Editorial : Fresh leaks - Wednesday 27th April 2011

ANOTHER spurt of WikiLeaks and we have a reconfirmation of much of what has been already revealed. We are living in far more open times since the original leaks last year, and consequently the mutual suspicion with which the ISI and the US have eyed each other has been quite well documented in the media. This new wave of leaks would have been significant even without the generous nuggets of information the public has been served in recent weeks with regard to the uneasy, in fact tense, relationship between the US and the spy agency. The other details in the new leaks are as much corroborative, and constitute additional evidence of America`s own flawed tackling of the war on terror — in particular, the treatment meted out by the US to Guantanamo inmates.

All the stories based on the fresh leaks that appeared in Dawn on Tuesday contain references to the force and torture that the Americans had applied to extract confessions. The infamous water-board technique has got many mentions and it has been pointedly stated that many of the inmates had spoken “under duress”. On their part, the leaks do speak of “plans” as horrendous as one to set off a nuclear bomb in Europe in case Osama bin Laden was caught, to target Heathrow and Canary district in England and to hijack an Australian plane; the veracity of all these “schemes” severely challenged by bits about the blundering ways of desperate interrogators. The facts about the detainees kept at the infamous Guantanamo Bay are not just mind-boggling, they are soul-scarring. That suspects — Pakistanis, Afghans, drivers, farmers, chefs, et al — were detained in Guantanamo on the basis of “often seriously flawed” information — is nothing less than scandalous and will probably lead to greater anger against Washington in the country. Nevertheless, these disclosures also provide the impetus for louder calls for reason to prevail. There is plenty of information about how various actors have gone about this war. This is not an occasion for a display of arrogance but a moment for offering some much-needed explanations.


Source : http://www.dawn.com/2011/04/27/fresh-leaks.html