Guantanamo Tribunal Testimonies

100 of over 500 prisoners' testimony papers from Guantanamo Bay were released recently under a Freedom of Information Act request, and I think it's important for Americans to know what's going on there. My thoughts, in no particular order:

• There are few allegations of prisoner torture. Certainly this could just reflect selective bias on which documents were released, or even what the documenters chose to write down, but it's definitely worth noting.
• On the other hand, it's frightening the length of time these people have been held with little or no evidence against them. Some of them appear to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but because we have declared them "Enemy Combatants" rather than "Prisoners of War", there is apparently a loophole that allows us to refuse them the right to legal representation and a fair and speedy trial that either U.S. citizenship or POW status would give them.
• How many years do we plan to steal out of the lives of these detainees, some of whom almost certainly are innocent of the charges against them? More importantly, how would we Americans feel if our citizenry were treated this way (even if they're being treated well, to be kept from their lives, their families, their homes for up to four years now)? We would be incensed and crying foul.
• Of over 500 prisoners, only 4 have been charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes. Why do we have the others in custody, if we haven't even charged them with anything? Do we think after nearly four years some new smoking gun is likely to be found? In one instance, a detainee is held on the basis of his name being found on a document from Osama bin Laden, but his name is a common one, shared with many others in his village and even two other Guantanamo detainees. And why were only 100 of over 500 testimonies released?
• The tribunal president tells one prisoner "I don't care about international law. I don't want to hear the words international law again." Not a good sign, but on the other hand, maybe a sign that these papers haven't been whitewashed for content, either.

(I do realize that most of the allegations of U.S. prisoner abuse are for prisoners we've supposedly spirited away to other countries, not in our main and most public detainee center at Guantanamo, but in the interest of fairness, if we're willing to note with credulity reports of torture and abuse, then it behooves us to note their absense as well. I make this comment because if I didn't, some of my more liberal readers would likely tell me I let the government off easy.)