What the Guantanamo Leaks Won’t Reveal

WikiLeaks has begun publishing 779 US secret military files on Guantánamo Bay prisoners. Dated 2002 to 2008, the assessments detail US intelligence and rationales for indefinite detention of prisoners or transfer to other governments. The raw documents require context, suggests Darryl Li, who has worked on the legal defense of Guantánamo detainees, in an opinion essay for Al Jazeera. The threat assessments are opinions, tinged with what he calls “bureaucratic self-deception” and limited analysis, neglecting to detail interrogation methods or inadequate evidence. Troubling conditions in a secret global network of prisons, in nations like Poland or Thailand, used by the US have yet to emerge. The story of the US-led war on terror, Li concludes, is a “story of the workings of global hegemony in the 21st century and how people seek to resist it.” Uprisings in the Arab world opening up archives, or other leaks, may yet expose collaborations, both brutal and mortifying. – YaleGlobal