"War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate. "
George Orwell, 1984
The two essays available on this page explore the centrality of detention and torture to the US-led ‘war on terror’.
‘The Black Flag’ examines the contorted legal geographies that twist in and out of Guantánamo Bay; it charts the colonial legacies that have been reinvested in the camps at the US Naval Station, and shows how the base has been located inside the United States to forestall habeas petitions from the detainees and outside the United States to prevent prosecutions for torturing them. As Voltaire put it, those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. For the published version, see Geografiska Annaler series B 89 (2006) pp. 89-407
‘Vanishing points’ reprises part of that discussion, but then shows how the practices that were authorized by the Pentagon and implemented at Guantánamo were also implemented in Afghanistan and Iraq (and not only in Abu Ghraib). For the published version, see Derek Gregory and Allan Pred (eds), Violent Geographies: fear, terror and political violence (New York: Routledge, 2007) pp. 205-236
See also my: Dangerous Geography: Z Net
The global war prison
