The scale of the redactions has raised questions about transparency. Lawmakers have criticized the Department of Justice for releasing documents that are technically public but practically unreadable. The result is a release that feels incomplete. The public can see that something has been disclosed, but the substance remains hidden behind layers of black ink.
This tension between what is shown and what is concealed mirrors another issue involving the use of state power. U.S. soldiers continue to operate inside Syria, which is a sovereign nation under international law. The Syrian government has never granted permission for U.S. forces to be there. The United States justifies its presence as part of a counterterrorism mission against ISIS. The legal basis for this mission remains contested.
The contradiction becomes sharper when violence occurs. After U.S. soldiers were recently killed in Syria, the United States launched large airstrikes across Syrian territory. These strikes killed several people and were described as retaliation. The idea of retaliation becomes complicated when the initial military presence was not authorized by the government of the country where the violence took place. From the U.S. perspective, the strikes were an act of self-defense. From the Syrian perspective, they were an unlawful use of force inside its borders.
Both the redacted files and the military actions in Syria reveal the same underlying pattern. Power can operate in ways that limit what the public is allowed to fully understand. In one case, information is obscured through redaction. In the other, legal and moral boundaries are stretched in the name of security. The public is left to interpret events through partial visibility and incomplete explanations.
The central issue is not only what the government chooses to reveal. It is also what remains hidden, and how those choices shape the public’s ability to hold power to account.