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Guantanamo: What the World Should Know Paperback – June 30, 2004

by Michael Ratner (Author), Ellen Ray (Author), Anthony Lewis (Author)

4.4 11 ratings

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In the months following its initial release, Guantánamo: What the World Should Know has proved to be a disturbingly accurate account of the Bush administration's tangle with civil liberties and torture. Written by Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights President and co-consul on the case of Rasul v. Bush)and Ellen Ray (Institute for Media Analysis President), Guantánamo is the most authoritative documentation to date on President Bush's moves toward a network of detention centers--a system without accountability, which flouts U.S. and international law.

With a resource section that includes the Gonzales memo to President Bush and excerpts from the Geneva Conventions, Guantánamo provides strong evidence of Ratner explains how Gonzales and the Bush Administration are acting to radically alter America's historic commitment to civil and human rights, and why all Americans should resist what is being done in our name.

Gathered together for the first time, Guantánamo: What the World Should Know includes the governmental memoranda that led to the conditions at the Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and beyond.

Ratner and Ray give the definitive account of what led to the current conditions at Guantánamo and the importance of continuing to fight against the violations of U.S. and international law undertaken by the United States since 9-11. This book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the rule of law, liberty, democracy--and the right to dissent.

Guantánamo also includes the essay 'A president beyond the law' by Anthony Lewis.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A brilliant and eloquent indictment of our current administration's disrespect for basic human rights. Ratner breaks down what Guantánamo is, why it matters, and the ramifications for national and international law. This book should be required reading for those concerned with truth, justice, and maintaining our humanity."--Rachel Neumann, Rights and Liberties Editor, Alternet.org

"Michael Ratner is America's most important civil libertarian. If this book doesn't frighten the public into action, nothing will."--John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper’s and author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the 1991 Gulf War

"Tis the season...for political nonfiction" Ruminator Review, October 2004-
Guantanamo is a profoundly disturbing portrait of the history of the U.S naval station in Cuba and those detained there. Prisoners of war and even civilians, carefully recategorized as "enemy combatants," may be held there indefinitely, on no formal charges and without access to legal counsel or a hearing in court, and even allegedly tortured in hopes of producing intelligence that may improve national security. This small book consists largely of transcripts if interviews with Michael Ratner, an attorney working with the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the detainees in Guantanamo (some of them held there since 2002). He gives stark information about conditions within the prison as well as the ongoing struggle to give the detainees a fair hearing in court. Much of it is drawn directly from government and court sources. If our government is going to "nuance" its commitment to the Geneva Convention and its protections for prisoners of war, we owe it to each other to make civil liberty concessions deliberately, with informed consent. If we don't bother to look squarely at Guantanamo and the detainees--and the implications for our own basic freedoms the situation entails--we have no one but ourselves to blame for the erosion of those rights. This is a book you must read.

About the Author

Michael Ratner is President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He serves as co-counsel in Rasul v. Bush, the historic case of Guantánamo detainees currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. Under Ratner's leadership, the Center has aggressively challenged the constitutional and international law violations undertaken by the United States post-9/11, including the constitutionality of indefinite detention and the restrictions on civil liberties as defined by the unfolding terms of a permanent war. In the 1990s Ratner acted as a principal counsel in the successful suit to close the camp for HIV-positive Haitian refugees on Guantánamo Bay. He has written and consulted extensively on Guantánamo, the Patriot Act, military tribunals, and civil liberties in the post-9/11 world. He has also been a lecturer of international human rights litigation at the Yale Law School and the Columbia School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, special Counsel to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to assist in the prosecution of human rights crimes, and radio co-host for the civil rights show Law and Disorder.

Ellen Ray is President of the Institute for Media Analysis and the author and editor of numerous books and magazines on U.S. intelligence and international politics. She is co-editor with William Schaap of Bioterror: Manufacturing Wars the American Way and Covert Action: The Root of Terrorism, both published by Ocean Press in 2003.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chelsea Green Publishing (June 30, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 184 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1931498644
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1920769277
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.38 x 0.5 x 8.38 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,453,661 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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4.4 11 ratings

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Michael Ratner

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Michael Ratner is an attorney and the board chair of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He is well known for his human rights activism and is the author of numerous books, including The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld (The New Press). He lives in New York City.

