Benjamin Franklin’s famous trade-off between liberty and temporary safety – for those who deserve neither — stands itemized in human form in the Gitmo documents, in those many files full of misspellings, malapropisms and justifications, the dream-diary jottings of a superpower nightmare.

In the 14-year-old boy abducted and raped by the Taliban, held by the Americans for over a year.

In the 89-year-old senile man whose neighbour had a phone with numbers of suspected Taliban in it.

In the 70-year-old man, found sleeping at a mosque, for whom no reason could be found as to what he was doing at Guantanamo in the first place.