"Guantanamo Bay houses enemy combatants ranging from terrorist trainers and recruiters to bomb makers, would-be suicide bombers, and terrorist financiers"
About this Quote
The intent is defensive politics: justify an institution widely criticized for indefinite detention and murky due process by anchoring it to the worst imaginable categories. The phrase "enemy combatants" does heavy lifting. It’s not "suspects" or "defendants", which would imply courts and standards of proof; it’s a wartime label that shifts the audience into national-security mode, where urgency can outrun civil liberties.
Subtext: the moral math is pre-solved. By front-loading extreme archetypes, the line invites listeners to treat objections as naivete at best, softness at worst. Even "would-be" matters. It expands the net from acts committed to intentions inferred, making preemption sound prudent rather than speculative.
Contextually, this is post-9/11 governance language, shaped by the War on Terror’s need for clarity in a world of asymmetric threats. The sentence functions as a permission slip for exceptional measures, using enumeration and fear-management to translate a contested policy into common sense. It’s persuasion through inventory: keep looking at the list until the legal questions feel beside the point.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Chocola, Chris. (2026, January 17). Guantanamo Bay houses enemy combatants ranging from terrorist trainers and recruiters to bomb makers, would-be suicide bombers, and terrorist financiers. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/guantanamo-bay-houses-enemy-combatants-ranging-46331/
Chicago Style
Chocola, Chris. "Guantanamo Bay houses enemy combatants ranging from terrorist trainers and recruiters to bomb makers, would-be suicide bombers, and terrorist financiers." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/guantanamo-bay-houses-enemy-combatants-ranging-46331/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Guantanamo Bay houses enemy combatants ranging from terrorist trainers and recruiters to bomb makers, would-be suicide bombers, and terrorist financiers." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/guantanamo-bay-houses-enemy-combatants-ranging-46331/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.




