uphold the pretence of an ‘international coalition.[22]’ This has led to the suggestion that ’Britain under Blair has overtly become chief public propagandist for ‘Western’ strategy.[23]’

Tony Blair had his own propaganda concerns with Iraq ‘he knew he would have to assure Bush that, whatever his domestic problems, he would back military action.[24]’ This then led to political gymnastics because ‘at the same time he had to convince parliament that no decision had been made[25]’ he also had to try convince the British public and ultimately win a commons vote to back a military invasion. This led to the infamous ‘Dodgy Dossier’, the ’45 Minute’ claim and the misrepresentation of the Attorney Generals legal advise but despite all this he got the vote through the Houses of Commons even if the war has ultimately left his reputation in tatters.

With the decision to declare a ‘War on Terrorism’ the US administration had started its propaganda campaign. This then led to unprecedented use of propaganda throughout this ‘War.’ Using all the tricks that had been learned from the Cold War the ‘Al Qaeda’ organisation and Osama bin Laden has been established as the greatest threat to peace and security in the modern world. This is done to ensure the political objectives of Western elites, whilst using long established, highly organised and sophisticated propaganda apparatus. This ‘second superpower’ of public opinion was tamed once again with mis-information but only at the expense of the integrity of our political leaders and system.

Sebastian O’Brien Dec 2006



[1] Web of Deceit, page 75
[2] New Rulers, page 1
[3] Ibid
[4] Hegemony, page 115
[5] Manufacturing, page 32
[6] Web page 76
[7] Manufacturing page 35
[8] Manufacturing page 1
[9] Hegemony page 10
[10] Hegemony page 8
[11] Web page 22
[12] Hegemony page 8
[13] Web page 75
[14] Web page 77
[15] New Rulers page1
[16] Heg page 18
[17] Ibid
[18] Ibid
[19] Ibid
[20] Web 22
[21] Web 113
[22] Ibid
[23] Ibid
[24] Blairs 259
[25] Ibid



Bibliography

Web Of Deceipt- Mark Curtis
The New Rulers of the World- John Pilger
Blair’s Wars- John Kampfner
Manufacturing Consent- The Political Economy of The Mas Media- Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky
Hegemony or Survival- Noam Chomsky

Globalisation Essay

Do processes of ‘globalisation’ undermine the capacity of states/governments to act independently?


In attempting to answer the question about the nature of the processes of globalisation on states/governments capacity to act independently I will initially outline my definition of ‘globalisation’ and explain briefly why it is such a contentious concept. I will then explain the normative understanding of national sovereignty within the traditional ‘Westphalian’ system and its inherent contradictions within our modern ‘globalised’ world. Whilst concentrating particularly on economic and political globalisation I will argue that these do put pressure on states capacity to act independently and change the nature of national sovereignty. This leads to the conclusion that we have moved into a post-Westphalian system that changes, but not eliminates, state sovereignty and in turn the capacity for states/governments to act independently. This new system also creates problems with a ‘double democratic deficit’ and the impact of globalisation on states capacity to act being asymmetric along traditional ‘distorted’ global political lines.


Globalisation itself ‘has become a deeply controversial issue.[1]’ Even in modern Politics literature it has been described as ‘slippery and elusive[2]’ concept because ‘it is not a single process but a complex of processes, sometimes overlapping and interlocking processes but also, at times, contradictory and oppositional ones.[3]’ A more simplistic explanation of Globalisation is that it is ‘the process of increasing interconnectedness between societies such that events in one part of the world more and more have effects on peoples and societies far away.[4]’ That definition suggests that Globalisation must have been in development for some time already but I would suggest that it is the rate of the acceleration, deepening, stretching and thickening of this process that exemplifies this phenomenon.


The state has had a privileged position ever since the ‘Peace Treaties of Westphalia (1648) established the legal basis of modern statehood and by implication the constitution of modern world politics.[5]’ The aim was to ensure ‘agreement amongst Europe’s rulers to recognise each other’s right to rule their own territories free from outside interference.[6]’ It was only in more recent time that ‘sovereign statehood and with it national self-determination finally acquired the status of universal organising principals of world politics.[7]’ This evolution ‘welded together the idea of territoriality with the notion of legitimate sovereign rule’ and this sovereignty involved ‘the rightful entitlement to exclusive, unqualified and supreme rule within a delimited territory.[8]’


It is these established ideals of sovereign power as exclusive, unqualified and supreme control of everything within the state that are the antithesis of globalisation. As ex-US President Clinton noted the “line between domestic and foreign policy is blurring.[9]” This blurring is linked to globalisation because of the ‘growth of ‘superterritorial’ relations between people, a reconfiguration of social space in which territory matters less because an increasing range of connections have a ‘trans-world’ or ‘trans-border’ character.[10]’
Globalisation comes in many forms but I believe that two key areas highlight the effects these processes are having on state independence are predominantly economic globalisation and political globalisation.


