Closing Guantánamo
A forum on what to do with detainees
Zoriah Miller / zoriah.com
David Cole
“Detention without trial has long been recognized as an appropriate and necessary means of dealing with enemy fighters during wartime. If the United States could lock up German soldiers during World War II without trying them criminally, why should it not have the same option for al Qaeda fighters?”
Web-only special: responses to David Cole
Joanne Mariner
“While democratic governments have experimented with preventive detention on security grounds—the British internment of Irish nationalists comes to minds—reliance on preventive detention is typically a hallmark of repressive regimes.”
Robert Chesney
It is evident that “the traditional rules associated with determining eligibility for military detention do not map onto the non-state actor scenario terribly well. . . . Whether Cole has identified an appropriate blend of substantive detention criteria and procedural safeguards, however, is less clear.”
Eric Posner
“Cole’s proposal to expand powers of preventive detention against members of al Qaeda, while reasonable within the narrow scope of his agenda, fails to come to terms with the overall problem that 9/11 demands we recognize.”
