Foreign Policy

Closing Guantanamo Bay

The Future of Detainees

By Jessica Ross | 1 comments |

At the start of his presidency, Barack Obama issued an Executive Order to shut down the naval base at Guantanamo Bay and halt all detainees’ trial proceedings pending the creation of a review process. Legal scholars and White House advisors made suggestions regarding how to shut the prison down and what to do with its occupants.  In this paper, I will argue that detainees should be tried in federal courts and sent home or transferred to prisons within the United States.  I will examine the nature of the President’s Executive Order and documents outlining traditional protections granted to detainees including the Geneva Conventions, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and Supreme Court rulings.  An analysis of how to proceed with the adjudication of detainees will follow.  My findings illustrate that the most efficient solution to these problems is to implement domestic parole programs and try detainees in US federal courts.

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Thinking Through Nationalism

Unpacking the Nation through American Studies

By the editors | 0 comments |

One of the serious boundaries and dilemmas for a journal that wishes to reach an international audience is the matter of language. Working from Canada, most of NeoAm’s executive have grownup or been well-exposed to a bilingual environment and immersed in the “language” of multiculturalism. But, this is not to say that Canadians, like our American counterparts to the south and in nations around the world, are not actively engaged in discussions about “accommodation” or “compromise over the cultural makeup of the nation-state”. Recently we decided that the journal would attempt to launch a series of posters and advertisements in multiple languages, despite the organization’s (current) inability to actually accept papers in the posted languages. In other words, the posters would be used for the exclusive purpose of increasing general awareness among a wider global audience, as NeoAm would not be able to alter its practice of requesting written works in English only. This decision to launch the posters has produced a fair amount of debate, even amongst our small executive. Some have argued that the journal would be misrepresented by advertisements in languages other than English, while others argue that so much of the work done in American Studies assumes a monolingual readership. Needless to say, this debate may never be solved—certainly not within the scope of our small publication—but it points to the crucial and problematic role that language plays in the constitution of identity, subjectivization and the cultural apparatuses that sustain any collective identity.

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Watchdog on a Leash

Colin Powell’s UN-presentation on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the coverage of The Washington Post and The New York Times in February, 2003. [1]

 

By Marianne Ingleby | 0 comments |

Media coverage of alleged security threats in the run-up to the US-led Iraq war has recently come under scrutiny: some suggest that journalists failed to critically assess and independently evaluate claims made by the Bush government in attempts to legitimize the invasion. By looking specifically at the print media’s handling of Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council in February of 2003, in which he offered ‘evidence’ of weapons of mass destruction and other possible breaches of disarmament obligations, the author argues that major newspapers were hesitant to publish articles that called into question the legitimacy of the presentation. In relegating skepticism and critique to less prominent articles and sections than those communicating official government opinions, the newspapers acted as a ‘mouthpiece’ for the Bush government, a sentiment echoed in their own public apology, issued months later. In this article, Marianne Ingleby explores the idea that the unquestioning presentation of Powell’s report was due to more than simply a structural bias arguably built into the institution of journalism—she suggests that, upon closer inspection, newspapers were generally reluctant to voice criticism in prominent places, such as the front page, headlines, streamers, and sub-headings. As a result, she argues, the American public may have been misinformed, and more inclined to accept government claims at face value.

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From the Editors - Spring/Summer 2009

By the editors | 0 comments |

After months of preparation, NeoAmericanist is pleased to release Volume 4 no. 2 in our newly redesigned and much improved format. To build on our mission of making the journal an interactive and accessible environment, we have moved to a web 2.0 system, which allows for extensive feedback, discussion, better archiving and a host of other features... 

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Sexing the Terrorist:

Tracing the National Body at Abu Ghraib

By Cait Keegan | 0 comments |

For the vast majority, the specter of the racialized and homophobic violence documented at Abu Ghraib was an inexplicably unsettling sight. In this article Cait Keegan attempts to explain this discomfort by examining what these abuses and the public perception of them implied and revealed about the desire for an impermeable and purified American national body. Keegan reads the creation and implementation of the figure of the terrorist as a signifier for national incoherence and as a tool for the symbolic control and oppression of other socially undesirable groups, particularly queer people. The homosexual humiliation at Abu Ghraib, employing the terrorist body as a floating signifier, is interpreted to signal a new level of innovation in the use of homophobic terror as a technology of nationalistic militarization and expanding empire. Ultimately, Keegan argues that popular interpretations of Abu Ghraib disclose American society’s inability to recognize and defuse its own heterosexist practices.

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President W.H. Bush, Masculinity, and America's Invasion of Panama City in 1989

By Maureen Mahoney | 0 comments |

Based on an examination of official and unofficial document, editorial cartoons, and various media sources, Mahoney argues that competing definitions of masculinity influenced George H.W. Bush’s foreign Policy in the invasion of Panama City in 1989, this article participates in a revisionist historiography that considers gender as a significant category of analysis to understand American international relations. The author shows that, at the outset of his presidency, Bush adopted a cautious approach to foreign policy, which emphasized cooperation and peace through diplomacy. But soon Bush’s legitimacy as President was called into question, notably by some elements of the media and a fringe of the public who associated political power with a forceful and aggressive ideal of masculinity. By invading Panama, Bush finally shed his image as a flimsy and meek politician and thus confirmed his legitimacy as President to jingoist elements of American society.

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