End the Imperialist Outpost

By Jacob G. Hornberger

The US government’s naval base, prison camp, and “judicial” center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, represent perfectly the two features of the US government that have proved most destructive to our constitutional order: empire and national-security statism.

It began with the US government’s fateful turn from a constitutional republic to an empire in the Spanish-American War in 1898. The Cuban people were fighting for independence from Spain. The US government intervened in the conflict on the side of Cuba, expressly stating that it had no imperialist designs on the island.

It was a lie. As soon as Spain was defeated, US officials placed Cuba under the control of the US government and then forced Cuba to lease the property at Guantanamo Bay to the United States, in perpetuity.

At the end of World War II, US officials grafted a national-security state apparatus, consisting of a vast standing army and the CIA, onto the federal government. As President Eisenhower pointed out in his 1961 Farewell Address, this military-industrial complex was new to the United States’ constitutional form of government. It was a totalitarian-like structure, which may have been why Ike warned that it posed a grave threat to the liberties and democratic processes of the American people.

After 9/11, US officials announced that Guantanamo Bay was going to be used as a prison and “judicial” center as part of their “war on terrorism.” Why Cuba instead of the United States? National-security state officials made it clear that they wanted Gitmo to be a constitution-free zone — that is, a place where US officials could detain people for the rest of their lives, torture them, and even execute them after trial by kangaroo tribunal. They would not have to concern themselves with due process of law and other provisions in the US Constitution that they had sworn to uphold and defend.

Guantanamo Bay represents the perfect marriage of imperialism and the national-security state. It would be difficult to find a better example of a dark, oppressive, unjust place, even in communist countries like Cuba and North Korea.

Imperialism and the national-security state have brought nothing but damage and shame to our country. It is time to restore the founding principles of our nation by restoring a limited-government, constitutional republic to our land. It is time to end the United States’ embrace of imperialism and national-security statism.

There is no better place to begin than by returning Gitmo to Cuba.