COMMENTARY | The Wikileaks information on Guantanamo detainees so far hasn't revealed any startling new information as much as reiterated what was already known, or at least suspected. The releases contain files on virtually all of the prisoners who have been detained at Gitmo since 2002.
There are no startling revelations about torture techniques or damning photos like from Abu Ghraib. We know torture happened at Guantanamo, but as a nation we don't seem to care anymore.
There is new information as to the whereabouts of top Al Qaeda figures on Sept. 11, 2001. We again see that from the beginning, the war in Afghanistan has had problematic entanglements with Pakistan.
A military struggles with a new enemy
One theme running through the Wikileaks files reveal about the notorious prison at Guantanamo Bay is the confusion and lack of coherent policy. From the outset, there were questions as to how to classify prisoners, eventually settling on a new term: "enemy combatant."
Once the classification was made, it was used to circumvent rules and regulations with regard to the holding of persons even marginally suspected of terrorist acts. The population at Guantanamo Bay runs the gamut from the hard core Al Qaeda leader to the poor sap who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Only around 220 of the nearly 800 persons passing through the detention center have been deemed dangerous terrorists, another 380 low-level foot soldiers who might have been gone into Afghanistan to fight in the civil war there and had little knowledge of Al Qaeda, and at least 150 who are possibly innocent.
Farmers, drivers, and others just going about their business were sometimes caught in a web designed to catch first and screen later. The bounty offered for information led some people to offer the names of tribal rivals or just a name with no real information. So far, dozens of files have been seen with the entry "no reason for transfer."
A president reverses himself
President Obama made closing Guantanamo a campaign pledge. Even President Bush said in 2006 that he wanted to close Gitmo. The policy about the facility itself is as clouded as the policies used within its walls.
What conclusions can we draw from the Wikileaks files?
As the files are poured over, the findings aren't likely to change many minds when it comes to Guantanamo Bay. There will be those who think that, if anything, the place is too soft. We should be as willing to forgo our principles as the enemy is theirs.
More rational minds will understand that whatever the files reveal, we, as a nation, have done something history will not remember kindly.
There are no comments yet