About those photos
May. 17th, 2009 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThere has been a lot to be dissapointed/worried about in the past week about things which the administation's done, which are at odds with what the candidate said. One of those things is the photos which haven't been released from Abu Ghraib.
The reasons everyone are giving are either 1: Politics as Usual (i.e. Obama doesn't want more heat from the Right, so he's caving in/leaving the actual call to the courts so he has deniabilty), and 2: To Protect the Troops.
If it's either of those things I'm disappointed. The first is craven. Part of the reason the Right gets away with stuff is the polticians let them (and The Press engourages them. Just look at all the pundits running around saying it's nice to see Obama acing like a grown up by not caving into the radicals at the ACLU). If Reid, Obama, et al. were to stand up to them a bit more, then they wouldn't have deal with this as much (though The Press would still be bending over backwards to prove to the Right that they aren't Obama's lapdogs, and they still like the Republicans).
If it's the second I think it's wrong. Will there be an uptick in violence when those photos are made public? Probably. Can't be helped. There are a lot people who are, justifiably, pissed off (I am not saying they are right, per se to be attacking US Troops, but walk in their shoes a bit; if it was happening here, you'd be pissed off. Some people would be violently pissed off. What's happend in Iraq; even if our motives were ever so pure, is infuriating).
Some of those people are angry enough to do violence.
I think, however any such violence would be a spasm.
Not releasing them however, keeps a lot the people who are seething, at a simmer. All it takes is a little something to bring them to a boil (and there are lots of petty indignities to make up that little something, it doesn't have to be a big thing).
If we air that dirty laundry, admit to what happened, a lot (perhaps most) of that will go away.
In the long run, I think keeping those pictures secret is going to cause more violence than it might seem to prevent.
There is, however, a third reason. It's possible the administration doesn't want to taint evidence in actual prosecutions relating to the photos.
That would be a consummation devoutly to be wished.
(n.b. There are a couple of other things going on. The ACLU's Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request was for fewer photos than are being discussed now. Under Bush the Pentagon had agreed to release photos not included in the FOIA request. A lot of the accussations of Obama breaking a promise are about those photos. Those photos may be of greater use in ancillary prosecutions than the ACLUs requested photos)
The reasons everyone are giving are either 1: Politics as Usual (i.e. Obama doesn't want more heat from the Right, so he's caving in/leaving the actual call to the courts so he has deniabilty), and 2: To Protect the Troops.
If it's either of those things I'm disappointed. The first is craven. Part of the reason the Right gets away with stuff is the polticians let them (and The Press engourages them. Just look at all the pundits running around saying it's nice to see Obama acing like a grown up by not caving into the radicals at the ACLU). If Reid, Obama, et al. were to stand up to them a bit more, then they wouldn't have deal with this as much (though The Press would still be bending over backwards to prove to the Right that they aren't Obama's lapdogs, and they still like the Republicans).
If it's the second I think it's wrong. Will there be an uptick in violence when those photos are made public? Probably. Can't be helped. There are a lot people who are, justifiably, pissed off (I am not saying they are right, per se to be attacking US Troops, but walk in their shoes a bit; if it was happening here, you'd be pissed off. Some people would be violently pissed off. What's happend in Iraq; even if our motives were ever so pure, is infuriating).
Some of those people are angry enough to do violence.
I think, however any such violence would be a spasm.
Not releasing them however, keeps a lot the people who are seething, at a simmer. All it takes is a little something to bring them to a boil (and there are lots of petty indignities to make up that little something, it doesn't have to be a big thing).
If we air that dirty laundry, admit to what happened, a lot (perhaps most) of that will go away.
In the long run, I think keeping those pictures secret is going to cause more violence than it might seem to prevent.
There is, however, a third reason. It's possible the administration doesn't want to taint evidence in actual prosecutions relating to the photos.
That would be a consummation devoutly to be wished.
(n.b. There are a couple of other things going on. The ACLU's Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request was for fewer photos than are being discussed now. Under Bush the Pentagon had agreed to release photos not included in the FOIA request. A lot of the accussations of Obama breaking a promise are about those photos. Those photos may be of greater use in ancillary prosecutions than the ACLUs requested photos)
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-17 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-17 09:02 pm (UTC)We also have the means to keep the people in the photos from being identifiable.
On a purely cost/benefit basis there are some real problems. Hiding them (from the reports I'm seeing; from places abroad, as well as people commenting on reaction abroad) is doing more harm than good. The lack of knowledge is allowing people to believe the worst.
That's a problem for the victims too. People will think they were abused in ways they may not have been; and make all the negative assumptions which go with it.
It's a problem, no matter how it's sliced.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-17 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-17 11:36 pm (UTC)They are also not base, nor purely related to what happens to Americans. If publishing them leads to less violence in Baghdad, that's to the good for more than just soldiers.
If they lead to more people in the States being angry enough to push for more serious investigation, that's also to the good.
And those are both, "political" reasons.