Filthy Pictures

They certainly don't need the intense provocation that torture photos will cause among the Pashtun tribes, which is why, I think, the President has decided to oppose their publication.
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Well then that's okay. Because they certainly won't know about the abuses going on at our prison in Afghanistan.
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But I also believe there were mitigating circumstances. This was right after 9/11. There were 3000 dead. There was anthrax in the air.
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You realize, right, that a lot of these interrogations took place in order to forge a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda to give us a false pretext for invasion. Can you explain to me how that's okay? How that kept us safe?
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And the publication of these photos is far more likely to inflame--and endanger--than inform or illuminate. We don't need to see them, especially now.
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Do you have something more appropriate to get worked up about?

I'm totally with you on this one, Joe. Daily Kos, Andrew Sullivan and other left leaning blogs that I admire and read will never see it any other way but in my gut, I feel that Obama is right.

The fact that these pictures exist and that American lives have been lost as a result of the underlying practices belies any claims that the torture program was effective. I agree that release of these pictures endangers lives. But it is really what they represent that endangers lives.

If Mr. Klein had listened to the hearings today he would understand the paucity of his argument that there were mitigating circumstances or that it is only civil liberties absolutists who see a clear case against the Bush Administration designers of the torture program.

Mr. Klein should stop at his assertion that release of the pictures will endanger lives. Beyond that, he is only indicating that he has neither the time nor the expertise to get at the underlying issues and must rely on advice from his old, discredited friends. Like Pete Hoekstra, maybe?

Joe Klein:
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All the energy devoted to this will result in...what?
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It will hopefully result in it never, ever happening again.
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That's the goal --nothing more, nothing less.

Ah well. When it happens the next time, you can act shocked again and argue against doing anything about it again. Won't that be fun.

It is obvious that the people who opposed the illegal war in Iraq and believe in the rule of law are in the wrong here. After all, it isn't the torturing and war mongering that caused the world to hate America, it is pictures of those acts that are the real problem.

I'd be a lot less worked up about sending Cheney and the rest of the neocons to the dock if they weren't on my television every night attacking Obama and Democrats as terrorist sympathizers. Yet whenever I turn on the television there they are, accusing "liberals" of wanting to let terrorists kill Americans.
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My Dad and Uncle still walk around with Vietcong shrapnel in their bodies. They would kill me if I ever voted for a Republican like Dick Cheney. While my Dad was getting shot, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and the rest of the GOP leadership were sitting the fight out. I'd love to see Cheney tell my Dad he was un-American for voting for Obama. It wouldn't be pretty.
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As long as the drug-addled gas bag and five-time-deferment Cheney are accusing good Americans of being "anti-Americans" and spreading fear, then it is war. No rest and no quarter until Cheney and Bush are investigated and, if found guilty, jailed for any crimes they committed.

Joe, here is my problem with this. Skip aside the whole torture issue. There are millions of poor people in jail right now for crime, including drug usage. We are tough on them. Whenever an administration in Washington is filled with corruption, typically the call from the establishment is to let bygones be bygones.
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I remember James Carville's "touching" letter to just let Scooter Libby go free. This impulse is bi-partisan. Why go after the opposition when they break the law. Heavens! They may go after you when you do the same.
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It's hypocritical and it helps foster the cynical attitude people in this country have towards politics and politicians. The media has gotten too cozy with the people they are covering. A permanent media class is as bad as a permanent political class. How can you suggest that your neighbor needs to go to jail for corruption? His kid and yours are on the same t-ball team for goodness sake. They aren't some low level hoodlum who deserves punishment for lawbreaking.
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It's institutionalized B.S. Joe. I hope you can step aside your box for a second and see it.

As a civil liberties absolutist all I can do is shout at you, so I'll spare you. At least you know where I'm coming from on this.

But I have one more objection to your post: that climate of fear after 9/11 wasn't necessary. It was understandable but it didn't have to be that way and our leaders should have said, "I know we're all freaked out but we're going to follow our laws and abide by our ideals." So no I can't forgive people for looking the other way and maybe I'll never know what it's like to have a position of authority like Pelosi but no, I don't think I'd allow torture if I knew it was happening, not even right after 9/11.

9/11 was a horrible thing but it's not an excuse for everything that followed.

The same people who want to waive the rule of law here are all gung ho to impose the rule of law on Iraq and Afghanistan. This has turned into a two party cover up and justice will only be served outside of those two parties.

Can someone explain to me why every discussion of prosecution includes the phrase "Bush officials" or "Bush administration lawyers"? It's like some mass dementia has taken over the media (including you, Joe) that makes it impossible to ask if we should prosecute GEORGE BUSH himself. Not his lawyers. Not his CIA interrogators. Him.

