From front lines to fun runs: revitalizing the exception through official discourse at Guantánamo Bay

Abstract

ABSTRACT When the detention programme at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay (GTMO) started in 2002, the Bush administration described it as an essential front in the War on Terror. A few years later, the programme was widely seen as a liability. As political discourse about GTMO grew more critical, how did the detention programme’s official discourse evolve? What does this discourse tell us about the endurance of states of exception? Scholarship on GTMO emphasizes the exceptional status of the site, but often overlooks the broader military system of which the base is one part, as well as the ways GTMO has changed over time. To examine changes in the official discourse of the detention programme, this article undertakes visual and discourse analysis of 438 issues of The Wire, the official newspaper of the programme. The analysis identifies various changes, most notably that the newspaper switched format in late 2006, from military bulletin to lifestyle magazine. The Wire shifted from situating GTMO on the front lines of the War on Terror, to characterizing the base as a site of recreation. The Wire also changed from emphasizing the exceptional events of the War on Terror, to situating the detention programme within a longer history of unending conflict. These changes revitalized the exception of indefinite detention and perpetual warfare. This study shows that systems of exceptional violence are perpetuated not just through banal, normalizing processes, but also through discourses of leisure, therapy, and personal achievement.