Closing Guantanamo Bay

Amnesty International members protesting to close Guantanamo Bay.

By AARON RILEY

Staff Writer

Since the construction of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in 2002, there hasn’t been a more controversial containment area since the Gulag’s penal labor camps, as declared by Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan. 

Much criticism has arisen from the treatment of prisoners, drawing from accusations of waterboarding, sedation, sleep deprivation, prolonged constraint, stripping, exposure to cold, abuse of the Qur’an, and other moderate to severe interrogation techniques. 

The accusations have sparked protests from citizens, human rights groups, pundits, and even politicians. The controversy has also offset increasing demands to properly define laws on the detention of foreign prisoners. Moreover, many strive to ascertain true constitutional precedent regarding habeas corpus rights underneath the alleged frills of the Bush era.

Most of those frills have been induced by the panic of a post-9/11 world. Is the suspension of habeas corpus simply another unconstitutional measure taken in a list of them that have been justified by the previous administration as necessary sacrifices and critical steps in overcoming terrorism?

“Overall it comes down to security vs. civil liberties. Some are willing to sacrifice security for civil liberties and some are not,” said CCC professor Richard Curcio.

In January, President Barack Obama ordered a suspension of military commissions at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba for 120 days pending inquiry from the Pentagon and formation of a new detention policy. While it is expected that Guantanamo will be closed before the year’s end, the issue still raises many questions from both sides of the argument.

Are suspected terrorists or any Guantanamo inmates rightfully owed habeas corpus if not U.S. citizens? 

“That’s the crux of the controversy, isn’t it?” Curcio laughed. “It depends on how the individuals are defined. If they are defined as prisoners of war, I believe, under the Geneva Convention, there are certain restrictions. They have the right to not be tortured and so on, but as far as having all the rights to habeas corpus…I really don’t think they do. But if they are defined as something other than prisoners of war…” 

It is true that the Bush administration has commonly used the expression “unlawful combatants” rather than “prisoners of war,” but it is difficult to discriminate any slight differences or criteria between them.

If they do have habeas corpus rights, do the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 hinder the use of the federal writ anyway? 

“It is hard to say how aggressively the Obama administration will move to eliminate the decisions of grotesque military trials, but as we speak, the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 is slowly working its way through the courts,” explained CCC professor Kevin McGarvey. The act, if passed, would give detainees access to the U.S. court system, redefine the term “enemy combatant,” and restore due process.

Also, why can’t U.S. intelligence  accurately discern members of organized terrorist groups from wrongly accused noncombatants? How extensively and carefully planned is the release of inmates from Guantanamo Bay detention center? Could the poor conditions, torture, and a refutation of habeas corpus rights aid the defense of actual dangerous detainees if they were to be tried in a legal setting? These questions remain unanswered.

Certainly, there is a lack of accessible information on the going-ons of Guantanamo. Many of the questions remain unanswered. The White House has yet to elaborate on the future of detainees after the closing of Guantanamo. Where will they go, who will take them? Who will be repatriated?

According to McGarvey, “Habeas corpus is an absolute benchmark of American values and ideals. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist paper number 84, wrote that ‘the establishment of the writ of habeas corpus, the prohibition of ex post facto laws (changing the laws after the fact) are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any (the Constitution) contains.’ Basically, habeas corpus protects citizens from arbitrary executive power. The key issue in the debate has been whether or not the right applies to non-U.S. citizens.”

McGarvey concluded, “The United States is supposed to be, as John Winthrop said 400 years ago, and as JFK repeated in his 1961 inauguration speech, a ‘shining city on a hill,’ acting as an example for the world. We’ve lost a lot of prestige and power in the world over the last decade as the US has engaged in misguided and dangerous experiments in the hopes of eliminating terrorism.”

Sittenfeld offers a female Holden Caulfield and a First Lady satire

 

 

By SUSIE REMPFER

Staff Writer

Curtis Sittenfeld is quickly rising to the top as an author to be remembered.

Her first novel Prep instantly climbed the bestseller’s list to the number eleven position. For those who’ve ever read J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and wished Holden Caulfield had a female counterpart, Prep is a book worth looking into. 

Inspired by her time spent at boarding school, as well as drawing inspiration from the ‘80s sitcom The Facts of Life, Curtis is able to paint the perfect picture. Prep is not only a page-turner, but it is also a believable and ingenious story about coming of age, without making its theme overtly obvious. 

