From front lines to fun runs: revitalizing the exception through official discourse at Guantánamo Bay

ABSTRACT

When the detention programme at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay (GTMO) started in 2002, the Bush administration described it as an essential front in the War on Terror. A few years later, the programme was widely seen as a liability. As political discourse about GTMO grew more critical, how did the detention programme’s official discourse evolve? What does this discourse tell us about the endurance of states of exception? Scholarship on GTMO emphasizes the exceptional status of the site, but often overlooks the broader military system of which the base is one part, as well as the ways GTMO has changed over time. To examine changes in the official discourse of the detention programme, this article undertakes visual and discourse analysis of 438 issues of The Wire, the official newspaper of the programme. The analysis identifies various changes, most notably that the newspaper switched format in late 2006, from military bulletin to lifestyle magazine. The Wire shifted from situating GTMO on the front lines of the War on Terror, to characterizing the base as a site of recreation. The Wire also changed from emphasizing the exceptional events of the War on Terror, to situating the detention programme within a longer history of unending conflict. These changes revitalized the exception of indefinite detention and perpetual warfare. This study shows that systems of exceptional violence are perpetuated not just through banal, normalizing processes, but also through discourses of leisure, therapy, and personal achievement.

KEYWORDS:

• Guantánamo Bay
• war on terror
• discourse
• state of exception
• military bases

Acknowledgments

This article benefited greatly from the generosity and guidance of Robin Wagner-Pacifici. Danielle Zach helped set the project on its course, while Michelle Weitzel and Emma Shaw Crane provided invaluable feedback as it developed. Emily Crandall, Erika Iverson, Peggy Sumru Atuk and Osha Smith-Gittelman have been my constant support in this and every scholarly undertaking. Drake Logan was an inspiration and interlocutor for this project, and the article is dedicated to him. We have lost a brilliant mind and powerful voice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Throughout this article I use ‘Guantánamo Bay’ to refer to the geographic space, and ‘GTMO’ to refer to the U.S. naval base that occupies this geographic space.

2. Eight detainees (about 1% of the total 780 detainees) have been convicted of crimes, but three of these convictions have since been annulled, vacated, or cancelled. Twelve further detainees face military commission proceedings (Rosenberg 2018, 2021).

3. Obama restored diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2015.

4. Public support for the detention programme declined, but at the end of Bush’s presidency a slim majority of Americans still supported use of the site to hold accused terrorists. By contrast, a minority of Americans supported continued military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some 75% of Americans supported bringing troops home from both countries (Rosentiel 2011).

5. Nine detainees have died at GTMO (Scheinkman et al. 2018).

6. A different newspaper, The Guantánamo Bay Gazette, serves the base community outside of the JTF-led detention programme.

7. Throughout this article, I reference issues of The Wire with a W followed by a four-digit number. The first two digits correspond to the volume number, and the final two digits to the issue number. So, in the above example, W04.03 refers to volume four, issue three.

8. The race route is described in W09.29, p.6.