On the wikileaks page http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/ they correctly preface the raw files with a piece by Andy Worthington. This is essential for everyone to be advised of because these are internal US government documents and as such exist not as objective fact but the internal discourse of an organisation committing ongoing war crimes. Therefore they will reflect their assumptions, prejudices and narratives that they surround themselves with in order to justify their own actions to themselves.
Crucially, the files also contain detailed explanations of the supposed intelligence used to justify the prisoners’ detention. For many readers, these will be the most fascinating sections of the documents, as they seem to offer an extraordinary insight into the workings of US intelligence, but although many of the documents appear to promise proof of prisoners’ association with al-Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, extreme caution is required.
The documents draw on the testimony of witnesses — in most cases, the prisoners’ fellow prisoners — whose words are unreliable, either because they were subjected to torture or other forms of coercion (sometimes not in Guantánamo, but in secret prisons run by the CIA), or because they provided false statements to secure better treatment in Guantánamo.
Regular appearances throughout these documents by witnesses whose words should be regarded as untrustworthy include the following “high-value detainees” or “ghost prisoners”. Please note that “ISN” and the numbers in brackets following the prisoners’ names refer to the short “Internment Serial Numbers” by which the prisoners are or were identified in US custody:
However even in this netherworld of nationalist mythology the knowing incarceration of innocent people is impossible to obscure.
As for the media reporting on the files I would approach the NYT with the normal caution (short version: clear record of deferring to government rather than journalistic ethics and biases towards US hegemony and Zionist narratives) and favour the Guardian, though it also is problematic, it is shy of using the word torture too often. And in the wider media sphere too such polity would not be extended to any nation or regime deemed a UK/US enemy, equal skepticism of your own nation’s establishment remains a difficult position to maintain career wise. It is only human to want to advance and you cannot want to advance in a structure you deem profoundly objectionable. Hence outsiders actions are always just a little more harshly judged than your tribe’s, often it is in their nature whereas ours are the few bad apples. But to a person kidnapped, tortured and imprisoned for years it does not much matter whose flag it is happening under, torture is torture, we are bad guys, whatever David Miliband wants to pretend he did not know about.
We also will never see the video the CIA destroyed, the pictures the Pentagon hold, the details of the 100 dead who were tortured to death that we know about, no allied forces were victorious and carefully persevered evidence and held trials, there will be no Nuremberg. We have whistleblowers such as Bradley Manning and dedicated human rights groups, activists and lawyers, support them all lest night falls completely.
Shaker Aamer’s files don’t seem to be released yet, but it will only be a matter of time. Update: here it is.
Update: Like I said, Chris Floyd: Normalizing Evil: The NY Times’ Curious Take on the Gitmo Files and Glenn Greenwald: ‘The NYT, by stark contrast, emphasizes how Dangerous and Menacing these Evil Terrorists are shown to be‘
