The Guant�namo “Suicides”

A Cover-up Continues?

Scott Horton has published an advance text of the upcoming cover story in Harpers regarding the 2006 deaths of three Guantanamo detainees while in U.S. custody. Horton is a dogged investigator, renown lawyer and compelling blogger. He has been strongly critical of U.S. torture and rendition policies throughout the Bush Administration and, like Glenn Greenwald, strongly advocated for the Obama Administration to dump it's "look forward, not backward" policies.

"When President Barack Obama took office last year, he promised to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great.” Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guant�namo Naval Base “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Obama has failed to fulfill his promise. Some prisoners there are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guant�namo in 2006." The Guant�namo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)

This article demands to be read. And read again by all officers of our government who are connected to national security and intelligence. Most importantly, it demands an answer from our Attorney General, not only to the specifics of this case, but to the broader issue of what exactly is the Department of Justice doing to investigate torture- and "enemy combatant"-related crimes, but also how FREE the Department actually is to go after those who committed heinous crimes in all our names.

As the first year of Obama'a administration ends, we learn new and, quite frankly, disturbing details about the "suicide" of detainees in Guantanamo. And, as this year ends, we now officially see the failure of one of Obama's signature promises made in the heady, post-inaugural days. That is, to close GTMO within one year. Probably the saddest and most damning aspects of this entire case is that the facts have long been well known. And whitewashed.


Update: Scott Horton published a follow-up to the original story today focusing on the compromised statement made by a key officer in charge of the Cuban prison camp as well as the tepid "non-response" by the Justice Department. If you're smelling a rat, you should be. The response so far seems all very reminiscent of the "official" stories being put out ahead of the first breaking of Abu Ghraib story.

Will there be accountability? When?