Closing Guantanamo Prison - Essay Example

Indeed, the United Kingdom has even called for the United States to shut down Guantanamo Bay (‘UK told US won’t shut Guantanamo’). This essay considers a number of contentions regarding the importance of keeping Guantanamo Prison a functioning detention center, and then ultimately argues that after considering the arguments and evidence that the detention facility should be closed. When considering the potential closing of Guantanamo Bay prison there are a number of objections individuals have levied to this proposal.

One of the central objections in these regards concerns the intelligence that could have been potentially gained in the interrogation procedures that were conducted there during and immediately after the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. During this period extensive water-boarding interrogation procedures were conducted with individuals that had been identified as major terrorists and believed to have information that was essential to United States war efforts in the Middle East. Governmental investigations into Guantanamo have even at times supported the detaining of prisoners in the facility.

A recent Washington Post report stated, “A Justice Department-led task force has concluded that nearly 50 of the 196 detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be held indefinitely without trial under the laws of war, according to Obama administration officials” (Finn 2010). Still, many reports have indicated the growing levels of torture implemented at the facility. Hyland (2004) indicated that, “Three Britons freed from Guantanamo Bay in March have released a 115-page dossier accusing the US of carrying out torture and sexual degradation at the military concentration camp in Cuba.

” Even as in large part these activities were deemed near torture by human rights groups, they were still allowed to occur as they were carried out within the confines of Guantanamo. When considering the evidence, it’s shown these interrogation methods are entirely ineffective. Research indicates that overly intensive interrogation methods have been demonstrated to be ineffective in gaining information, and oftentimes lead to false information (Butler 2007). This is particularly clear in the instance of Guantanamo Bay interrogations.

Butler (2007, pg. 63) writes, Often all that is gained by aggressive interrogative techniques are false confessions. For example, Asif Iqbal gave interrogators a false confession. After extensive interrogation, he finally admitted that he was, indeed, in the videotape with Osama Bin Laden…Later, the British intelligence found proof that Asif Iqbal…had been in England at the time the video was made Indeed, the argument is that rather than actually being an effective method of gathering intelligence information, these interrogation methods resulted in false information being gathered.

When one considers the issues more intently further evidence points to this rebuttal being correct. Debeaux (2005) even indicated that a number of detainees were even gathered through a bounty system that was in place between Afghanis and United States’ forces; when one considers this, the increased potential for misinformation is greatly increased. Ultimately this makes it so that the main benefit of keeping this prison open is negated