Rethinking Guantanamo in the post-bin Laden era

Rethinking Guantanamo in the post-bin Laden era
Military guards move a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. Getty Images/John Moore
Rethinking Guantanamo in the post-bin Laden era
Military guards move a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. Getty Images/John Moore

Rethinking Guantanamo in the post-bin Laden era

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The finding and killing of Osama Bin Laden has dominated, and, in some ways, reshaped the national political conversation. Conservatives have applauded President Obama’s decisiveness and bravery. Many security analysts say it’s time for us to rethink our role in Afghanistan. Congress has threatened to cut 1.3 billion in aid to Pakistan, if it’s proven that Pakistani officials knew about bin Laden’s compound. And people like Republican Congressman Peter King – and a slew of Bush administration officials – point to information gathered by interrogators of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as a justification for torture. So far, evidence suggests that techniques like waterboarding played little if any role in intelligence officials’ discovery of bin Laden.

Scott Horton is a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine, who’s reported extensively on the war on terror. He’s been paying close attention to the renewed debate over the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in Guantanamo Bay and the CIA black site prisons.