Economic Globalisation can be summed up as ‘a shift from a world of distinct national economies to a global economy in which production is internationalised and financial capital flows freely and instantly between countries.[11]’ With this comes ’the reduced capacity of national governments to manage their economies and, in particular, to resist their restructuring along free-market lines.[12]’ Multinational corporations can exercise power over national governments by ‘relocating capital and production elsewhere’ if they do not like a particular policy ensuring developing-world states provide ‘cheap labour and low production costs without being able to oblige them to make a long-term investment.[13]’ The rate in which this economic globalisation is developing ‘far outstrips that of political globalisation[14]’ so the current global governance systems are unable to control this economic globalisation to retain Westphalian state sovereign power.


Political Globalisation is illustrated by ‘the growing importance of international organisations[15]’ that are trans-national, so operate, ‘not within a single state, but within an international area comprising several states.[16]’ From the European Union to the World Bank, the United Nations or Amnesty international they all try to compete and develop their functions within the global community. With international organisations that recognise the principles of inter-governmentalism a state can ‘take concerted action without sacrificing national sovereignty’ but with some supra-national organisations like, for example, the European Union have ‘an authority that is ‘higher’ than that of the nation–state and [is] capable of imposing its will on it.[17]’ With political globalisation we have the inherent problem that our recognition of, and emphasis on, autonomous nation states is at odds with the expansion of contemporary economic and cultural globalisation. When a modern state becomes ‘embedded in frameworks of global and regional governance [they] confront a real dilemma… state autonomy is compromised.[18]’


The Westphalian concept of ‘exclusive, unqualified and supreme rule within a delimited territory’ mentioned earlier has been left behind. A new post-Westphalian order has developed where states ‘engage in extensive multilateral collaboration and cooperation[19]’ and ’sovereignty is understood as the shared exercise of public power and authority.[20]’ Borders are still important but territoriality is being subordinated by ‘a new geography of organization and political power is emerging which transcends territories and borders.[21]’ Sovereign power in this new order has been ‘transformed but not necessarily eroded[22]’ it is now uses it ‘as a bargaining tool, in the context of transnational systems of rule making, with other agencies and social forces.[23]’


These changes in the global order have an effect on the independence and accountability of national governments and increased the importance of international organisations thus creating a ‘double democratic deficit.’ Modern Post-Westphalian states have a ‘reduced capacity…to manage their economies’ so therefore reduced capacity to express the will of their electorate. Furthermore we have seen that ‘economic activity increasingly pays little attention to national borders’ but that ‘politics continues to operate largely within in them’ this happens with ‘the international organisations that do exist being too weak to call global capitalism to account.[24]’ There is also a democratic deficit within global organisations, there are over 200 members of the United Nations but ‘issues of international peace and security are determined by only 15 members.., of whom only five can exercise a power of veto.[25]’


Modern global politics should more accurately be called ’distorted global politics’ and this has implications on the relative effects on sovereignty between stronger and weaker nation states. Stronger nations are able to ‘shape the rules and institutions[26]’ of global politics due to ‘enormous inequalities of power between states.[27]’ Weak states alternatively ‘have little or no influence in the creation and enforcement of rules in the system and they have exercised little control over their own integration into the world economy.[28]’ The effect globalisation has on weaker states is therefore greater because they cannot, like stronger states, ‘guard with equal ferocity their independence in economic, foreign policy, human rights and security issues.[29]’

My conclusions are that ‘state sovereignty has been a defining characteristic of international politics for three hundred and fifty years[30]’ but the processes of globalisation mean ‘events in one part of the world more and more have effects on peoples and societies far away’ and thus reduce the capacity for independent action. It is clear that processes of globalisation have changed the nature of state sovereignty and reduce the capacity of nation states to act truly independently. In keeping with ‘distorted’ global politics the processes of globalisation undermine the independence of more powerful nations less because they get to retain more autonomy and have more influence to shape the global governance organisations Globalisation has created a post-Westphalian global order where it is harder for states/governments to exercise tradition independence and instead live in a world of increased interconnectedness and interdependence that favours more powerful states and leads people to ask serious questions about the implications of the inequalities between nations and the democratic credentials of this current world order.

