Although the rebels and the people who supported them wanted the US to intervene, consensus in America about what to do was hard to come by.

President William McKinley was particularly unsure about whether to get involved and about what reason he could offer for intervening in Cuba. He needed a pretext; to an extent, that came with the sinking of the Maine.

To this day, nobody is entirely sure what caused the explosion on the battleship. Depending on which source you read, it was either a tragic accident, was engineered by the Cubans or was the responsibility of the Spaniards.

Whoever was responsible, the explosion and the very many deaths concentrated minds in America on their Caribbean neighbour. Support grew for a scrap with the Spaniards and a little over two months after the destruction of the Maine, US Congress approved a request from a still conflicted President McKinley that war be declared on Spain.

The US Army's first operation in Cuba, which occurred on 10 June 1898, established a military base on Guantánamo Bay. By the time the war finished, the whole of Cuba was under US control and the first president of this new country, a US citizen, offered America a perpetual lease on Guantánamo.

The subsequent Cuban/American Treaty gave Cuba sovereignty over Guantánamo but, crucially, provided the USA with "complete jurisdiction and control" of the area for its naval bases.

Through years of turmoil in Cuba since, through revolution and dictatorship, through the corruption of the Batista years and the dictatorship of Castro, Guantánamo has remained in American hands, to do with as they see fit. At the time of writing, 9,500 US troops are stationed there.

Since 2002, of course, the history of Guantánamo has taken another twist. Five years ago this month, the US opened a detention centre there, initially to deal with alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban members captured in Afghanistan, which America had invaded in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks. The first prisoners arrived hooded and shackled, and photographs of them in distinctive orange clothing were broadcast around the world.

The Guantánamo experience has been a disaster for everyone concerned. For the hundreds of people taken there from Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries all over the world, it has been an obvious ordeal.

Many, if not most, of the people rounded up and brought there by the Americans themselves, or with the help of European countries like Ireland, are innocent. (Ireland's support has been to allow its airports and airspace to be used by aeroplanes which have been involved in transporting prisoners to be tortured at Guantánamo and elsewhere. ) Five years on, not a single Guantánamo detainee has been convicted of anything. Of the 770 captives who have been taken there since 2002, some as young as 13 years of age, only 10 have been charged with any crime. Hundreds have been released without charge or any offer of compensation for the years that have been taken from their lives and the lives of their families.

Former prisoners have spoken on their release of being tortured and exposed to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment at the hands of US interrogators.

Last August, for example, when 24-year-old Murat Kurnaz was released from Guantánamo, he claimed that he had been exposed to water torture (being held under water until he was on the point of drowning) and sexual harassment.

On 10 June 2006, three detainees killed themselves. They had all been there for four years without any sign of charge or release. Before those deaths, there had been 41 suicide attempts at Guantánamo.

If Guantánamo has been a nightmare for the prisoners, it has been an unmitigated catastrophe for the United States, a monument to one of the most badly planned wars in history. After 11 September, the US had the sympathy of most of the people of the world, and substantial support for its invasion of Afghanistan.

Just a few years later, pictures of the hooded and shackled prisoners combined with the unpopular, unjustified and illegal attack on Iraq, stories and pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib prison, and revelations of torture flights all over the world contributed to an increasingly popular view of the United States as a cowboy nation.

To be fair, that view is confined to the United States led by the Bush administration and will not automatically transfer to the government to be led by Bush's successor (who starts her job in 736 days' time, according to all the best countdown clocks). To be fair also, many millions of Americans who were willing to give their government the benefit of the doubt in the wake of the 2001 attacks have now realised the tragedy and incompetence of what was done in their name and have adjusted accordingly, in their minds and in the ballot box.

Tonight in the RDS in Dublin, Amnesty International holds a reprise of the popular Stop You're Killing Me show, which features a host of Ireland's top comedians. The event, which is sold out, is supported by the Sunday Tribune. Thousands of people will be in attendance and will receive a free Tribune with extra Guantánamo-related pages, one of them penned by Ross O'Carroll Kelly, the country's most popular fiction writer.

The show commemorates the fifth anniversary of the detention centre at Guantánamo and is designed to raise awareness of what is happening there.

Amnesty want it closed, as do the United Nations and the European Union. So too, according to the taoiseach and the minister for foreign affairs, does the Irish government, despite its facilitation of planes which have been used in torture flights.

If you support those calls, Amnesty has suggestions as to what you can do at www. amnesty. org/ closeguantánamo. It may not seem like much, but every little helps.