Pros And Cons Of Closing Gitmo

Over the past fourteen years, approximately 779 men suspected of terrorism have been detained at the Prison for Alleged Terrorists at the United States Naval Base, Guantanamo, Cuba. Now, only eighty men remain. A highly controversial debate surrounding this camp is whether or not closing Gitmo – as the prison came to known – is justifiable and whether or not it should be done. There is one simple answer to this argument. The closing of the Prison for Alleged Terrorists is not justifiable, or reasonable, and therefore should not be done. For a nation currently at war with terrorists and terrorist organizations, closing Guantanamo would be malign. Not only is it the best possible place to interrogate suspects, but it allows the United States

For those who have been declared competent for transfer, conditions are less than optimal. According to Jennifer Daskal, a former prisoner at Guantanamo, “Others happen to hail from Yemen. Although many of them were cleared for transfer, the transfers were put on indefinite hold because of instability in Yemen, the fear that some might join Al Qaeda forces, and Yemen’s inability to put adequate security measures in place.” Until the unrest in the Middle East can be solved, suspected terrorists need to stay in Guantanamo. There, the United States can watch what they are doing and monitor them, along with the others, until their release. Regrettably, this unrest may not end anytime in the foreseeable future, meaning that until they are prosecuted, the suspected terrorists need to be kept at Guantanamo for the safety of others. Daskal also states that, “In a recent speech, Jeh Johnson, the Department of Defense general counsel, discussed a future ‘tipping point’ at which Al Qaeda would be so decimated that the armed conflict would be deemed over. Statements from high level officials suggest that this point may be near. And as the United States pulls out of Afghanistan, there is an increasingly strong argument that the war against Al Qaeda is coming to a close. With the end of the conflict, the legal justification for the detentions will finally disappear.” As long as there is a threat of terrorist organizations to the United States, a prison to try alleged terrorists is absolutely necessary and vital to the nation. Failure to have such a location could prove fatal to the