Sebastian O’Brien December 2006





[1] Andrew Heywood, Politics, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, page 140
[2] Andrew Heywood, Politics, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, page 137
[3] Ibid
[4] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 8
[5] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 29
[6] ibid
[7] ibid
[8] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 30
[9] ibid
[10] Andrew Heywood, Politics, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, page 137
[11] Andrew Heywood, Politics, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, page 139
[12] Ibid
[13] Andrew Heywood, Politics, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, page 43
[14] ibid
[15] Andrew Heywood, Politics, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, page 139
[16] ibid
[17] Andrew Heywood, Politics, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, page 148
[18] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 33
[19] ibid
[20] ibid
[21] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 35
[22] ibid
[23] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 33
[24] Andrew Heywood, Politics, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, page 143
[25] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 198
[26] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 340
[27] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 35
[28] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 341
[29] ibid
[30] John Bayliss and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, page 60

Cuban Missile Crisis Essay

Examine the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ with particular reference to its origins and conclusions.


In my examination of the origins of the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ I will primarily explain some history predating the 1959 Cuban Revolution but then investigate the rapid deterioration of the relations between the Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the United States of America before this 1962 confrontation. It was the ‘Cold War’ that acted as a catalyst within the origins of this crisis and introduced Soviet influence on the United States of American’s doorstep. The infamous failed ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion of Cuba by a force of mainly exiled Cubans funded and encouraged covertly by the US that developed the already established, ideological and military links between Cuba and the Soviet Union. I will examine both the origins and conclusions of the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ within its ideological context and attempt to look at these events from the perspective of each ‘National Actor’ whilst trying to highlight some of their considerations, motivations, objectives and how different conclusions affected each country. I will also try to illustrate some limitations of the ‘Rational Actor Model[1]’ of analysis. The conclusions are many and varied but the most important for me is that even without nuclear parity the shared view was that ‘no other objective can be of greater importance than avoiding nuclear war[2]’ and that this, led finally, to a diplomatic solution. Khrushchev’s brinksmanship ultimately led to Cuba being safe from US invasion but, with no real strategic advantage for the Soviets, it was a factor in him loosing his job in 1965. Kennedy’s role in the crisis improved his own and America’s reputation on the world stage after the ‘Bay of Pigs’ fiasco but it left Castro in charge in Cuba without diminishing his export of revolutionary zeal, equipment and personnel. The Cuban Missile Crisis has also proved to be a long running ‘test case’ for historians and the study of Crisis Management and Crisis Prevention. These events also improved direct communications between the two ‘Cold War’ superpowers which made possible international agreements on test bans, arms control, and nuclear non-proliferation and could be seen as a factor the later period of détente in the ‘Cold War’.


Some of the earliest origins of Cuba’s ‘October Crisis’ are rooted in their perception of the United States of America’s ‘imperial’ influence over them. Cuba was a Spanish colony until the end of the Spanish-American War in 1902 but this was no more that ’a change of masters’[3]for them and Castro ‘studied and admired the heroes of Cuba’s independence movement[4]’ like Jose Marti and hoped to have influence across South America like another of his heroes Simon Bolivar. In January 1959 Cuba’s Revolutionary movement led by Fidel Castro, finally toppled the US backed military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista after over two years of guerrilla warfare. Upon taking power Castro initially tried to appease his US neighbours by issuing ‘a number of statements of moderate character’[5] whilst consolidating his position within Cuba. This posturing troubled close confidantes to the Cuban leader like Raul Castro and legendary Argentine Marxist ‘Che’ Guevara but they were later relieved when it became clear that he would ‘attack without delay the special link with the United States’ as to them it represented ‘a form of economic servitude.’[6]


The belief within successive American administrations in the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ that confirmed the role of the US in South America as defending it against imperial exploitation to ensure access to its resources and that if violated the US should ’go in and take over.[7]’ New American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy made the Cuban situation, part of his 1959 presidential campaign when he described Cuba as ‘the most glaring failure of American foreign policy.[8]’ Covert CIA plans to invade Cuba with a force of Cuban exiles was already planned before Kennedy took over and he immediately realised that it could cause problems with the USSR. Days after Kennedy accepted an invitation to meet again with Khrushchev the operation that became known as the ‘Bay Of Pigs’ had started in Cuba. Kennedy had not overcome his initial doubts about visible support from the US; he fatally altered the level of air support from the original plan which led to it being a total failure.


The Soviet Union had agreed in 1959 to send Cuba arms from Warsaw Pact countries but by November 1960 direct arms shipments were coming from the USSR. The fact that the Cuban Revolutionary Movement had keen Marxists at its centre and links with the Cuban Communist (PSP) was hidden at first but the Soviets knew this even if they had lingering doubts about Fidel Castro. When relations between the US and Cuba were deteriorating through the end of the Eisenhower administration the Soviets were quick to help out by taking the majority of the sugar exports that were cut by the US. Khrushchev was insecure about US military domination and was keen to develop Soviet influence in the world and would prove to be prepared to take risks to threaten US hegemony.


