5 - The Illiberal Experiment: How Guantánamo Became a Defining American Institution

Summary

Michel Paradis traces growth of illiberalism to Guantánamo, the “battle lab” of the war on terrorism. He documents the rejection of international law apart from the prerogatives of political sovereignty, the designation of a rights-less class of persons for whom all humanitarian protections are discretionary acts of noblesse oblige, and the broader conception of history as entering a “new” phase in which past norms, institutions, and models are “quaint.” Comparing the evolution of the island prison from Presidents George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Donald Trump, Paradis argues that ironically the demise of Guantánamo will in fact coincide with the final demise of liberalism.