Today in my ASTU 100 class we were discussing Guantanamo Bay and the various issues and debates which revolve around the Military prison and the people who are imprisoned there. The prison is where many prisoners of the war on terror are imprisoned once they have been arrested or captured. One of the biggest issues that many people have with the prison is that it is said to violate the human rights of the people who are imprisoned there. Multiple current and past prisoners have reported abuse and torture which were all denied by the authorities. Authorities in charge of the prison and the people who were responsible for the torture or mistreatment of prisoners commonly claimed that they did so looking to get important information out of high value prisoners. While I can understand why someone might want to believe that that’s a necessary thing to do to prevent more terror attacks against the USA and other countries, I don’t believe that there is any circumstance in which torture is an acceptable tool to acquire information from someone. Someone who had lost family members or loved ones in the terror attacks on September 1^st 2001, could be so upset that they would decide that the US should use any means necessary to get the information they need to save lives and stop future attacks. It was also admitted by authorities that the torture and interrogation techniques which had been used on the prisoners to get information where largely ineffective and didn’t produce any real information which could be acted on. Whether or not you agree that the torture of the inmates is wrong, you can’t argue that it was an effective and successful way to acquire the information that they wanted, it just didn’t work. Since they didn’t learn anything from the interrogation of prisoners it was largely pointless and completely unnecessary, not to mention an extreme violation of the human rights of the prisoners.

This week I have been reading “extremely loud and incredibly close” for my ASTU 100 class. The book depicts the story of Oskar, a nine year old boy whose father dies in the terror attacks on the world trade center on September 11 2001. Oskar is described as being a troubled child, he frequently describes feeling depressed and the feeling that he is wearing heavy boots which weigh him down. Since his father died he struggled with issues such as depression and multiple other issues. He has an extremely active imagination and his thoughts often wander to things which most people would consider impossible, but Oskar comes up which a massive amount of invention ideas which I believe kind of helped him to escape reality. It allowed him to go to someplace where he could control how things worked. One day while looking through some of his father’s things he finds a key with the word “Black” on it. After finding this key he sets out on a mission across New York City to find the lock to which the key belongs. The book is a story about Oskar looking for answers to questions which most people couldn’t answer for him and so he has to find them himself.