The decision by the President not to release additional torture photos is right on the money. On the advice of his top military personnel, what else could he possibly do? Ironically, John McCain agrees with him.
President Obama's campaign promise of being transparent has not been besmirched by the reversal. Considering the sensational nature of the images, which would likely incite further hatred from people who already loathe America in the first place, keeping them from publication is perhaps the only reasonable conclusion at this point.
Those who argue that the release of the photos is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing or permitting such abuse don’t seem to be getting the whole picture. Public viewing of such pictures is certainly far less important than the safety of the American people. Vigorous prosecution of the torture-approving offenders can come at a later date.
Administrative transparency is still the standard of President Obama's White House. He has never hidden his agenda, or his aims for helping people who are in dire need in the current economy.
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There may be something else going on here. Someone on the Rachel Maddow show said that President Obama might well want his hands to be forced by a lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteHere is one argument for releasing the photos: often the imagination might posit a worse situation than what actually existed and the photo release might well invoke a "ok, that is bad but not as bad as I had feared" reaction.
But yes, this is a tough call to make.