5 Years of My Life

In the assigned reading that we had from the memoir Five Years of My Life, there was a lot of detail of the abuse that was suffered by a young man who spent five years of his life under the suspicion on the American government that he was a terrorist. I believe three of those years he spent at the U.S. Naval Guantanamo camp where he was put through the most brutal abuse. Just from the small section of the memoir that we read for class, I was appalled of the harsh treatment that this young man was put through.

"I didn't recognize the man. He was hanging as I was from the
ceiling I couldn't tell whether he was dead or alive. His body
was mostly swollen and blue, although in some places it was pale and
white. I could see a lot of blood in his face, dark streams of it

I have read little bits and pieces about Guantanamo, but never researched on the tourture methods till now. I am disgusted about the brutality and it makes me sick hear about it. Many of these men are innocent and do not present any danger to our country. I understand detaining suspicious individuals, but I do not understand why there would be a need to torture them. It makes me sad that the US is in an economic downfall, yet we still continue to spend money on things like Guantanamo Bay. Even with Obamas's promise to shut it down, they just received more funding to upgrade the security there. Which makes you ask yourself why would they need to upgrade the security if the plan is to shut it down? Obviously the shut down of Guantanamo Bay is not going to happen anytime in the near future.