The Gitmo "Suicides"

Some pushback against the usual denialism. Joe Carter writes the following:

If he had bothered to do his homework (rather than relying on his ghostwriting interns) he might have discovered that a Democratic president Mr. Obamais implicated in the purported “cover-up.” According to the AP story that he linked to (but obviously didn’t read), Obama’s Justice Department looked into the the claims and found them baseless. Surely Sullivan isn’t claiming that Obama is in on the cover up too?

Actually, I read thoroughly the Seton Hall report a month ago. I have followed this case very closely. And in my original post on the subject, I wrote:

And the only reason we do not know more about this is because of the criminal cover-up under the Bush administration and the enraging refusal of the Obama administration to do the right thing and open all of it to sunlight.

I have subsequently complained that then Holder DOJ is refusing to investigate. Carter should not presume that we are all as blindly partisan as he is. Carter also argues that Horton's entire story rests on one soldier. It doesn't. It rests on the testimony of

four members of the Military Intelligence unit assigned to guard Camp Delta, including a decorated non-commissioned Army officer who was on duty as sergeant of the guard the night of June 9.

It also rests on the extraordinary lacunae and non-explanations and inconsistencies in the previous Pentagon reports, as analyzed by Seton Hall University. 

Carter does what fundamentalists often do.

He does not inquire into or rebut the full pattern of evidence we see before us, he simply smears the sources - "To say that Harper’s Magazine has the credibility of the National Enquirer would be an insult to the supermarket tabloid"; "I’ve never understood why anyone would ever take Sullivan seriously. His propensity to believe the most outlandish conspiracy theories should make anyone embarrassed to be associated with him." As in the case of Palin's bizarre pregnancy stories, the obvious recourse - to simply get the readily available proof and settle the matter for good and all - is dismissed. Why? If you're so sure that something is true, why would you oppose any serious attempt to test it? And why is a journalist advocating less information rather than more?

Carter has made his name as a Christian. It seems to me that very credible evidence that three prisoners may have been tortured to death by the US government would be worth any Christian's concern. It seems to me that a Christian would want to ensure that this potential horror is investigated by independent sources to ensure that it didn't take place. In a war governed by rules that led to widespread torture and murder of prisoners in US custody - again, factually indisputable - it seems to me that a Christian would seek to discover the full truth without relying on ad hominems, avoidance of the majority of the evidence, ignorance of the sourcing, and denigration of a human rights lawyer.

But then I actually believe the torture is evil. And that power can corrupt. And that freedom and decency requires vigilance from the citizenry, not blind trust in a God-fearing leader.