Sittenfeld notes how Prep was turned down, and then “un-turned down” by one editor, who originally thought the novel was, “too dark and well written to be successfully marketed as chick-lit.” And upon reading Prep, you notice that “chick-lit” doesn’t properly fit, rather, Sittenfeld creates a genre all her own.

In her latest novel, American Wife, Curtis draws inspiration from First Lady Laura Bush. 

“Soon after George W. Bush was elected, I read a few articles about Laura Bush that made her seem different from what I would have expected. I learned that she’s a big reader, and that she would invite people who had political opinions different from her husband’s to events at the governor’s mansion and then events at the White House,” Sittenfeld said in one interview. 

Although drawing from real-life inspired events, Sittenfeld creates fiction, and once again creates a masterpiece. As one critic put it, “The result is a masterful mash-up of highbrow and lowbrow that satisfies as ass-kicking literary fiction and juicy gossip simultaneously.”

American Wife deals with issues such as having an abortion and discovering your grandmother is a lesbian, it also involves a fatal car accident that twists the plot unexpectedly (this incident is factual: Laura Bush was part of a fatal car accident at 16). 

For those desperately seeking good writing, Curtis Sittenfeld is an author that always succeeds in exceeding expectations.

The future of Generation Y

By BRITTANY WALDER

Staff Writer

They were hailed as the “blessed” generation. For one, this generation has had access to more information than ever. They grew up amid the development of the Internet and the fall of communism, and did so in an increasingly smaller world where tolerance became essential in order to interact with the myriad of cultures they were exposed to daily.  This generation has been more socially and environmentally aware, and has seen a drastic decrease in traditional gender roles. They have been slated as more collaborative, and despite a high divorce rate among their parents, reportedly have closer-knit families than their parents and grandparents did.

Their relatively few numbers led some experts to believe that their technological literacy, social skills, and unwillingness to settle would put them in high demand with employers. They were raised with the conscious realization that they had control over their destinies. This was until the 2008 financial crisis.

Generation Y is now, according to Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times, “in the midst of an economic crisis that confirms the worst fears of [its] members, namely that their baby boomer parents are leaving them a world convulsed by war, drowning in debt, and melting under global warming.”

Their once promising futures are now uncertain.

According to USA Today Magazine, almost half of college students will owe over $10,000 in student loans, the average of which is $19,000, after graduation. It will take an estimated 15 years for these loans to be paid off, putting students in debt into their  30s. The average Gen Yer also tends to owe at least $5,000 on credit cards before the age of 25. This all comes after the fact that this cohort of individuals spends approximately 15% more than any other generation.

“It’s a pity that 40% of college graduates owe a lot of money in loans and debts,“ said John Toth, 19, a sophomore at CCC, “it’s even more sad that more than half of them will claim bankruptcy, get out of debt, and never work it off.”

Generation Y now faces the shifting plates of academics. College is no longer an option to increase expertise in a field; it is an absolute necessity.  For this group of young adults entering the dwindling job market, the associate degree is essentially the new high school diploma.

“ I do see the associate’s as the new high school diploma. An increase in demand for standard education has risen, but overall customer service and human relations has decreased,” said Elizabeth Mujica, 30, a Cumberland County College student. “The workplace has now been overtaken by a bunch of people who completed book work requirements, but lack basic communication skills.”

The question is, when faced with their first economic recession, and what has been called one of the worst economic crises in memory, experts are wondering how this burgeoning group of young adults will fare. How will this group that has been conditioned to harbor unrealistic expectations react to being laid off from a job they have only recently started? More importantly, what will they do to help the situation? This, after all, is the generation that permeates with the belief that “work” and “life” are two separate realms. How are they going to cope with longer work hours and less flexibility, and how are they going to help the country out from under the oppression of debt?

Many people feel that Generation Y is more focused on the here and now as opposed to the future.  Its members grew up during a time of virtual economic security.  Older generations are now looking to the younger generation to fix the financial mess, and lead the country back to stability.

“I think it will be like any other generation,” Mujica said. “There will be those who work hard to be successful, and those who ask for handouts when the going gets tough.”

The situation does not appear to be completely hopeless. Many young people are at the very least thinking about what they can do to improve their future.

Toth said,  “Generation Y is in big trouble, especially in America.  We’re in so much debt because the government keeps spending money to try to ‘fix’ society. We need our government to shrink as much as it possibly can, leave society to the people, and guide us on the principle that people can take care of themselves.”