No subject

of rampant and widespread abuse and torture of prisoners under Bush, to
thuggishly threatening the British with intelligence cut-off if they reveal
the brutal torture inflicted on Binyam Mohamed, Obama now has new
cheer-leaders: Bill Kristol, Michael Goldfarb and Max Boot. . . .

Those of us who held out hope that the Obama administration would not be
actively covering up the brutal torture of a Gitmo prisoner who was subject
to abuse in several countries must now concede the obvious. They're covering
it up - in such a crude and obvious fashion that it is actually a crime in
Britain.

John Aravosis said Obama's logic was "a bit Bushian."  Steve Hynd observes
that "Obama Trades Our Principles For Cheneyism."  TPM decalres:  "Obama
falls back on Bushisms."  Dan Froomkin writes:  "Obama Joins the Cover-Up."
I'll just note a few points for now about Obama's efforts to keep these
photographs concealed:

(1) Think about what Obama's rationale would justify.  Obama's claim -- that
release of the photographs "would be to further inflame anti-American
opinion and to put our troops in greater danger" -- means we should conceal
or even outright lie about all the bad things we do that might reflect
poorly on us.  For instance, if an Obama bombing raid slaughters civilians
in Afghanistan (as has happened several times already), then, by this
reasoning, we ought to lie about what happened and conceal the evidence
depicting what was done -- as the Bush administration did -- because release
of such evidence would "would be to further inflame anti-American opinion
and to put our troops in greater danger."  Indeed, evidence of our killing
civilians in Afghanistan inflames anti-American sentiment far more than
these photographs would.  Isn't it better to hide the evidence showing the
bad things we do?

Apparently, the proper reaction to heinous acts by our political leaders is
not to hold them accountable but, instead, to hide evidence of what they
did.  That's the warped mentality Obama is endorsing today, and has been
endorsing since January 20.

(2) How can anyone who supports what Obama is doing here complain about the
CIA's destruction of their torture videos?  The torture videos, like the
torture photos, would, if released, generate anti-American sentiment and
make us look bad.  By Obama's reasoning, didn't the CIA do exactly the right
thing by destroying them?

(3) This is just another manifestation of the generalized Beltway religion
that we should suppress and ignore the heinous acts our government committed
and to which we acquiesced, because if we just agree to forget about all of
it, then we can blissfully pretend that it never happened and avoid doing
anything about it.

(4) Obama's claim that he has to hide this evidence to protect our soldiers
is the sort of crass, self-serving exploitation of "The Troops" which was
the rancid hallmark of Bush/Cheney rhetoric.  Everyone knows what the real
effect of these photographs would be:  they would highlight just how brutal
and criminal was our treatment of detainees in our custody, and further
underscore how amoral and lawless are Obama's calls that we Look To the
Future, Not the Past.  Manifestly, that is why they're being suppressed.

(5) For all of you defend-Obama-at-all-cost cheerleaders who are about to
descend into my comment section and other online venues to explain how Obama
did the right thing because of National Security, I have this question:  if
you actually want to argue that concealing these photographs is the right
thing to do, then you must have been criticizing Obama when, two weeks ago,
he announced that he would release them.  Otherwise, it's pretty clear that
you don't have any actual beliefs other than:  "I support what Obama does
because it's Obama who does it."   So for those arguing today that
concealing these photographs is the right thing to do:  were you criticizing
Obama two weeks ago for announcing he would release these photographs?

Also, the OLC torture memos released several weeks ago surely increased
anti-American sentiment.  Indeed, those on the Right who objected to the
release of those memos cited exactly that argument.  How can anyone cheer on
Obama's decision today to conceal these photographs while also cheering on
his decision to release the OLC memos?  Those who have any intellectual
coherence would have to oppose both or support both.   Those two decisions
only have one fact in common: Obama made them.  Thus, the only way to cheer
on both decisions is to be guided by the modified Nixonian mantra: what
Obama does is right because Obama does it.

Also, during the Bush years, were you -- along with Bill Kristol and
National Review -- attacking the ACLU and Congressional Democrats for
demanding that the Bush administration stop concealing evidence of its
torture, on the ground that disclosure of such evidence would harm America's
national security?  Were you defending Bush then for doing what Obama is
doing now?

(6) If these photographs don't shed any new light on what our Government did
-- if all they do is replicate what we already know from the Abu Ghraib
photographs -- then how can it possibly be the case that they will do any
damage?  To argue that they will harm how we are perceived is, necessarily,
to acknowledge that they reveal new information that is not already widely
known.

(7) We are supposed to have what is called Open Government in the United
States.  The actions of our government -- and the evidence documenting it --
is presumptively available to the public.  Only an authoritarian would argue
that evidence of government actions should be kept secret in the absence of
a compelling reason to release it.

The presumption is the opposite:  documents in the government's possession
relating to what it does is presumptively public in the absence of
compelling reasons to keep it concealed.  That the documents reflect poorly
on the government is not such a reason to keep them concealed.  If it were,
then it would always be preferable to have political leaders cover-up their
crimes on the ground that disclosing them would reflect poorly on the U.S.
and spur anti-American sentiment.  Open government is necessary precisely
because only transparency deters political leaders from doing heinous acts
in the first place.

UPDATE:  Here (.pdf) is the letter the DOJ sent to the court this afternoon,
advising the judge that they changed their minds "at the highest levels of
Government" and would not, as previously promised, release the photographs,
but instead would attempt to appeal the Second Circuit's decision compelling
their release to the Roberts Supreme Court.

UPDATE II:  In comments, Paul Daniel Ash addresses the Obama supporters who
are defending Obama's decision to keep these photograhps concealed on the
ground that "no good would come" from disclosure:

I'm pretty jaded, but even I'm outraged and saddened by the number of voices
being raised in this comment thread supporting the decision to conceal these
photos.

"No good will come?" Would we even have had an Abu Ghraib scandal without
the pictures of bloody prisoners and men cowering in front of dogs? "No
good?" Is there or is there not an active debate in this country about
whether or not torture is acceptable? "No good?" Did a United States Senator
not say just today, in the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative
Oversight and the Courts, that torture techniques have been used for the
past five centuries because "apparently they work?" 

"No good will come?"

Indeed, it's pretty hard to believe that the people who are arguing that "no
good will come" from release of these photos either (a) lived through the
impact of the Abu Ghraib photos and/or (b) are living through the "torture
debate" we are now having.

Photographs convey the reality of things in a way that mere words cannot.
They prevent people who want to deny what was done the ability to do so.
They force citizens to face what their country did and what they are now
justifying and advocating.  They impede the ability of political leaders to
use euphemisms to obscure the truth.  They show in graphic detail what the
effects are of sanctioning torture policies.  They prove that this was about
more than "dunking three terrorists into water."  They highlight the fact
that no decent person believes that this should all just be forgotten and
its victims told that they have no right to have accountability.  That's
precisely why the photographs are being suppressed:  because of how much
good they would do.



-- Glenn Greenwald