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che handala

What happens at Guantanamo violates American Law & Basic Human Rights

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2012

Verified Purchase

Do you want to know what really happens, what is done in your name at Guantanamo military base in Cuba? Then get this book and prepare to be disgusted,offended, and outraged by what your heroes are doing, what your elected officials are doing to uncharged and untried human beings in Cuba. Acts that were similar to deeds done at Russian gulags, in Nazi prison camps and other vile places are still being committed to this very day. Unamerican acts done to nonamericans by americans on foreign soil is most vile and odious. Your taxes support this, your silence condones this and your ignorance insures that that the 171 tortured souls will continue to suffer the most base defilement's until you do something about it. You cant do anything about it until you learn what is being done, in your name. Buy this book, learn, then teach others what you've learned and more important,do something about it by contacting your elected officials and demand that the prisoners be set free, that these people get an apology and compensation.

Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2007

With the exception of those on the payroll of the United States Government, Michael Ratner (with staff he directs at the Center for Constitutional Rights and volunteer lawyers he assembled) knows more about Guantánamo than anyone.

The book is a quick read at 93 pages of text.

For those who have grown up believing that the rule of law is central to our democracy, it is a chilling read.

Published in mid-2004 it reviews a broad array of the issues which had arisen as of that time and which continue to inform the realities on the ground at Gitmo today. It provides a careful analysis of the ways in which "rule by executive fiat" deviated from the U.S. Constitution, the entirety of the Anglo-American legal tradition, the Geneva Conventions, and international law.

He discusses how a great percentage of persons were selected to be prisoners at Guantánamo, a great many by bounty hunters capturing persons far from any battlefield, the bounties paid for by U.S. tax dollars. He discusses extraordinary rendition of prisoners rendered to countries known to torture, the "outsourcing" of torture.

He recounts the abuse and torture suffered meted out to those interrogated at Guantánamo and links the methods used there to those later made infamous by the exposé of interrogations at Abu Ghraib.

The more serious reader will appreciate the 66-pages of primary source documents collected in the appendix covering a broad range of topics from the original lease of Guantánamo from the Cuba to relevant parts of Geneva Conventions to a series of memoranda issued by various departments of the executive branch which framed some of the major issues that the detentions at Guantánamo present for our country.

For anyone concerned about the state of our democracy, this is an important book.

One person found this helpful

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Mr. T. W. Schooling

A disappointing but necessary catalogue of a historical period.

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

I was somewhat disappointed by the quality of the writing. There was quite a lot of repetition in both the questions and the answers, making for a book that was much longer than it needed to have been. However, the monstrous injustice that is Guantanamo is there, plain for all to see. If the world could punish the Nazis and the Japanese war criminals, the book does not phrase the question in so many words as to why Bush, Blair, Cheney and all their fellows remain free.

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Martin Gugino

Rather has first hand experience

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2013

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Michael Ratner is very active in Bill-of-Rights cases. So anything he has to say about Guantanamo is going to be interesting from someone who has been involved in Cuba since the Haitian boat-llfts. The appendix gives the text of the lease and other documents. They are surprisingly short, so anyone can read them in one sitting. The US is doing exactly what it wants to do, and what it wants to do is pretty criminal.

One person found this helpful

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Magna Carta

The True Story Behind an American Gulag

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2004

This book provides a really concise, clear and powerful explanation of the American interrogation camp at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. The author who represents some of the detainees and has interviewed them paints a vivid picture of their hideous treamtment. He demonstrates that the camp is not only outside the law, but a threat to the safety of us all. If you want to know why Guantanamo has become iconic in the Muslism world for everything wrong with the US, read this book.

28 people found this helpful

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M. S. Smith

Torture Island

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2004

This book puts another nail in Bush's coffin. It exposes the shameful scandal of Guantanamo, America's torture base in Cuba, where over 600 persons from some 40 countries have been held , with no lawyers, no charges, for over two years. Attorney for several of the prisoners and President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, tells the sordid story of torture and secrecy to veteran movement journalist Ellen Ray in a book that is as compelling to read as Michael Moore's movie was to watch.

24 people found this helpful

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M. Baldwin

Rule by Executive Fiat or Rule of Law?

Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2004

This is the clearest indication yet of where the Bush administration is heading in terms of putting in place a system of totalitarian justice. The authors show how the President, under his authority as "Comander in Chief" can designate anyone, including American citizens, (that includes you!) as enemy combatants in the US "war on terror." Once designated as such, you have no recourse to a lawyer or an impartial hearing. The recent Supreme Court decisions have upheld the right of "detainees" and so-called "enemy combatants" to the courts but the Administration is trying to do an end-run by bringing them in front of miliary panels--no lawyers--to determine their fate. This is a must read for anyone who is concerned about our civil liberties and international law. It is also a frightening expose of the conditions under which the Guantanamo detainees are held,including testimony by released prisoners about the abuse and torture they have suffered. Buy this book and then buy another to give away to your next door neighbor! There is no time to waste!

5 people found this helpful

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