The key decision in the origins of this crisis was the clandestine deployment of nuclear warheads to Cuba whilst publicly stating that no ‘offensive’ weapons would be placed there. Castro’s initial doubts about links with the Socialist Bloc had evaporated and he was quoting saying ’Moscow is our brain and our great leader.’[9] Khrushchev had also received a disturbing KGB report from the US outlining that they knew the ‘Missile Gap’ was a fallacy and that it could be in the Americans interest to strike soon before any ‘real’ gap appears. This insecurity and a genuine wish to protect Castro’s revolution led to Khrushchev publicly supporting the Cubans and expressly promising to protect it from outside intervention. The ‘Bay Of Pigs’ invasion had worried Castro, hardened Cuban public against the United States of America, allowed Castro to publicly side with the Soviets and ultimately led to Khrushchev agreeing to supply nuclear material to the now overtly Socialist island of Cuba as a ‘deterrent’ against any future US aggression. This move by Khrushchev was risky and opportunistic as he said himself “this may end in a big war.[10]”


The world became aware of the Cuban Missile Crisis on October 22nd 1962 when American president John F Kennedy announced knowledge of a ‘soviet military build up’ including ‘offensive missile sites’ to provide a ‘nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.[11]’ Days earlier an America U2 surveillance plane pictured these missile sites being built and after a period of consultation the Americans wanted to show they were determined to get them removed and the ‘initial steps[12]’ would be a naval ‘quarantine[13]’ to ensure that no more ‘offensive’ military equipment could arrive on the island. This course of action was finally preferred to an air strike or full-scale invasion by Kennedy because of the threat of a nuclear exchange would be “one hell of a gamble.[14]” This option applied pressure but notably gave the Soviets a diplomatic route out of the conflict that after a number of extremely nervous days Khrushchev took. On October 28th the Soviets notified Washington without consulting Havana that in exchange for the removal of the missiles he would expect America to publicly commit to not invading Cuba. He had decided that ’a communist Cuba without missiles was better for Soviet interests than a U.S.-occupied Cuba.[15]’


One of the most important conclusions of this crisis is that both nuclear superpowers involved needed to protect their interests but ultimately tried to pursue a diplomatic solution to avoid the first nuclear exchange of the ‘Cold War.’ On the day of Kennedy’s October 22nd speech Khrushchev privately admitted “we were not going to unleash war, we just wanted to intimidate them and deter the Anti-Cuban forces[16]”. Even with Khrushchev’s brinksmanship Kennedy had the upper hand strategically. His fear was an air strike of all known missile sites may ‘risk that some remain undetected[17]’ that could then be fired in retaliation against America.


Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for a commitment by the Americans not to invade, to remove the blockade and the removal of US missiles in Turkey within six moths of the crisis. This was not known in the US until six years later and Khrushchev took sharp criticism from within the Presidium about this agreement not being made public. He was ousted a few years after the resolution of this crisis. Deeper analysis reflects that simply looking at the original decision from the ‘Rational Actor Model’ is to ignore the possibility that ’a number of different individuals’ quite distinct perceptions of separable problems snow balling into a single solution[18]’.


Fidel Castro was said to be initially livid about not being consulted about the decision to remove the missiles. Relations did improve later between Castro and Moscow, although, more radical elements within the Cuban government like ‘Che’ Guevara felt betrayed. In concluding the ‘deal’ the superpowers did not get an explicit agreement from Cuba to restrict their support of anti-imperialist movements around the world. In the next few years Cuba were involved in supporting revolutionaries in Andean Peru, Venezuela, Congo and numerous other places like Bolivia, where the incurable revolutionary ‘Che’ Guevara met his death in 1967.

Numerous later revelations about this crisis have illustrated that Kennedy’s caution with the air strike and invasion policy was prudent. Had the Americans have invaded Cuba Khrushchev had authorised the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. Kennedy’s profile abroad and that of America in the ‘Cold War’ was greatly improved by this crisis but many within the US thought he was too weak. The Soviets had been discovered clandestinely transporting nuclear material to a hostile neighbour and yet this young American president was prepared to think before acting and tactically leave the door open for his adversary to back down.


