Abstract
Under the Military Commission Act of 2009, the 9/11 Military Commission has been proceeding at Guantanamo Bay since May 2012. As an ordinary citizen observer in October 2012 at a remote feed in Fort Meade, Maryland, and in late January 2013 at Guantanamo Bay, the author has followed the 9/11 Military Commission motion hearings. Numerous dualities became readily apparent: Guantanamo Bay as a tropical paradise and an unseen tropical detention hell; the impact of unseen detention and interrogation “offscreen” on the courtroom process “onscreen”; the virtual presence of offscreen classification authorities in the courtroom and the judge’s control; the flexible law space of a Military Commission Act built to stand alone and its amenability to diverse interpretations with other federal law and practice (Article III courts and courts-martial); the operability/inoperability and applicability/inapplicability of the Constitution; the defendants and the families of 2976 victims; military honor and duty and the intelligence community; legitimate and illegitimate government secrets and the citizen’s right to the truth; the domestic observer and the international observer; a domestic law vision and an international law vision. All of these dualities (and others that become apparent as one processes the experience) flow together to make Guantanamo Bay more than just a place; they make it an idea. After grappling with the legitimacy of the Guantanamo Bay idea, the author suggests one ordinary citizen’s view of what our next choices on adjudication, torture, indefinite detention, and accountability should be.
Recommended Citation
Benjamin G. Davis,
The 9/11 Military Commission Motion Hearings: An Ordinary Citizen Looks at Comparative Legitimacy,
37
S. Ill. U. L.J.
599
(2013).
Available at:
https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/siulj/vol37/iss3/6