President Biden’s announcement to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan brings an end to one part of the two-decade-long Global War on Terror. But the 40 War on Terror detainees still held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, many of whom were tortured and face legal impediments to challenging their detainment despite never being charged with any crimes, pose an ongoing legal and political challenge for the Biden administration. 

The Quincy Institute will host a discussion on how the Biden administration can close Guantanamo and bring an end to indefinite military detentions and the War on Terror’s erosion of the rule of law. Headlining the panel is Mohamedou Ould Slahi, whose book Guantanamo Diary is the basis for the Oscar-nominated film, The Mauritanian, which details his 15-year imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay and his attorneys’ fight for his release. He will be joined by Senior Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee Rita Siemion and ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi. Aziz Rana, a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute and professor of constitutional law at Cornell University, will moderate.  

Things have changed dramatically over the past year. Or have they? We’re living in a (nearly) post-pandemic, post-Trump, post-economic collapse world amidst the continuing rise of China, while reckoning with racism, populism, and impending environmental ruin. The purpose of U.S. foreign policy has, at least theoretically, been to keep Americans safe. Yet as we confront a radically changed world, it has become indisputably clear that the terms of that policy have failed.

The timely launch of QI President Andrew Bacevich’s twelfth book — AFTER THE APOCALYPSE: America’s Role in a World Transformed — offers the opportunity to celebrate Andrew’s achievement and to interrogate this moment in history with three of the sharpest thinkers in the business. Join The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel and the American Conservative’s Helen Andrews in conversation with Andrew about his call for nothing less than a profound overhaul of our understanding of national security.