The crisis led to a new understanding between the nuclear powers and was a factor bringing about specific nuclear test bans, nuclear non-proliferation agreements and, even less in directly, a period of détente in the ‘Cold War’. In the years after the crisis a ’new and more extensive test ban agreement as well as the installation of a direct and permanently open, or ‘hot’, line of communications’ between the superpowers was achieved.[19]’ It was events in Cuba and Berlin that developed this ‘fearful intimacy[20]’ between the two nations as well as an understanding of ‘the permitted limits of nuclear politics.[21]’ Arms control was not new but with ‘the need to avoid mutual annihilation’ and ‘interest in their own superiority[22]’ were factors in developing the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and in following decades the SALT agreements and a thawing of the ‘Cold War.’

The Cuban Missile Crisis has become an important ‘test case’ for historians or international relations analysis not least because of the magnitude of the possible outcomes but also that ‘many events were interpreted by the other side as planned and controlled actions when in fact they were neither[23]’ To look at any National Government’s decision output as one man making a ‘rational’ choice is usually a simplification that both ‘obscures as well as reveals’ as more often it is ‘not one calculating decision maker but is rather a conglomerate of large organisations and political actors.[24]’

The simplest explanation of the origins and conclusions of this conflict are that after the Cuban Revolution Castro was on course for a confrontation with the United States and that without the help of USSR they would have lost. Khrushchev’s last major international ‘throw of the dice’ was a risky one that led to his political demise but the Cuban revolution’s survival. Rationality led to the diplomatic solution but these were not simple choices made by one person and could have had many different outcomes. The fear generated by the crisis did have positive effects in developing an understanding between the two countries and arms controls of different types. A less encouraging inference from this conclusion is that even without nuclear parity the real threat of a nuclear exchange upsets normal power politics so that these weapons may be seen as a good addition to ensuring any ‘rogue’ state’s international ambition.

Sebastian O’Brien. November 2006





[1] Graham T. Allison, ‘Essence Of Decision’ Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Pg4
[2] Raymond L. Garthoff, ‘Reflections On The Cuban Missile Crisis’ The Brooking Institute, Washington D.C. Pg160
[3] Peter Calvocoressi, ‘World Politics Since 1945’
[4] Leycester Coltman, ‘The Real Fidel Castro’ Yale University Press, New Haven and London, Pg14
[5] Peter Calvocoressi, ‘World Politics Since 1945’ p692
[6] Ibid
[7] Aleksandr Fursenko/ Timothy Naftali, ‘One Hell Of A Gamble’ Pimlico, London Pg52
[8] Ibid
[9] Ibid
[10] Aleksandr Fursenko/ Timothy Naftali, ‘One Hell Of A Gamble’ Pimlico, London Ch 13
[11] Aleksandr Fursenko/ Timothy Naftali, ‘One Hell Of A Gamble’ Pimlico, LondonPg 246
[12] Raymond L. Garthoff, ‘Reflections On The Cuban Missile Crisis’ The Brooking Institute, Washington D.C. Pg58
[13] Aleksandr Fursenko/ Timothy Naftali, ‘One Hell Of A Gamble’ Pimlico, London Pg 245
[14] Ibid
[15] Raymond L. Garthoff, ‘Reflections On The Cuban Missile Crisis’ The Brooking Institute, Washington D.C. Pg93
[16] Aleksandr Fursenko/ Timothy Naftali, ‘One Hell Of A Gamble’ Pimlico, London Pg 241
[17]
[18] Graham T. Allison, ‘Essence Of Decision’ Little, Brown and Company, Boston Pg 237
[19] Peter Calvocoressi, ‘World Politics Since 1945’Pg 38
[20] Peter Calvocoressi, ‘World Politics Since 1945’Pg 41
[21] Peter Calvocoressi, ‘World Politics Since 1945’Pg41
[22] Peter Calvocoressi, ‘World Politics Since 1945’Pg42
[23] Raymond L. Garthoff, ‘Reflections On The Cuban Missile Crisis’ The Brooking Institute, Washington D.C.Pg155
[24] Graham T. Allison, ‘Essence Of Decision’ Little, Brown and Company, Boston Pg3

Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre Essay

Discuss the impact of the Guant́anamo Bay Detention Centre on the ‘War on Terror.’


