A BATTLE OF WORDS AT GUANTANAMO BAY

Over the past 35 months, a plethora of opinions have been provided on the legality of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Scholars, lawyers, government agencies, NGOs, and even courts have commented on the application of specific legal rules to the hundreds of individuals being held in this remote naval base in Cuba. What has not frequently been recognized, however, is that Guantanamo Bay is as much about power as it is about legal interpretation, and that this power is being created and controlled through the careful manipulation of legal discourse. This paper will explore two specific linguistic techniques being used by the U.S. government to legitimize its actions at Guantanamo Bay, and will argue that in each case legal discourse is being used as a tool to increase that government's own position of power.