Broken Promises  The Plight of the Guantánamo Prisoners  On the
evening of April 15—the day two bombs exploded at the Boston
Marathon, killing three people and wounding more than two
hundred eighty—President Barack Obama vowed that those
responsible “will feel the full weight of justice.” In light of
the country’s history of injustice in dealing with suspected
terrorists since 9/11, Obama’s vow was less a threat than a
promise.  That dark history is detailed in an exhaustive report
released April 16 by the bipartisan Constitution Project’s Task
Force on Detainee Treatment. The report examines the decisions
made by President George W. Bush and his administration
regarding the treatment of detainees, from seeking legal
justification for the mistreatment of prisoners and using the
state-secrets privilege to deny torture victims legal redress,
to turning over detainees to the custody of countries where they
were likely to be tortured, to holding and interrogating
prisoners in secretive “black sites” around the wo