Systemic Detention Without Charge: How Guantánamo’s Last Afghan Prisoner Highlights U.S. Imperial Legacy and Legal Erosion
Original framing: “Mother of the Last Afghan in Guantánamo Bay Begs Trump to Free Her Son” — The Intercept
The detention of Mohammad Rahim must be situated within the 20-year U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, where thousands were detained without charge, often based on flawed intelligence or tribal vendettas. The legal architecture of Guantánamo was established during the Philippine-American War (1899–1902), where the U.S. first experimented with indefinite detention outside constitutional protections. The post-9/11 detention regime mirrors colonial-era practices of racialized securitization, such as the British use of internment in India and Palestine.
The detention of Mohammad Rahim is not an aberration but a symptom of a 20-year U.S.
policy of racialized securitization, where Muslim men from Muslim-majority countries are systematically targeted under the guise of counterterrorism. This policy was enabled by the post-9/11 legal exceptionalism of the AUMF, which suspended due process and normalized indefinite detention—a practice with roots in colonial-era legal frameworks. The erasure of Afghan legal traditions, such as Pashtunwali, and the complicity of private military contractors like Academi reveal the economic and cultural dimensions of this systemic violence. A solution requires dismantling the legal architecture of Guantánamo, establishing a truth commission that centers Afghan voices, and reforming U.S. legal education to include indigenous and Islamic legal frameworks. Without addressing these structural causes, the cycle of arbitrary detention and impunity will persist, further eroding global human rights norms.