US Lawlessness at Guantanamo

WikiLeaks’ expose of the starkly illegal and brutal nature of the extrajudicial detentions at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, through its access to detainee assessment briefs and documents that are guidelines for interrogators, tell a lot about US lawlessness and brutality in the course of its so-called “war on terror”. The accounts, numbering around 750, could possibly constitute the final tranche of documents reportedly leaked by the former US army private Bradley Manning.These documents are military “assessments” written between 2002 and 2009 and give an ample picture of the brutality at Guantanamo.

Many captives were held on flimsy grounds; they had little to do with “terrorism” or involvement with organisations such as the Taliban or the Al Qaida. It is amply clear that many of these illegal detentions were done in order to extract intelligence information to aid the US’ war in Afghanistan. Among those detained were an 89-year-old man suffering from senile dementia and other ailments, a 14-year-old who was believed to know some Taliban leaders, and a journalist working for the Al Jazeera news channel (held for six years).