http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/us/guantanamo-prison-revolt-driven-by-inmates-despair.html
This article deals with the increasing pressure towards the executive branch of the United States to take hold of the situation within Guantánamo Bay, and to ultimately result in the swift taking down of the system. With the recent hunger strike occurring within the prison, the subject of closing it down has become hotly argued. However, with sparring between the executive and legislative branches over the matter, the initiation of such a movement has unfortunately been put to the "back-burner."
Machiavelli argues that the moral code and obligation of a person changes as the individual works up through the ladder of politics and power. While the article states how, in many ways, the continuance of Guantánamo is decidedly unethical and not necessarily imperative, the maintenance of the prison-at the expense of the prisoners' lives and freedom-must remain in operation because of both legal ramifications and potentially adverse reactions from the international community. Therefore, as Machiavelli would argue from his writings in The Prince, the comparatively small cost of keeping the detainees imprisoned, when contrasted with the many negative implications of freeing/repatriating them, can be said to be of necessity to reduce further discontentment on a grander scale in the future.
Keeping the detainees imprisoned takes up a lot of resources in both human and land. Especially the current situation is that there are so many prisons that government are headache about where to settle them.. There are a lot of reports and news about this jail capacity problem..Thus Machiavelli might proffer that, once for all, a more serious penalty is necessary, rather than just imprisoning.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jia's suggestion that Machiavelli might demand harsher punishment rather than imprisonment--such as execution. On the other hand, executing the detainees, who have mostly not had trials, would likely be a diplomatic catastrophe, strain foreign relations, and result in backlash from within the U.S.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good point that execution may be that necessary punishment that is both swift and substantial enough, at least in Machiavelli's eyes. Of course, as Rachel noted, the fact alone that many of the prisoners still have not had fair trials (if any) creates an even murkier situation. There obviously isn't any clear-cut case for any one specific course of action to take here, including how to go about the procedure of putting the detainees on trial, but I would agree that something more than imprisonment is necessary if there is any possibility to decrease crime in some form or another as a result.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jia and Rachel that according to the case and Machiavelli's ideas, there should be a harsher punishment to maintain the rule. Otherwise chaos will occur. However, execution is not an option to be considered, since many of the detainees have not had their trials yet.
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