America the Terrible?

It's a year today since President Obama was inaugurated. There is much to be glad of regarding his first year in office. But there are some things that deserve closer scrutiny, too.

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 Guantánamo 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 Guantánamo in 2006.  --Scott Horton

"Camp No," Guantanamo

A must-read if you give a goddamn at all about the values and the future of this nation:  Scott Horton's riveting, gut-wrenching expose in Harper's of the three Gitmo prisoners apparently tortured to death by American forces in 2006.

Sullivan: 

But of course, if you weren't a jihadist before you arrived in Gitmo, you sure as hell would be by the time they let you out.  I would be.

And especially if you knew that American soldiers in Iraq are using - right now, in 2010 - government-issued rifles with Bible verses engraved on the sights.