I have yet to see a single news story that honestly poses this question. If you want to prosecute the lawyers, that's fine with me, but if the goal isn't to get to the top, then it's a waste of time. It would be real shame if only the underlings pay for all of this.

Joe, your rationale for not releasing the pictures is witless. Abu Ghraib and its images have been out there for a good long time. By refusing to release these pictures, Obama is now effectively saying "It was worse than Abu Ghraib". Imagine what AlQaeda can now say: "The Americans use such vile torture that even Obama is afraid to tell the truth". They can then add a list of what was "really" to be seen in those pictures, and enjoy watching as recruits pour in to resist the Torturers.

1. You don't have to be a "civil liberties absolutist" to disagree with Obama's decision. Joe, reflexively painting those with whom you disagree as "absolutists" is unappealing and not persuasive. It's OK to say that reasonable people disagree.
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2. Is it at all possible that finding out the truth (even absent criminal prosecution) would help restore America's reputation and make America safer? Is it at all possible that there are people who are not "absolutists" who just want to make America as safe as possible? The idea that safety is best achieved through force and "dark" means only is the exact reason we're in this mess to begin with.

Anyone? Does anyone else care to mention how the Iraq War was founded on false confessions obtained by torture?

Joe Klein:
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As it is, they have to overcome the disastrous impact of civilian casualties caused by aerial bombing...
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Perhaps then we need to take the necessary step of suppressing video, photos or even reports of such civilian casualties, right?
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Don't you see what this facile logic of yours leads to, Joe Klein? Have you really thought this through in great detail?
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If we accept that the potential harm to our troops in the field is the determiner in our rationale regarding state censorship of information, what truly differentiates such a policy from Cheney's sordid secrecy fetishes?
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How is the Obama position substantially different than, say, Bush/Cheney's position on the release of evidence from Abu Ghraib?

March 29, 2006 | The Bush administration agreed Tuesday to release dozens of disputed photographs and videos of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, two weeks after Salon published an official Army criminal archive that included many, if not all, of the same images.
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The government's decision ends a nearly two-year legal battle with civil liberties advocates over whether the publication of the material would harm national security.

...And does it not trouble you at all that the Obama Administration has done a literal about-face on the issue?

Obama Reverses Position on Release of Photos of Detainee Abuse
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In Reversal, Obama Seeks to Block Abuse Photos
President Barack Obama says the detainee abuse photos he wants to block from release are 'not particularly sensational' but would do not good if publicized.
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By Michael D. Shear and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 13, 2009; 4:58 PM
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President Obama has decided to oppose the release of several dozen photos depicting abuse of detainees held in U.S. military custody abroad, reversing his previous position on the grounds that the pictures could inflame anti-American sentiment and endanger U.S. troops.
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In a brief statement to reporters before flying to Arizona for a speech late this afternoon, Obama said he believes "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. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

Are you truly fine with this, Joe?
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"Not particularly sensational" says our President of the evidence, who then goes on to say that its release will inevitably "put our troops in greater danger"?
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This isn't pure Bushian logic?
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Don't you think that you'd rather not be a knee-jerk apologist for this sort of thing until you really understand what's going on, Joe Klein?

Just so everyone's clear on this:
Obama, at the urging of the pentagon, has been forced to hide the behavior of the Bush administration because acknowledging that behavior would harm the nation's security and endanger our troops in the field.
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For those of you who still don't understand the damage that the republican torture policy caused, here's a concrete example. The generals are saying that acknowledging it would benefit our enemies and harm us. Only people with five draft deferments or a medical deferment for boils on the a$$ seem unable to understand this.

All the energy devoted to this will result in...what? Justice, you say? Well, maybe.
Justice, and deterrence. You know, just like how we prosecute murderers for murdering, rapists for raping, and thieves for stealing. Do we hem and haw about whether justice is truly attained in those situations? No, because the idea is to deter future criminals from committing the same crimes.
So what does it say when we let our nation's leaders get a pass on torture? That we are unwilling to hold people accountable for actions that are illegal and unjustified. Just as in previous expansions of Presidential power that go unchecked, future presidents will point to the Bush Adminstration and say "See? No one will stop us. We can torture all we want." And they'll be right. Laws for the powerless, anarchy for the powerful. Is that what you really want?

