At least not now and not for the foreseeable future. I want this administration to concentrate of getting this country back on its feet and I want the stage to be carefully set to bring those responsible for the torture to justice.

Releasing the pictures will become the debate if they are released now, not what the pictures say about us. The media will love it. The Republicans will accuse Obama of risking the lives of Americans. We will never get to the question of why such pictures even exist in a civilized society.

The pictures are best left to the American peoples' imagination right now. The imagination of how bad they are will eat at our collective conscience. I want then released at the trial of Bush and Cheney and the other war criminals, not now when they will be a a one day media wonder and then disappear. I want those pictures to hover, to loom, to be a constant reminder...until the time for them is perfect...

I could be wrong, but I think Obama knows exactly when those pictures should be released where they will do the most good and the most damage. Until that time, we all know that they are there, waiting for the perfect moment.

That was not my original thought, but after closer examination of the pros and cons, I understand where our president is coming from on this issue. Just give it some time and the pictures will come out.

obama is coming from not wanting to make the soldiers in iraq and afghanistan even more unsafe over there. but i fear that nothing is going to be done. i mean, the photos might just show how NOT a rogue group of bad apples it was, but how it was pervasive. which i am sure most of us already figured. I want a special prosecutor... INDEPENDENT... to look at those and decide.... not an 'independent' commission. a prosecutor. and when people are brought to justice, then eventually the pictures can be released... in the context of making things right for the people we did it to.

because WE did this...it was done in OUR name, and we must be made to see what was done in our name.... and own it... and make sure it never happens again. for if for no other reason than we don't want it done to our soldiers. because it seems like for some that is the only thing they would really care about. the 'christians' who bitch about right to life and crap... who are the most in favor of dehumanizing people. and i am not referring to ALL religious people. i am referring to the ones that have to tell everyone they ARE christians, because otherwise no one would ever be able to tell by their behavior and their attitude towards others.

That's exactly why I want them released. The backwash thinks waterborading is just a frat prank among a few bad apples. Let them see what unspeakable acts were being committed & how pervasive it was. Please note that I believe that waterboarding is an unspeakable act, but if what Sy Hersh says is true, I don't think that even scum like Limbaugh could deny it without coming across like a total monster.

:thumbsup: on the last sentence of your post! I saw a bumper sticker the other day: God, protect me from your followers.

Now, not in an unforseeable future.

With all its offices, this administration is big enough to take on several big issues at a time.

Setting the stage has the ring of rigging the jury. The Republicans will make hash of us and the media will love it if it is seem to be political theatre.

A boil on the face hurts. It's disfiguring. Lancing a boil hurts, but it needs to be done or the bacterial toxins spread thoughout the body.

I want those who thought they were outside the law to be corraled by that law and set to endure the punishment for their misdeeds.

I could be wrong but I think Obama is a politician. He isn't a God. He isn't a Hero. He is a man subject to being persuaded by the voices he hears. He's hearing a lot from military commanders who were involved in the crimes that need to be prosecuted. He needs to hear the roar of a people who want to know truth and justice. Justice delayed is justice denied. There is no better time than the present.

I'm glad he did. I've seen enough pictures.

The nation sent them over there so that we would be protected over here and now we must protect them for things that were done during their mission over there?

We just did eight years of an administration that ruled by fear.

Doesn't it strike you as odd that our choices are still based on fear?

The military has NO intention of reducing American forces in Iraq to zero. We will be "forward positioned" in Irag for several generations. The logic of protecting the troops will be preventing the release of the pictures for the next 50 years.


That will be plenty long enough for Cheney, Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Yoo etc, to die in their beds having never faced justice. That is why justice delayed is justice denied.

by Iraqi, Afaghani and Taliban nationalists who have their own imaginations of American atrocities?

This can't be about those sort of absolutes.

I believe that the release of the photographs is critically important. It must be done to preserve our country as a nation goverened by laws that are more powerful than people. A judge has ruled that they are to be released. Obama said they would be released. Now, under the guise of "protecting the troops" Obama is looking for a way out.

Since then, powers behind the scenes have gone to work on Obama and changed his mind.

How much do you want to bet they are more fearful that it will tear the depraved leadership in Congress and at the Pentagon, CIA and the NSA apart than they are that it will tear America apart or cause some dozens more car bombings?

ahh yes..thats the ticket..

Glen Greenwald's question to people defending Obama's position on torture photos http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/13/photo...

"...(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?"


