Should Obama Release Several Thousand Secret Photos of America's Torture Program? Graphic Warning [View all]

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There Are Several Thousand Secret Photos of America's Horrific Torture Program. Should Obama Release Them?

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/abu-ghraib-photos-obama-pentagon-release

Should our government be allowed to hide its fuckups just because our enemies might use them against us?
—Michael Mechanic on Tue. December 30, 2014 1:56 PM PD


"Sideburnz" posted this photo on an amateur porn site in 2005. Caption: "Cooked Iraqi." NowThatsFuckedUp.com

You may recall, from the dark days of Abu Ghraib, that there was a batch of photos that was never released—images the Pentagon deemed so inflammatory that they needed to stay under wraps. The ones we saw were disturbing enough: the piles of naked Iraqi prisoners, the soldier giving a thumbs up next to an ice-packed corpse, the prisoners being menaced by dogs. And who can forget that iconic shot of a hooded man (his name is Ali Shalil Qaissi), standing on a box in a shower with wires attached to his fingers—a mock execution. There are as many as 2,100 additional images, according to the ACLU, which sued the government in 2004 demanding their release. President Obama has resisted the legal efforts, noting in a statement that to make the photos public would "impact the safety of our troops."

Newsweek's Lauren Walker nicely summarizes the developments so far, some of which my colleague Nick Baumann has also covered, so here's the upshot: In August, a federal judge gave the administration an ultimatum: either release the photos or provide evidence for each image explaining why publishing it would be detrimental to national security. On December 19, the administration indicated that it would take the latter course, and a hearing on the new evidence has been set for January 20.

In his earlier statement, Obama noted that "the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals." But here's the problem: It wasn't just a small number of individuals. Only the small fry were punished, to be sure, but the culpability extends way up the chain of command. So while another prominent photo release might inspire attacks on American interests, there's a more fundamental question: Should our government be allowed to hide its fuckups just because our enemies might use them against us?

Because the concealed images, the ACLU told Newsweek, aren't simply more examples of abuse:

"One of the reasons we’ve been fighting for so long for these photographs is because the official narrative following the disclosure of the Abu Ghraib photos was that those abuses were the result of a few bad apples," says Alex Abdo, an ACLU staff attorney working on the case since 2005.

"These photographs come from at least seven different detention facilities throughout Afghanistan and Iraq.... We think this would once and for all end the myth that the abuse that took place at Abu Ghraib was an aberration," he says. "It was essentially official policy. It was widespread at different facilities under different commanders."

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