Adam Serwer travels to Guantánamo Bay:
When you visit the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay as a journalist, you’re supposed to write about the McDonald’s.
The McDonald’s means one of two things: It is either proof that Guantánamo Bay isn’t the evil place all the human-rights activists said it was, or it is the ultimate symbol of the banality of evil, the way life goes on even in the presence of something intolerable. If you don’t feel like looking for a deeper meaning, it’s merely the way the military offers comforting junk food to personnel deployed on the base.
The extent to which the McDonald’s makes you feel guilty probably has to do with how much it invokes the mental barriers against thinking about what the American government does to Keep Us Safe. As a visitor, I prepared myself psychologically to see something terrible at Guantánamo Bay. But right from the start, it wasn’t as rugged as I thought it was going to be. I had imagined flying there with a few people on a military cargo plane — instead I traveled with a large group of military personnel, translators, and lawyers on a Delta plane with leather seats and lots of legroom. The terminal at Guantánamo Bay resembles one at a regular airport, except it’s outside. It still has interminably long, confusing lines. The walls are covered in slogans — only instead of selling exotic vacation destinations, they say things like “Honor Bound to Defend Freedom.” I even lost some of my luggage.