...As Judge Hellerstein wrote in rejecting the Bush argument -- now the Obama argument -- that disclosure would jeopradize the troops: "the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed."

he would bring them ALL back from afghanistan and iraq- NOW.

he's just another corporacrat, looking out for the interests of the plutocracy.

but as long as the kool-aid tastes good to people, that's all that matters.

:patriot:

:rofl: :rofl:

Showing these horrible degradations to our own human race will only bring back the not so distant Bush/Cheney Years. We need to move on. Obama will decide the "When". Obviously "Now" is not a viable option for us to continue moving forward and away from this.

Glen Greenwald's question to people defending Obama's position on torture photos http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/13/photo...

"...(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?"


...As Judge Hellerstein wrote in rejecting the Bush argument -- now the Obama argument -- that disclosure would jeopradize the troops: "the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed."

Reveal what the public will probably be able to take, when it's convenient.

Remember always: the public is dumber than a bag of hammers....
Fuck 'em.

Maybe that's what's at play here. While I can understand the reasons President Obama cited for not releasing the photos, but I do believe they need to come out and voluntarily, not by court order. Here was his chance to get ahead of this mess...to make a clean break from the past regime rather than attempt to cover up their messes.

It might be that the President is hoping for an overwhemling cry from the "rank and file" to disclose not just those pictures but other evidence of war crimes to force his hands. To avoid making it look like a political issue (that the GOOP continues to yell) and have the public behind him in investigating and prosecuting war crimes.

I was patient with his plans to withdrawl our forces from Iraq and now think our mission in Afghanistan is turning into a folly as well. If releasing these pictures would put our troops in greater danger then there is some justification, but not if this just digs us into these quagmires even further. If it helps to get our troops out safe, then, while I want those photos released (I wish they had come out prior to January 20th) I can wait...but eventually they must and will come out.

that Cheney's strategy, and the reason he's all over the news, is to goad Obama into doing something prematurely.

Crashcart is muddying the waters...creating distractions and excuses to put the pressure on President Obama...intimidating him into keeping their war for profit going as the longer it goes on the further away we get from the causes of how this mess began and who was responsible.

The strategy appears to be "baiting the refs"...be it the American people or a possible future jury pool. It's saying a lie enough times in hopes people will believe it or cast enough doubt to counteract the real facts that are and will be coming forward.

We know that cheney has left behind moles throughout the CIA, DOD and who knows where else...not to mention his toadies in the corporate media. It's like a 5th column right in our own backyard.

We would be thought much less of around the world if we were to truly let it be known how degraded our behavior has been.

Much better to keep things hidden and allow people the free range of their imagination, imagination is always far more innocuous than reality.

I think they ought to just burn all the pictures and let us put this sordid episode behind us forever.

For the good of the country it is far better if we just let bygones be bygones.

Boys will be boys, eh?

We were promised transperancy in Government. If we can't own up to the horrors we've committed as a country, humbly, in front of the world, then we're done. No better than tin pot dictators.

The fact you can't form a viable rebuttal is very telling.

I'm sure that you have been consistent in your opposition to releasing these photos and criticized Obama when he was of the opinion that they should be released..

releasing pictures of fetuses from abortions,, it is just meant to incite hatred and division, we don't need to see the pictures,,,what we need is a special prosecutor,and the pictures shown to a jury,,,,

I am against movies or pictures of people being murdered or victimized being publicized for voyeuristic or other purposes.

After 8 years of Cheney's constant terrorizing of the populace we are cowed.

The pictures must come out and cause an outrage that will push fearful administrators into action.

The American people should be forced to see what was done in their name while they slept at the wheel.

That's the psychology behind a lot of this "outrage".

Thanks for illustrating it so well.

BAD American sheeple! See what you did? SEE.

We made the "Good Germans" help clean up their country's horrors in the camps, why should we be so special and insulated by the horrors our Government inflicted on people?

I would like someone to give me one, just one example of a picture(s) of war dead, tortured, or victimized people that were released that actually prevented future victims of similar crimes. Just one.

can make you commit atrocities

-Voltaire-

Therefore, I want them shown.

Let's move forward.

Your idea that 'the pictures are best left to the imagination' simply permits the advocates of torture to continue to lie about what we have done, as they lie about the results of these war crimes.

Until we are confronted with the truth there will be no justice. Until the secrets are made public, until the lying is forced to stop by the manifest evidence of the reality of what we have done, those responsible will be allowed to continue not only unpunished, but undeterred. We will commit these atrocities again. Why not, as nobody is being held accountable?

