The dystopian legal architecture of the ‘war on terror’ must be dismantled

What the report says

In an Al Jazeera opinion essay published on 11 September 2026, Karsen Trull of CAGE International argues that the legal and security measures created after the 9/11 attacks have outlived their original justification and become a lasting framework used far beyond the “war on terror.” The piece says practices first associated with Guantanamo Bay, including indefinite detention and suspicion without charge, have been carried forward into later policies.

The article links that post-9/11 architecture to several current and recent developments. It says a protest movement has been designated a terrorist organization, migrants are being detained in facilities modeled on Guantanamo, and surveillance tools once justified by counterterrorism have been redirected toward Palestine solidarity activists. It also frames these examples as part of a broader pattern in which emergency powers become normalized rather than rolled back.

To illustrate the human impact, the essay points to Mansoor Adayfi, who was held at Guantanamo for nearly 15 years without charge, and cites other convictions that the author says later failed under scrutiny, including those of Hamid Hayat and Dr Ali al-Tamimi. The overall argument is that the post-9/11 security order has become a permanent system affecting detention, protest, and immigration enforcement, and that it should be dismantled rather than reformed.