The Guant́́anamo Bay Detention Centre in Cuba has had symbolic power in the ‘War on Terror’, both for the American administration, and more recently, for people who are opposed to its methods. For the US Government, it illustrated that the “War on Terror is a new kind of war."[1] This ‘new war’ needed a new set of rules to help “obtaining intelligence vital to the protection of untold thousands of American citizens”[2] from detainees initially labelled as “among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.”[3] With this description there was an implied message to the American people, that, they had apprehended key figures from ‘Al Qaeda’ in Afghanistan, and that they were making progress in the ‘War on Terror.’ The power of Guant́anamo as a symbol for the humanitarian organisations and outspoken individuals opposed to the camps has been growing gradually year by year as more information has become available. For them it symbolises the apparent contradiction of the US policy, that is, simultaneously trying to spread ‘Freedom and Democracy’ around the world, whilst not adhering to normal rules of engagement and international human rights laws. These detentions in a “legal black hole”[4] has achieved its aim of “keeping them off the streets”[5] but, after falling under the spotlight of the world’s media, the impact of these blatant human rights violations and their unilateral approach to foreign policy has eroded much of the world’s post ‘9/11’ sympathy for America and will continue to alter people’s perceptions of the ‘War on Terror.’


In October, 2001, three days after ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ had officially started in Afghanistan, US President George W. Bush outlined in a prime-time news conference the nature of the enemy they needed to fight in this ‘War on Terror.’ "The attack took place on American soil, but it was an attack on the heart and soul of the civilized world. And the world has come together to fight a new and different war, the first, and we hope the only one, of the 21st century. A war against all those who seek to export terror, and a war against those governments that support or shelter them." This coming together of the world after ‘9/11’ did not last long. It wasn’t the prospect of a “long war”[6] against such a fundamentally subjective ememy but the advent of places like Guant́anamo that led people to think that the U.S. had “dissipated the goodwill out of its arrogance and incompetence. A lot of people who would never ever have considered themselves anti-American are now very distressed with the United States.”[7]


By January, 2002, the American Government was already exporting suspected ‘Al Qaeda and Taliban’ prisoners they had detained there, Pakistan and elsewhere to the newly expanded Guant́anamo Bay Detention Centre in Cuba. In the words of Donald Rumsfeld the US Secretary for Defence on 21st January 2002; “These people are committed terrorists, we are keeping them off the streets and out of the airlines and out of the nuclear power plants and out of the ports across this country and across other countries.” Apart from protecting the American people from the detainees held in Cuba, they were also said to be “developing information of enormous value to the nation, enormously valuble intelligence” and that they “think of Guant́anamo as the interrogation battle lab of the war against terror.”[8]


Two months earlier, on November 13, 2001, the US president, George Bush, had issued a Presidential Military Order, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Services, outlining that suspected ‘Al Qaeda’ terrorists could be tried by special military commissions, and that they would not be classed as Prisoners of War, but as ‘Enemy Combatants.’ Some were surprised when told that this term also was applicaple to all the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Not long after they arrived it was said that due to this ‘Enemy combatant’ classification “they do not have any rights under the Geneva Conventions.”[9] The detainees were also deprived of access to US federal law and this left them, as the English Court of Appeal said in 2004, in a ‘legal black hole.’ This ‘new’ approach was later outlined in some detail in a leaked memo; “As Commander-in-Chief, the president has the constitutional authority to odrer interrogations of enemy combatants to gain intelligence information about the plans of the enemy.”[10] This new approach of classing anyone, by decree of the president, as ‘Enemy combatants,’ gives the administration their new set of rules, for this ‘new kind of war.’


The western media response to the first pictures of the detainees arriving at Guant́anamo was unambiguously negative. The broadcast of images of the detainees arriving at Camp X-Ray shackled together, kneeling in the dirt, wearing blacked out goggles, orange jump suits and taped-on gloves was met with a combination of shock and revulsion around the world. It illustrates how much the mood of the world media had changed in the few months after 9/11. Seeing the civilian population in America attacked allegedly by Islamic terrorists temporarily softened, even the most critical opponents of American foreign policy. However these pictures were met with instant indignation from elements of the media and human rights groups. The contradiction of publicly parading pictures of detainees (which could be seen as a direct violation of the Geneva Convention on Human Rights) whilst trying to win the battle for ‘Hearts and Minds’ in the ‘War on Terror’ was lost on the American administration. The negative publicity the pictures created worldwide did lead to the admission by Donald Rumsfeld that allowing the release of the pictures was “probably unfortunate.”


The response from the developing world, and in particular the Arab world, was even less diverse and even more negative. The image of scores of Muslim men being incarcerated in what could be seen as, a ‘concentration camp,’ with no legal representation or access to the Red Cross caused a new wave of anti-American sentiment in the region. These images and subsequent photos from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq provided ample ammunition for pamphleteers, cartoonists and the broadcast media in the Arab world to highlight what they see as contradictions in the ‘moral’ position of US Policy. There have also been oblique references to Guantanamo in the worrying and more recent speit of decapitations, with the video footage showing pictures of western hostages in Iraq being dressed in orange ‘Guant́anamo style’ jump suits before being beheaded.


