The Detention Scandal Summary

496 Words2 Pages
“The Detention Scandal” is an editorial taken from the America magazine. In this article, the authors show how national security is used as an excuse to keep the prisoners on the Guantanamo Bay. The authors try to prove how the fear of terrorism has blinded the U.S. government that it has made them deny the basic human rights. Everyone sees the wrong doings in Guantanamo Bay and knows it needs to be shut down but the fear of government to lose their “suspected” enemy combatants make it impossible. The authors use the different components of persuasion throughout the article. The title itself is very gripping that catches reader’s attention. Here, the authors describe the situation in Guantanamo as a scandal. In the very first paragraph, the authors bring out the case of U.S journalists being imprisoned by North Korea in 2009 and compare it to what is going on with Guantanamo and show how the roles have reversed. The authors end the paragraph with a very thought provoking question, “Shouldn’t we Americans apply the same high minded principles to our conduct?”. The authors use of many strong word choices such as, “tales of routine torture”, “gross humiliation”,…show more content…
The background information on the Guantanamo bay and its timeline has been presented very clearly. This way the readers are not confused and understand the history very well. Hard facts such as the prisoners being denied the protection they were entitled to and the supreme court decisions denying these arguments gives the audience their evidence. This way they are also binging opposing views and downplaying them through the use of logos. However, if the authors had talked more about the past issues of Guantanamo Bay, the article would have more credibility with the use of logos. For example, the authors write that the Guantanamo detainees are treated in a manner that conforms to international law but don’t provide any evidence to show
Open Document