The U.S. should not close down the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camps

I will briefly outline the main points of his argument in the order with which they appear. I will then follow it up with my response. ======= 1. Generally speaking, Con concedes that the fiscal considerations are great and constitute a massive waste in federal spending. The point on which we differ is the value of shutting down the detention center. Con believes it is worth the considerable cost to begin repairing our reputation in the world, and I do not. My opposition stems from the belief that merely closing down the detention center will bring negligible to minor benefits to our international reputation. I will address this point later, where Con addresses it more fully. 2. Con states that there are at least "44 suitable facilities" to transfer current Guantanamo (henceforth: Gitmo) prisoners. He points out that these facilities have the "best possible in security measures" rendering a nearly zero chance of escape. If they do manage to escape, he states, the subsequent manhunt would render any worried over violence unfounded. He concludes that it is irrational for states to reject or otherwise not welcome such a transfer because the potential for escape is negligible. He is certainly correct, that there are suitable facilities. However, finding enough that are not at maximum or beyond maximum capacity will be difficult. Find some among those that would welcome a flood of suspected terrorists has proven even more difficult. As for the states' irrational response: Con may be correct. However, that their response is irrational does not change the fact that they do, in fact, oppose such a transfer. 3. Con suggests that the anxiety over domestic terrorism (through recruitment or international underground alliances) are overblown. To support this he says that a) most detainees have a marginal understanding of English; b) they would be persecuted by white supremacist prison gangs; and c) that it would be a better idea to segregate them from the rest of the prison population. a) It does not require a perfect understanding of the language to recruit members or develop an alliance. It would only require a few, or even as few as one per prison, to act as negotiator or interpreter. b) Con puts too much stock in the power of white supremacist persecution within the U. S. prison system. Almost every other race is persecuted by white supremacists, yet they still manage to recruit both inside and outside of prison. I have yet to see any fact or claim that suggests this would not hold true with terror suspects. Furthermore, white supremacist groups are known for being often rapid anti-federal government. It is conceivable that at least some white supremacist groups would develop a working alliance and/or trading system with terror suspects. c) This is the most valid point advanced by Con on this subject. However, as I mentioned in the first round it would cost much money to build a large enough segregated facility (either on current facilities or freestanding), and even more money (annually) to hire additional security. This would be especially true if we had to spread them out among several prisons. As with the first point, I find this extra cost unnecessary and not worth the little bit of reputation repair that we might gain. 4. The main argument advanced by Con is the terrible reputation that Gitmo has given the U. S. I concede that the activity there (under the Bush Administration) has indeed made our country less safe, and is used by our enemies as a valuable recruiting tool. Con argues that closing down Gitmo would allow the government to "admit error and move on. " However, we can easily admit error, halt all torture, extend the usual POW rights to prisoners, and move on. There is no need to close down the expensive, state-of-the-art facility in order to move on or even to repair our reputation. It would be just as effective to halt all torture (by executive order, or legislation), prosecute those that participated (both ordering and carrying out torture), and extending jurisdiction to include the detention center (by executive order, legislation, or the judicial branch). Neither of these options (closing down Gitmo, or halting torture and extending rights) will have much of an effect on international opinion. Because we engaged in torture at all during this period will still be used by our enemies to make an attempt at the moral high ground, and to recruit new members. The only thing that will fix this is time.