OK, I'm done lambasting the likes of Joe Klein and co. I'm done with Cheney & co. too. As if we'd expect anything less of either part of the estab. But now Obama owns this, he's in bed with these f@ckers, complicit with war criminals he was ostensibly running against last year. Cheney attacked, waging what many of us thought was fruitless PR campaign, and Obama blinked. It's as simple as that. Anyone striving to be an Obama apologist at this point, anyone who wants to condemn the media or "neocons" without equal scorn for the current president, well, you're disingenuous at best and plain stupid at worst.
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And as a world citizen first and shamed US citizen a distant second, let me just say we in the rest of the world can't wait to hear more about the US being Winthrop's city upon a hill (of hypocrisy), and we can't f'ing wait to hear pontificating lectures about our lack of human rights.

"I think Dick Cheney...is pretty close to a criminal"
Hey, seriously, what the hell is that supposed to mean?
Release the pictures, lock up the torturers -- anyone who thinks it should be the other way around is seriously f**ked up in the head.

Joe Klein is sliding back into his old ways and has decided that our conquest of the Middle East is too important to be derailed by mere questions of civil liberties. With such a mindset, there will always be mitigating circumstances permitting torture and other war crimes.

Our entire system of justice is based on absolutist ideas called natural law.

"All the energy devoted to this will result in...what?"
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Um, the knowledge by all "literate" Muslims (and whomever they talk to) that we are not a country of easily frightened, lawless, immoral, murderous, torturing, thugs?
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Here's a true north for your spinning moral compass, Joe: doing the right thing usually means also doing the hard thing. But it does have the benefit of leaving you standing on the moral high ground. I'm hoping that you can the utility of that, even if you can't grasp the other merits.

While I strongly disagree with Klein that we should somehow use 9/11 rules as absolution for torture, I also don't entirely see what we gain by the release of additional pictures. Think of them as pictures of a crime scene: how many of them do we really need? I don't see the rationale that somehow releasing more pictures will make torture less likely in the future.

If *no* pictures had been released that would be different, since it is important that some pictures came out. The American people need to know what was done in their name, and those responsible, at whatever level, need to be punished. But I think many people commenting here are getting overwhelmed by their desire for the punishment of those responsible, as if the release of additional pictures would somehow galvanize the public. Maybe I'm too cynical, but I just don't see this.

OTOH, it does seem to me that there is a much greater risk that releasing more pictures will inflame the situation in the Middle East. So if there is little additional to gain and something potentially to lose, on balance I support Obama's decision.

Joe,
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You managed to take a great insight - a lot of the people in the countries we're fighting in can't read, and pictures are a very important means of communication with them - and turn it into a bunch of political claptrap.
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"I oppose torture."
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That's good, because it's like totally a violation of the law, international treaties, and the constitution.
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"But I also believe there were mitigating circumstances."
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Wait. Torture isn't really a gray area issue. Either you're completely against it, or you're for it as an information gathering tool, and to do that effectively you have to torture lots of innocent people. So is your first statement right or your second one? You can't have both.
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"I can understand Nancy Pelosi's impulse to look the other way--if I'd been in a position of authority, I might have acted the same way"
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Ah, now I see. It's morally wrong and everything, unless I'm scared and possibly personally threatened. Then it's ok. That Joe, is pretty much the definition of cowardice.
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Additionally, you kinda WERE in a position of authority as a nationally syndicated reporter and pundit. Does this mean you did look the other way? Is this post some kind of half-a$$ed confession and justification?
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I don't know what you knew or when you knew it. And you have repeatedly and forcefully spoken out against torture. But crap like this really, really makes me wonder. This isn't a political issue. It's a crime. It's a complete rejection of the fourth and eighth amendments. If you're an American dedicated to the preservation of the constitution there are literally only two answers on this. One involves pushing for a constitutional amendment repealing significant parts of the fourth and all of the eighth amendment, the other involves putting everyone involved in jail, regardless of party or power.
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And to address your final point, yes, the case will be exceedingly difficult to make. That doesn't mean we don't try, and try hard. We are AMERICA. WE DO NOT TORTURE.

what really gets me about apologists for torture like Klein is the racism he displays here -- he seems to think that because Afghanis have a low literacy rate, that they're not as smart as Americans, and are more likely to react "emotionally" to pictures of detainees being abused by American personnel. But American are just as, if not more, susceptible to "pictures" -- indeed, political campaigns are all about "images" to the point where actual policy positions no longer matter.
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I'd not mind this "lets not release these pictures" attitude if they were accompanied by the desire to hold those responsible for the atrocities. Indeed, were those pictures disclosed as part of criminal prosecutions, their release might actually do some good (i.e. by releasing them within the context of prosecution, we can send the message that America rejects what is shown in the pictures, and holds even its highest leaders accountable when their actions result in such crimes.)
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as Cliff notes, Afghanis don't need these pictures released to be aware of US war crimes -- and release of the pictures would have very little impact on how the US is perceived (except perhaps among those who have bought US propaganda about how "we don't torture")