The negative impact of these images and the immoral practices that came out of Abu Ghraib has undoubtedly worked as a recruitment tool for ‘Al Qaeda’ and any organisation opposed the US administration. Islamic fundamentalist websites are saturated with images and news of the human rights abuses, excessive use of military power and use of certain banned weapons by the American administration and its allies. The ‘Al Jazeera’ news station based in Doha in Qatar has become a target for the administration as it broadcasts in Arabic, exercises its own editorial control and doesn’t conform to the usual usage of erroneous and misleading language like most western media outlets. It also has correspondents on the ground in dangerous places like Afghanistan and Iraq sending out real-time news of developments on the ground that the administration would like to control. In both Afghanistan and Iraq mistakes were made by the Americans military by ‘accidentally’ bombing the ‘Al Jazeera’ news desks even though they had the GPS co-ordinates. These may have indeed have been accidents, but it has undoubtedly been seen in the Arab world as an attempt to silence uncomplimentary news. This also is seen as a contradiction in American policy, the media in the West is meant to be ‘free’ to tell the truth, but a news station not conforming to ‘the official line’ of the US government could be accidentally targeted by US bombs.


The new approach to the classification of Enemy Combatants outlined above and the National Security Strategy of September 2002[11] and its implementation in the ‘War on Terror’ have been regarded as important developments in international relations. The contradiction again is implicit in the acceptance of the usefulness of these doctrines whilst accepting that it cannot be “a universal principle available to every nation.”[12] This is in stark contrast to what Noam Chomsky describes as “the most elementary moral truism, the principle of universality.”[13] What would be the American administration’s response be to US citizens or spies been arrested, transported to, and imprisoned indefinitely without charge in a foreign prison? This concept of ‘universality’ is also explicitly mentioned in the preamble of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights when talking about the responsibilities of member states to “secure their universal and effective recognition and observance.”


Of the 650+ detainees that have been held at the Guant́anamo Bay Detention Centre to date, less than ten prisoners were ever charged with any offence. This extremely low conviction rate appears at odds with the administration’s claims that these people were ’among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.’ The disparity between the claims of the administration and the conviction rate has been explained by some as a result of intelligence screening processes in Afghanistan and elsewhere being “flawed and inadequate, made still worse by the use of woefully poor and virtually untrained translators.”[14] This contradiction between the description of the detainees being the “worst of the worst”[15] and the low conviction rate and the poor intelligence techniques used to determine their involvement in terrorism reflect badly on the administration’s use of its power and judgement in this ‘War on Terror.’


The American administration claimed that although the Geneva Convention did not apply to the detainees at Guant́anamo, as it was, “written for a different kind of war”[16]; their treatment was “in the spirit of Geneva.”[17] This came around at the same time that the administration was moving away from the leaked memo (mentioned above) from 1st August 2002, which was legal advice from the Department of Justice on the legality of certain interrogation techniques in relation to international law. This document redefined torture as having to cause “death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function.”[18] It also proposed that any American charged with torturing a ‘terrorist’ suspect can use, ‘self-defence,’ as a legal position due to the ‘9/11’ atrocities. The credible depiction of life in the camp from some of the released detainees suggest that practices such as sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, exposure to heat/cold, shackling in ‘stress’ positions were all used in combination. These methods we described by the International Committee of the Red Cross as ‘tantamount to torture.’


The previous US administration had been said to have taken “the lead in eliminating human rights protections”[19] so it should be no shock to hear this administration describing the Geneva Conventions as being “quaint.”[20] Article 5 of the UD states: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The myths created around these detainees fuelled the incorrect assumption that the people they picked up in Afghanistan, Pakistan or anywhere else in the region were predominantly ‘Al Qaeda’ operatives. When they got no tangible results from the first wave of interrogations they used the ‘new’ definitions of interrogation technique thinking that would get a better return. However, if you want to charge and convict the detainees of any crime, you need evidence, but all respectable courts will not permit confessions under duress. This realisation was articulated by Lieutenant-Commander Swift; “Even if we did get some intelligence of value it wasn’t worth it. Let’s suppose that among those 600 detainees, there are some bad guys. The likelihood now is that, eventually, they’ll go free. If we’d handled this differently, this wouldn’t have been the case.”[21]


The campaign to get Guant́anamo closed has been gaining momentum over the past few years. On June 28 2004 the US Supreme Court decided that the detainees could have access to federal law to challenge their detention. There has also being a build-up of influential people speaking out even more unequivocally against the camp. Most detainees have now been freed but, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has said that the United States must shut down the Guant́anamo Bay prison camp "as soon as is possible."[22] And the British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has called it a “symbol of injustice”[23] and that it would be ‘right’ for it to close down. Even George Bush has now said that he would like to see “all the detainees charged and the camp closed”[24] – but what damage has already been done to the perception of America’s role in the War on Terror?


