Sometimes people, even people we generally admire, are wrong.

[catsittingstill]

And this is one of those times. Obama wants to keep the lid on the abuses of prisoners promoted and carried out by the Bush Administration. I'm not sure why. Maybe he's horsetrading with somebody.

Never mind. It doesn't matter. No amount of cooperation from a former Administration member is worth abandoning the moral principle. Torture is wrong. People who torture, or who enable or pressure other people to torture, belong in jail.

The shame is not in the photos. The shame is in what happened when the photos were taken; the moving finger writes and there is absolutely no way to undo the shame now. Pull out the photos, pull out the memos, let them lie in the cleansing sunlight where everybody can see. Lay the perpetrators and the wrongs they did bare to the world. It is the only way to begin to set it right.

And for goodness sake, won't that torture-promoter Cheney slither back to his undisclosed location?

Comments

[bigbumble.livejournal.com]

I have noticed that Obama thinks two steps ahead. I am hoping that he is keeping things under wraps because there is an ongoing criminal investigation. In our environmental office we don't talk publicly about such things until charges are filed. We shall see.

[howeird]

Total agree, and a note that following an illegal order is illegal. "Just following orders" ceased to be an excuse at Nuremberg.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Jesse "The Mouth" Ventura was on TV the other night, pointing out that he himself was waterboarded as part of Navy SEAL training, and that any government official who says it's OK to waterboard in America ought to be jailed.

He further said that if you gave him a waterboard and an hour with Dick Cheney, he'd have the former VP confessing to the Sharon Tate murders. I'll be passing the hat for a collection to make it so in due time...

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I won't be contributing.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

He's definitely wrong. Whether it's because he wants to be (because he supports or condones the torture), or because he has to be (because there are reasons for his actions we don't know about), is still open to question as far as I can tell, but I don't know how much further I can go with that.

So maybe he'll be a disappointment. I never ruled out that possibility, and he's still miles better than the only likely alternative, but my heart goes out to everyone who put their faith in him without reservation. There's never yet been a politician who deserved that...but it doesn't stop us hoping for an exception to the rule.

[wick-deer.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's appropriate to conflate the failure to release the photos to the public with condoning torture. I'm not against the prosecution of those who participated or authorized the torture.

Right now, the narrow issue before Obama is whether to release the photographs under the Freedom of Information Act. I'm not an expert on FOIA, but I don't think the Government would be out of line to withhold the photos if (a) it might hinder criminal prosecutions or (b) it might endanger the troops currently in the field.

Public release of the photos will be a potent recruiting tool for Al Quaida and its cohorts. If I had loved one on the front lines in Afghanistan or Iraq, I'd be just as happy at the delay.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

But this argument seems to ultimately come from General Petraeus, who I trust no further than I can throw. Maybe, just maybe, it's the lesser evil. Maybe. On the other hand, if the images are released, it gives Obama's opponents a way to blame future acts of terrorism on Obama, which has to give Obama pause. It may even be the Senate conservatives are already threatening that.