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User:Geo Swan/Starbucks at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base

< User:Geo Swan
Interior of the Starbucks at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

There is a cafe that sells Starbucks coffee at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The United States Department of Defense subsidized the installation of the cafe.[1][2]

The presence of Starbucks on the Guantanamo base has been the trigger for ongoing controversy. Human rights critics have challenged Starbucks over whether operating facilities in close proximity to the controversial detention camp measures up to the corporate goal of "respecting human dignity".[3][4]

In 2012, following reporting that new interrogators had been able to persuade suspects to confess, merely by listening sympathetically, and offering Starbucks' coffee, commentators questioned why the CIA's interrogators had found it necessary to use torture.[5][6][7][8][9]

In 2013 the Guantanamo Starbucks outlet was again at the center of a controversy, when the Chief Defense attorney at the Guantanamo Military Commissions testified that she had ordered her subordinates to stop using the military's official computer network to send and receive case-related files, and to use the free WIFI provided at Starbucks, instead.[10]

Construction

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Accoriding to expenditure reports acquired by the Washington Post the US Government spent $683,000 USD to renovate the cafe.[1]

The outlet was reported to have been opened in March, 2005.[4][11]

Michelle Shephard, the Toronto Star`s national security columnist, and a frequent visitor to Guantanamo, described Camp Justice, where the Guantanamo military commissions are held, as "just downhill" of the Starbucks cafe.[12]

Like Starbucks cafes in the continental United States internet access is available in and near the cafe to computers and devices equipped with "wifi" capability.[13]

Human rights activists have challenged Starbucks over its opening of facilities near the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[4] The cafe is reported to be "just a stone's throw away" from the detainee camps. Starbucks official reply noted its ongoing support for the USA's men and women in uniform, while "refrain[ing] from taking a position on the legality of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay."[3]

In February 2008 the subject of coffee from Starbucks and torture was reinforced following the publication of an article in the Washington Post about how the "clean team" had found they could get the most senior al Qaeda suspects to reveal incriminating details of their conduct through sympathetic listening.[5][6][7][8]

Mike Nitza, of the New York Times noted that Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent asked:

‘So we tortured these people, forever sullying the reputation of the U.S. during a time when we’re allegedly fighting a war for Muslim hearts and minds, when we could have offered them a cup of coffee for the same—and probably better—effect.’[9]

