Treatment of Detainees and Unlawful Combatants: Selected Writings on Guantanamo Bay

Publication Date: September 2007

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): James Jay Carafano; Steven Groves; Janice Smith

Research Area: Law and ethics

Keywords: National security; Groves; guantanamo bay; Afghanistan

Type: Report

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

The research presented in The Heritage Foundation's Guantanamo Bay collection clearly indicates that Congress should not interfere with the U.S. military's policy of detaining unlawful alien enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay. The United States is engaged in an ongoing armed conflict against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and therefore has no obligation--legal, moral, or otherwise--to release captured enemy soldiers so that they may return to the battlefield. Short-sighted legislation extending unprecedented rights to foreign terrorists and other enemy combatants undermines U.S. troops deployed in the field in Afghanistan and Iraq. These detainees should not be released until the cessation of hostilities in Afghanistan and elsewhere.