The Guant́anamo detention centre has had mixed success in achieving its own stated aims. It has kept the detainees ‘off the streets’, but it is intrinsically less clear if it helped in ’obtaining intelligence vital to the protection of untold thousands of American citizens.’ If, like administration officials have said, a “key element of our offensive strategy against terrorism, is to wage a battle of ideas to impede recruitment and support,”[25] then with this they have had even less success. It is in this ‘battle of ideas’ that Guant́anamo impacts most in the ‘War on Terror.’ It highlights the hypocrisy of the US policies. An official who worked at the camp said the problem was that “we were supposed to be the good guys, but at Gitmo, we aren’t.”[26] The men detained were often not affiliated in any way with either ‘Al Qaeda’ or the Taliban and have been treated in ways that leads to Guant́anamo being seen as an “icon of oppression”[27] throughout the world. There is evidence that at Guant́anamo, the US have broken the Geneva Conventions and reneged on its ratification of the UN 1985 Torture treaty. Its foreign policy has highlighted their unilaterally approach and its all justified with the single explanation that they are ‘protecting the American people.’ Winston Churchill the British World War Two Prime Minister who ‘protected’ the British people against the rise of Hitler’s Nazi Germany said; “The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and to particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian governments whether Nazi or Communist.”[28]


The Guant́anamo Bay Detention Centre now symbolises; contradictions in U.S. policy, suggestions of torture, human rights abuses, a lack of ‘universality’ in policy, a misuse of power and ill thought-out and inadequate vetting procedures for suspected terrorists. This has all worked to show that mottos like that of Guant́anamo, “Honour Bound to Defend Freedom,”[29] have now lost their validity. If the camp doesn’t hold the most senior members of ‘Al Qaeda’ that they have detained, then, where are they? If places like the Guant́anamo Bay Detention Centre attract so much media attention, what will be the effect of further revelations of ‘extraordinary renditions’ and U.S. ran secret prisons in other countries? The impact of Guant́anamo as a symbol is important because it is a microcosm of the ‘War on Terror’ and if lessons were learned from losing that ‘battle of ideas’ then ultimate success may not be so allusive.

Sebastian O’Brien

May 2006.
[1] Alberto Gonzales- Memo to Bush 25/01/02
[2] William J Haynes- Memo to Donald Rumsfeld ‘Wall Street Journal’ 06/03/03
[3] Donald Rumsfeld- Speaking from Camp X-Ray in Cuba 27/01/02
[4] English Court of Appeal Ruling 06/11/02
[5] Donald Rumsfeld- Speech 21/01/02
[6] Washington Post- ‘Ability to Wage 'Long War' Is Key To Pentagon Plan’ Ann Scott Tyson 04/02/06
[7] Meghnad Desai- Director of the Institute for Global Governance at the London School of Economics
[8] Major-General Geoffrey D. Miller- Pg 81 ‘Guantanamo’ by David Rose 2004
[9] Donald Rumsfeld- Guantanamo’ David Rose
[10] Leaked US Department of Justice Memo or ‘Bybee’ Memo 22/01/02
[11] National Security Strategy 17/11/2002
[12] Henry Kissinger- Chicago Tribune 11/08/02
[13] ‘Hegemony or Survival’ Noam Chomsky Pg 239
[14] ‘Guantanamo’ David Rose
[15] Donald Rumsfeld
[16] Alberto Gonzales- Memo to Bush 25/01/02
[17] Major McCann ‘US Afgan Prisoner Treatment Decried’ Asim Khan ‘Al Jazeera’ Online 07/02/05
[18] Leaked ‘Bybee’ Memo
[19] Human Rights Watch World Report 1997
[20] Alberto Gonzales- Memo to Bush 25/01/02
[21] ‘Guantamo’- David Rose
[22] Washington Post ‘Military Prison’s Closure Is Urged’ Colum Lynch 20/05/06
[23] AP 10/05/06
[24] Guardian Unlimited ‘Close the detention facility’ David Fickling 19/05/06 quote date 08/05/06
[25] Douglas J Feith ‘Strategy in the War on Terror’ 07/02/03
[26] Lieutenant-Commander Swift- ‘Guantanamo’- David Rose
[27] ‘Guantanamo’- David Rose
[28] Winston Churchill- ‘Hegemony or Survival’ Noam Chomsky
[29] ‘Guantanamo’- David Rose