The Pentagon originally argued that releasing the images would violate the Geneva Convention rights of the detainees; a supreme irony considering that the US originally denied these very prisoners Geneva Convention protections. The ACLU agreed that the Pentagon could black out "identifying characteristics," but a federal judge in New York ruled last week that DoD must explain publicly why it's concealing the images. "By and large, I ruled for public disclosure," said US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein.
But the article doesn't explain why the argument was rejected.
The judge says he ruled for public disclosure, but it seems to me that there are a thousand other things not being disclosed to the public at this time, so why disclose this? What's so special about this? especially when these pictures are sure to hurt the effort in Iraq?
This notion of the public's "right to know" seems especially weak under the circumstances. It's putting a point of philosophy, one that's full of gray areas and contested boundaries, against the iron-clad fact that this will disrupt things in the middle east, right at this fragile moment when the Iraq constitution is coming together.
Which is the point General Myers makes:
In court proceedings, General Richard Myers argued that releasing the pictures and videos would give aid to the enemy: boosting Al Qaeda recruitment, destabilizing governments in Iraq and Afghanistan and inciting riots throughout the Muslim world.
Which was countered with the dopey argument that, yeah well, that stuff's already happening:
But a number of high-ranking officers and civil libertarians countered by noting that much of what Myers predicts is already occurring on the ground, fueled in large measure by past and present US behavior. "The attacks will continue regardless of whether the photos and tapes are released," testified former US Army Colonel Michael Pheneger. Myers, he said, "mistakes propaganda for motivation."
For some reason the thought that the new pictures might make things worse never occurs to these people. And this Colonel Pheneger, when he says Myers "mistakes propaganda for motivation", forgets that the main purpose of propaganda is to motivate.
Outside of this, the only arguments I see in the article in favor of releasing the images are 1) the fuzzy notion of freedom of information and public awareness, 2) that it's "ironic" that the Pentagon would make an argument based on the GC to against releasing photos that show GC violations, 3) that if the Congress sees the pictures, the public should see the pictures
"...Bad enough to show to Congress apparently, but not the American people..."
and 4)
Far from endangering American national security, the release of the horrific images could provide new impetus to the stalled Congressional investigations into prisoner abuse, and the Pentagon's failure to hold any high-ranking officers accountable for Abu Ghraib. An independent counsel with subpoena power is what's needed most right now to prevent images like these in the future.
which = Get Bush! of course (and isn't that last sentence about "preventing images like these in the future" just the kind of tendentious crapola that the Left seems to specialize in these days?).
But I don't seen how any of these reasonably outweigh the fact that releasing the images would hurt the various efforts we're making in the middle east.
Thanks for the summary. I'm glad to see that these issues were at least vetted.