References

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  1. ^ a b Raphael Brion (2010-06-10). "The Military Spent $1.45 Million Opening a Starbucks and a KFC/Taco Bell in Guantanamo Bay". Retrieved 2012-05-07. The Washington Post obtained a line-by-line breakdown of capital expenditures at the U.S. naval station in Guantanamo Bay, and it turns out that the Pentagon has spent at least $500 million since 9/11 renovating the base, including "$683,000 to renovate a cafe that sells ice cream and Starbucks coffee, and $773,000 to remodel a cinder-block building to house a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant." mirror
  2. ^ Taylor Clark (2008-02-22). "Trouble brewing". Sceptre. Retrieved 2012-05-09. In Starbucked, Taylor Clark sets himself a double task - first, to explain how a company selling coffee and hot milk grew in such a short time to a position of such global dominance, and second, to assess the range of ethical objections Starbucks has attracted. Clark performs the first task entertainingly, with lashings of surprising trivia (for example, there is a branch of Starbucks at the Guantanamo Bay naval base). mirror
  3. ^ a b Nick Turse (2009-03-03). The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives. MacMillan Publishing. pp. 61–64. ISBN 9780805089196. Retrieved 2012-05-09. When questioned about its implicit support for the prison camp/torture center, in correspondence made available by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Starbucks claimed it had always 'been committed to operating its business in a socially responsbile way and to living by a set of Guding Principles that includes treating people with respect and dignity.'
  4. ^ a b c "Starbucks at Guantanamo". innovative minds. 2008-02-01. Retrieved 2012-05-07. mirror
  5. ^ a b Josh White, Dan Eggen, Joby Warrick (2008-02-12). "U.S. to Try 6 On Capital Charges Over 9/11 Attacks". Washington Post. Retrieved 2012-05-08. The admissions made by the men -- who were given food whenever they were hungry as well as Starbucks coffee at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- played a key role in the government's decision to proceed with the prosecutions, military and law enforcement officials said.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) mirror
  6. ^ a b Jane Mayer (2010-02-15). "The Trial". New Yorker. Retrieved 2012-05-09. Bush Administration officials, too, had recognized Mohammed's abuse as an impediment to prosecution. After Mohammed arrived at Guantánamo, a team of F.B.I. and military interrogators tried to elicit from him and his co-defendants the same confessions that the C.I.A. had obtained about the 9/11 plot, but by using only legal means of interrogation. (According to the Washington Post, he was enticed with Starbucks coffee.) mirror
  7. ^ a b William Langley (2009-02-21). "Starbucks: The choc-chip frappuccino that conquered the world". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2012-05-09. Just before things began to go wobbly last year, the chain had opened 16,200 branches around the world – nearly 700 of them in Britain – and its brew can be found everywhere within, and occasionally beyond, the frontiers of civilisation. According to US Department of Defence papers acquired by the Washington Post, Starbucks is even served up to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Why resort to waterboarding when there's Howard's Orange Mango Banana Viviano Blend to fall back on? mirror
  8. ^ a b "Seeking the death penalty: A decision to try six Guantánamo inmates". The Economist. 2008-02-12. Retrieved 2012-05-09. Since 2006, in an effort to overcome this problem, a "clean team" of FBI investigators built a rapport with the six suspects (for example by providing ample supplies of Starbucks coffee, according to the Washington Post) and made it clear that no "rough" interrogation techniques would be used. Apparently they succeeded in gathering fresh evidence. But defence lawyers will be able to argue that previous interrogations have tainted the whole process. mirror
  9. ^ a b Mike Nitza (2008-02-12). "Starbucks and Scalia Add More Buzz to Torture Debate". New York Times. Retrieved 2012-05-08. But several bloggers hailed another piece of evidence that the C.I.A. went too far. Here's one example, from Spencer Ackerman of The Washington Independent: 'So we tortured these people, forever sullying the reputation of the U.S. during a time when we're allegedly fighting a war for Muslim hearts and minds, when we could have offered them a cup of coffee for the same—and probably better—effect.' mirror
  10. ^ Jane Sutton (2013-09-19). "Starbucks vs. Pentagon: Guantanamo court debates whose network is more secure". Guantanamo Bay Naval Base: Reuters. Archived from the original on 2013-09-20. Retrieved 2013-09-20. Using the Wi-Fi connection at Starbucks was a better bet than risking putting confidential defense documents on a glitch-prone Pentagon computer network, a senior Defense Department official testified on Thursday at the Guantanamo trial of five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 hijacked plane attacks. The Internet link at the local Starbucks was "the best bad option that we had," Air Force Colonel Karen Mayberry, the chief defense counsel for the war crimes tribunal, told the judge.
  11. ^ 2003248235 "fill in later". Taipei Times. 2005-03-29. Retrieved 2012-05-07. A stone's throw away from the barbed wire prison camp, soldiers crowd around one of the four kiosks offering mochas, creamices and iced lattes. Some 1,400 cups a day have been sold since Starbucks arrived earlier this month. "Oddly enough, it did lift my morale," said petty officer Barry Tate, arriving for his first cup of the day at another kiosk near the movie theater. US soldiers and families make do at Guantanamo. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help); line feed character in |quote= at position 374 (help) mirror
  12. ^ Michelle Shephard (2012-05-06). "Guantanamo's Starbucks Sunday helps fuel 9/11 trial". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2012-05-07. Coffee is essential for anyone who endured the 13-hour Saturday arraignment hearing for self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his five accused. As Cristobal fills the order for a caramel macchiato, down the hill at a podium inside "Camp Justice," the tall, lanky and uniformed Army Brig.-Gen. Mark Martins addresses the press. mirror
  13. ^ "Things to do: Coffee Shops". Joint Task Force Guantanamo. 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-09. Also serving an assortment of Breyer's ice cream flavors, the Triple C is one of the many wireless internet cafes offered around the base by MWR. mirror

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