Michael Winterbottom Takes on The Elephant

Of course, President Bush has recently said that he wants to close down Guantánamo. What do you make of that?

Obviously, it would be good if he closed it down. What’s interesting is that when we made the film, and even when we showed it at the Berlin Film Festival in February — at that point, the British government had tacitly supported Guantánamo and there’d been virtually no criticism at all. Since then, both the attorney general and lord chancellor of Britain — the government’s two law specialists — have said it’s illegal. Given Britain’s total desire to do whatever America wants, it would appear that our politicians have decided Guantánamo will indeed close soon, and before it closes they’re getting in their opposition to it, so that when it closes, they can say that they spoke up. One of the terrible things about Guantánamo is that before it existed, no one would have believed it could exist, and once it closes down, people will be horrified that it ever existed. But for four years, we’ve all just sort of sat there and put up with it and not done anything about it.

Especially those of us living in the supposed land of the free.

Something like Guantánamo sends out a very strong signal to the rest of the world that the rule of law does not apply when America doesn’t want it to apply. But what’s strange about Guantánamo is that it was so clearly set up to avoid international law and to avoid American law, you have to assume that the administration was aware of the signal it would send out. Despite the fact that Guantánamo seems to be so terrible for the image of America abroad, it has still accomplished something for the administration. When America invaded Afghanistan, it was a useful thing to have, given that this is all about the so-called War on Terror. It was very useful to have a few hundred “terrorists” who George Bush could say were the most dangerous people in the world, who had to be put in this special prison outside the law in order to protect us from them.