The stage is not being carefully set to bring anyone to justice. What we are watching is the ongoing cover up of war crimes, which is itself a crime. Confront that.

they are being protected for later use as trial evidence. And if that's the case, we should be told that's the intended purpose of the photos.

I don't buy the bullshit that releasing them will anger our enemies. We've already basically said they're so horrific the response will be devastating to our military, so we're just better off allowing the enemy to imagine how bad they are?

Most know that reality often is not as bad as what was imagined. The enemy now knows more pictures exist, and that they are so horrific they can't be released because to do so would anger them and incite violence against U.S. troops. The very fact that we aren't releasing them serves the same purpose in my book. They know they exist. They know they are horrid. Do they really need to see them to get angry about them? :shrug:

What a patronizing, condescending, authoritarian thing to write.

Let's censor the body bag flights too. Let's bury photos of drone-killed children. Let's watch graduation speeches instead.

After all, they're unpleasant, and those who committed the atrocities were made uncomfortable, as well as everyone else.

Let's just be nice now!


Surely I don't need a sarcasm tag.....

to universal scorn here on DU? Something about, "there needs to be mystery in life".

out of sight out of mind has been the meme far too long with these 2 occupations. people dont even THINK about what we have done or are doing in those 2 bloody occupations . they dont think about it. its 'over there' somewhere. they dont even consider Iraqis and Afghanis to be people to them. its been sanitized for 8 yrs. its time to show the truth, as was done in Vietnam, and was done when the concentration camps were revealed to the world.
we need to show the american people what has been done by our govt. sooner then later. they cannot make informed decisions on the fate of this nation with coverups and sanitized images.

Now this is pure speculation but...by blocking the photos
they have seeded the idea that "these photos must be much worse than we thought"

Consider that Obama's strategy may be to create a massive public outcry against torture
(because politically he cannot hit it head on alone... and win)
So what we are seeing here is a series of masterful moves... drip drip drip
that are designed to break down the resistance... eventually boxing the torturer supporters
in and creating an untenable situation where even the GOP will be calling for justice,

Maybe that's wishful thinking or tinfoil but from what I've seen of Obama so far,
he is very deliberate and always thinking 5 moves ahead. These memo releases
and photo unreleases have a bigger purpose... for what? We'll see : - )))

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


so what was his chess game a couple weeks ago..can you share that game with us??????

Glen Greenwald's question to people defending Obama's position on torture photos http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/13/photo...

"...(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?"


...As Judge Hellerstein wrote in rejecting the Bush argument -- now the Obama argument -- that disclosure would jeopradize the troops: "the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed."

with no peril to themselves. Would their righteous outrage be of comfort to the family and loved ones of one of our soldiers or more who might be killed specifically because of outrage of what the pictures depict? I always find it interesting how those who make what they believe are noble demands (since they are their demands how could they not be noble?) that could have negative consequences, but consequences that will never impact them. That is so very easy to do.

More pictures isn't going to ruin anything or make people hate us any more in any significant way. The pictures must be released so as to further shame Americans into doing something about their own government.

were you outraged then?? were you outraged when our courts said he must release the photo's..was your outrage at the courts then? what is your outrage that Obama is now breaking our US Constitution and our laws???????? Are you not outraged that OBAMA IS NOW SAYING FUCK YOU TO OUR COURTS???????????

THE HYPOCRACY HERE BY SOME OF YOU IS OUTRAGEOUS..THAT IS WHAT OUTRAGES ME MOST..

I am outraged that anyone thinks they are better or more powerful than our laws and the rule of law this nation was predicated on!!

where was your outrage a couple weeks ago then????????

Glen Greenwald's question to people defending Obama's position on torture photos http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/13/photo...

"...(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?"


...As Judge Hellerstein wrote in rejecting the Bush argument -- now the Obama argument -- that disclosure would jeopradize the troops: "the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed."

I'm guessing you are one of them. Good luck with your outrage. I hope it makes your life more fulfilled.

:sarcasm:

Odd how "protecting the troops" only becomes important when it also means protecting the establishment. I mean, after all-- our military personnel are still *there* and dying every day, years after the nation has admitted to itself that the invasion was unjust.

And the claim that a politically inconvenient action may hurt the troops was ugly when Bush used it and it's still ugly now.

What, you think he has information that we don't have?

You think he "knows what he's doing"???

Lockstepper!

Recommended, number 5.

:toast:

k&r

:hi:

:-)

Just how do you plan on getting "justice and accountability"? Easier said than done, I would say.

...is release the photos.

No chance of getting their and punishing ALL who are guilty unless the truth comes out.

I really, really have a problem about covering up war crimes.

