Torture…. It’s been around since the dark ages: it was used to instill fear, it was a punishment, and it was a way to get information. Kings, Cults, Armies, CIA, KGB, the list goes on, torture has been utilized by many people in many different ways for different reasons. Torture has evolved since the Dark Ages of Europe, so it is now more sophisticated. Another controversial topic quite relevant to torture is Guantanamo Bay, a detention camp located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Both these topics intertwine with one another, and they are both used to fight the war on terror. In addition, they are both being protested by portions of the population and human rights activists. The overall point is that torture should be an accepted form of gathering intelligence.

Torture is a controversial topic to discuss: this act does indeed violate human rights and is interpreted as a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions and The United Nations. However, torture is still practiced today by gangs, cartels, drug lords, armies, and other governments, and some say that our own government still does it behind closed doors. There are several parties who oppose this practice and some think it’s necessary to help win the war on terror.

There are benefits to using torture. The civilians of America don’t take part in any torture, obviously. In addition, torture can be done so secretly that the President himself would not even know it happened. Torture can benefit America by getting the right information so our troops don’t take as many casualties as they would with bad information obtained peacefully.  Terrorists can lie, just like normal people. Yes, you can lie while being tortured, but that’s why the ones being tortured are not freed until the information that was said is confirmed, and that’s why the current method of gathering intelligence isn’t as reliable. If someone is withholding intelligence and won’t give it up, but then that person is in extreme physical or psychological pain, they will give up when they can’t stand it anymore. Sam Husseini wrote an entire article on a man named Colin Powell, an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army, explaining how he showed that torture works. Powell was one of the people who pushed for the invasion of Iraq because he believed there was a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Some of Powell’s argument for an Iraq link to al-Qaeda came from Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was tortured into giving such “evidence:” that is, he told the torturers what they wanted to hear so that the torture would stop.

Guantanamo Bay, on the other hand, is open, and it holds some of the most terrifying terrorists. This is where the worst of the worst go, a detention facility with top notch security, and no one escapes. Some want to see this place closed for good, like Democrats and Liberals. They did try to close it with the Obama administration, BUT failed to do so. But say they did close it, where would the inmates GO? Certainly not in normal American prisons, that’s just a recipe for chaos. This is some what like how Jefferson described slavery, “it’s like having a wolf by the ear, we don’t like it, but we don’t dare let go.” Sure, no one likes the thought a super prison holding terrorists close to the US, but no one else will take them. If we could, we’d probably launch them into space. That is problem that Obama ran into: if he closed Guantanamo, then where would the inmates go? Prisons here are already full as it is. It should be a problem we leave alone to resolve itself. Now Guantanamo should stay open until we find a better place to put these savages. If someone innocent is put in there? Well, that’s THEIR fault for getting mixed up in a mess that big. It’s pretty hard to accidentally get put in the Bay, you would have to accidently put on a bomb vest and accidently tried to set it off in a crowd of people, stupid to think, right?

In conclusion to this essay, torture can be a very useful tool for our country, no one needs to know how or when it’s done, and it should not be a civilian’s concern. What they don’t know won’t hurt them, right? As for Guantanamo, it should stay open for now: we don’t like it, but it’s here to stay. These were some controversial topics and most would get into huge arguments about who’s right and who’s wrong.  Sometimes civilians should just stay out of these affairs and just let the government take care of things.

Works Cited

“Pros and Cons of Controversial Issues.” ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 June 2017.

Husseini, Sam. “How Colin Powell Showed That Torture Works.” www.counterpunch.org. N.p., 26 July 2015. Web. 06 June 2017.