He has spent 14 years in detention. For much of that time, he was confined to a windowless cell not much bigger than he is. Sometimes, he was put into solitary confinement for being "non-compliant". Sometimes he was force fed. He has never been charged with a crime. And he has never met the son who was born on the day he was detained. But at least Shaker Aamer is free.

How should we greet that news? It is certainly a relief that Mr Aamer, who is a British citizen, will finally be able to see his family, although after 14 years in Guantanamo Bay, it is likely that he will need some medical help, both physical and mental. Mr Aamer himself says he is like an old car that has not been to the garage for years and we are told he will receive the medical care he needs now that he is back in London.

However, the release of Mr Aamer, the last British resident to be held in Guantanamo, is only a small glimmer of good news. His release may end his 14-year detention, but it ends nothing else about one of the most shocking episodes in American history. There are still more than 100 people detained at Guantanamo. There has been no progress on President Obama's promise to close it down. There is absolutely no evidence that it has achieved anything in the so-called war on terror apart from pour fuel on the terrorist flames. And, closer to home, we still do not the full extent of Britain's involvement.

The most damning fact in Mr Aamer's story is that he has never been charged with any offence. There are conflicting stories about what he was, or was not, doing when he was picked up in Afghanistan in 2001. His supporters say he was doing charity work; the US authorities said he was the leader of a unit of Taliban fighters and a close associate of Osama Bin Laden. The point is that the truth of these stories should have been put to the test years ago in a trial and it is shocking that they have not.

It is also shocking that it has taken this long to release Mr Aamer when we know that the methods used against him and hundreds of others like him simply do not work. Last December, in its report on the torture tactics used by the CIA, the US Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques were not effective and that the CIA's management of the program was flawed. But the reality is that the methods used at Guantanamo were worse than ineffective – in fact, the images of prisoners in orange jumpsuits became images of hostages in orange jumpsuits in the horrific videos of the jihadists.

The hope now must be that the release of Mr Aamer represents some progress towards closing Guantanamo and answering the profound questions it has raised about the American and British response to 9/11, but the signs are not good. Ten years ago The Herald revealed that an aircraft used to fly terrorist suspects to countries which torture prisoners stopped at Prestwick, but a decade on we still do not know to what extent the UK facilitated rendition and the promised investigation has never happened.

The Prime Minister David Cameron says the release of Mr Aamer is good news – and it is. It also signals the end of the UK's involvement in Guantanamo. But the fact that detention centre remains open undermines British and American attempts to offer something better than the nihilism and violence of the jihadists. Mr Aamer has suffered a personal price for his time in Guantanamo; the rest of us can see that it is a symbol of how not to fight a war against terrorists.