After releasing the photos, LOUDLY announce to the world that the citizens of the United States of America are law-abiding and DO NOT SUPPORT TORTURE. Re-affirm our membership in the International World Court, re-affirm our intention to abide by ALL of the Geneva Accords and DEMONSTRATE to the world our good faith by investigating AND PROSECUTING those persons that broke the laws, no matter how high their stature.

To have the audacity to say that we will not release the photos because it would somehow put the troops in harms way is a lie and a deliberate obfuscation of the truth. Some persons representing our country committed some very severe war crimes. We must stand up and acknowledge their guilt and take adequate steps to ensure a rogue, diseased administration is never allowed to sully the good name of the United States again.

Not In My Name!:kick:Justice and Accountability!

if for no other reason than respect for the victims . . . there are some things we just don't need to see, and this is one of them . . .

What's needed right now is the political will to prosecute the people who turned our country into a torture state, and those photos will go a very long way towards building that political will.

How do you get it thru the Congress? There is no consensus on this issue.

These photos would result in a lot of political pressure being placed on Congress. There is no consensus on this issue because our politicians have been allowed to cover things up.

to do something about it. To the contrary, it would only divide them further. In the end, we get nothing, not even the truth.

The lack of real, tangible materials like photos is what's allowed the Conservatives to say torture isn't actually torture, that detainees are treated well, that we should all accept these "programs" and even continue them, etc., etc.

Put a real face on these crimes and those divisions will begin to evaporate. Not because the politicians will have a moral conversion-- but because the acts will become impossible to defend, politically.

I think it would have exactly the opposite effect. The divisions would not evaporate - they would harden.

There are too many Democrats that on so many issues (health care reform, CC reform, mortgage reform, etc.) are either USELESS wimps in voting with their Senate majority to shut down these corporate Rethugs, or are complicit and are working for corporate special interests and NOT the American people.

These senators need to be increasingly exposed for their complicity so that they can be taken out in the primaries in 2012. And if they are aware that they are going to be more and more exposed for their anti-Democratic behavior (aka Max Baucus on health care hearings), either we force them more into a defensive position, or force them to start working more for the American people. Either way, if we expose these bums with their votes on record, we ultimately will start to take back the senate for the people and not have a corporatist majority like we have now that feels unchallenged.

All the more reason to take this issue through congress!

They're not "waiting for the right time." There is no right time. You are delusional.

.. and that our forefathers' dreams were delusional if they thought that they would carry on through generations of this country.

I for one don't ever give up on this country's forefather's dreams, and will always move to work against those that threaten them!

I want a trial, sure. It's just not going to happen. One of us is wrong--we'll see who it is.

is already ramped up when 'they' say they're worse than the others. If people still think they need that synapse closed as to something that is already inhuman, very-very wrong and clearly so...then is able to enter imo: voyeurism, which continues to peer into itself for less and less constructive reasons. As such, and after a time, even after the riots and chaos they are capable of broadcasting at home and around the world; or any further apathetic inaction of Americans, even these images have the capacity to become flushed of specific, initial gravity when viewed as a voyeuristic exercise.

Their larger value and import is as evidence at trial

n/t

:-) The truth is coming out bit by bit every day in amounts that the people can swallow. It will reach a point where almost everyone will know the facts about what happened. Don't give them too much or it will be used as a distraction. The story is not dying - it is increasing in intensity.

"I've just been all over the place being the biggest prick on the planet trying to goad him into releasing everything NOW and he goes and publically claims he's NOT releasing the pics??? What the hell do I have to do to get under that guys skin and make him do what I want???"

And the answer is; there's nothing you can do, Dick. Obama is way cooler, and way smarter than you. You can't goad him you douchebag. He's not an out of control, maniacal, narcissistic psychopath like you.

We would not be talking about Cheney or Pelosi or the CIA or Tenet or anything else? I think Cheney would love for the photos to be released right now. :-)

As opposed to drip, drip, drip.

The tactic is to get Obama to react rashly and make a mistake as opposed to approaching it slowly and carefully.

If Obama and/or the DOJ starts releasing stuff and rushing into investigations etc., there's a good chance they would blow any type of case they might have and/or tip their hands.

At this point Cheney probably doesn't know much about what they know. By goading them into rashly leaking as much as possible right away he can better prepare for what may be coming down the road. He needs as much information as possible as soon as possible about what Obama knows and what he's got.

President Obama has put an end to the torture so, if this is true and I assume it is, let's get right with the world. To not release the pictures makes the President complacent with the torture. imho