Posted on 05/12/2009 9:31:18 AM PDT by Sergeant Tim
If President Obama wanted to refrain from releasing these photos in order to protect the military forces he commands or promote the security of Americans — his two highest obligations as president — he could do so by simply issuing an executive order. The applicable statute expressly allows for it, just as it provides for Congress — now in the firm control of the president and his party — to withhold the photos from disclosure. Instead, Obama and congressional Democrats are choosing to release the photos.
They are making that choice fully aware that it will cost lives. It is a sedulous Democrat talking-point, repeated most recently by Carl Levin, the Senate Armed Services chairman and a key Obama ally, that the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib inspired new terrorist recruits, caused American combat casualties, and made the United States more vulnerable to terrorist attack. This has long been Obama’s own position. It is a charge he made throughout the 2008 campaign, and it is one he repeated just a month ago in his Strasbourg speech: “When we saw what happened in Abu Ghraib, that wasn’t good for our security — that was a recruitment tool for terrorism. Humiliating people is never a good strategy to battle terrorism.”
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
It will be great to see these photos...wait, wrong thread. I thought this was the photos of the joy-ride around NYC...
NO!!! DON’T DO IT!!! NOT THE HELEN THOMAS NUDE PHOTOS!!! YOU’LL IMPERIL THE NATION. PEOPLE WILL GO BLIND!!!
Okay, so we can release photos of prisoners being interrogated.
But not photos from inside presidential plane flown over Manhattan?
Smells fishy.
In the spirit of openness, I’m sure he’ll release his birth certificate as well.
Had it been marked as an editorial, I would have seen it.
That is why Obama and Pelosi favor this evil act. If they can trade a few hundred (or even thousand) more dead soldiers for another chance to blame Bush, they consider it a great deal. They don't like our military anyways, not when soldiers are just potential terrorists, and they love energizing the CodePink/MoveOn Hate-America-First wing of their party.
And I assumed you werethinking of Miss California.
Woulda helped if it wasn’t in chat, too...
My title search must have been just a minute or two before the other post went up. Then I made a last check in the editorial section. I tried.
Before he is done I fully expect him to release the names, addresses and phone numbers of anyone anywhere in the world who has ever provided any information to agency workers.
The damage to US intel will last multiple generations.
Happens to me all the time.
The Obama administration DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE USA or the safety of its citizens as long as they can score political points with other liberals and socialists.
This is being done for only one reason - to cut the legs from the US Military and discredit the prestige of American Military power and integrity.
So many good 0bama talking points will extend from that:
- the US is a more civilized country
- we aren’t war mongers any more
- this is an example of what the world gets when a liberal Democrat is not in command of the US forces
- etc.
Some will say that the president won’t do that because he does not want to anger the anti-war Left, a significant part of his base. In truth, the president is the anti-war Left. He won’t issue an executive order of this kind because he wants the photos revealed. It is important to understand that disclosure here is not an inevitable outcome. It is a choice. It doesn’t have to happen unless Obama wants it to happen.
The same can be said of the Democratic Congress. The Second Circuit ruling that Holder chose not to appeal did not say the Constitution mandated public dissemination of photos that will imperil Americans. It said FOIA required it. FOIA is just a statute. Congress writes the statutes and it can amend the statutes. Democrats control both houses, as well as the White House. If they wanted to bar disclosure of the photos, they could do that tomorrow. And with the overwhelming support they’d get from Republicans, they could do it with veto-proof margins. But legislative override would likely be irrelevant: Obama wouldn’t dare veto a non-disclosure bill — he wants disclosure, but only if he can snooker people into believing it wasn’t his choice.
And we can’t release photos of the 3,000 dead from 9-11. Because that too would rile up the citizens.
That is a dereliction of duty as Commander in Chief.
Okay, so we can release photos of prisoners being interrogated.
But not photos from inside presidential plane flown over Manhattan?”
Were there not photos from 9-11 that were not released to the public because they were too gruesome?
We saw pics of people jumping out of burning towers, but I surely do not recall pics of the splattered remains on the sidewalks and streets. Did I miss something-—or was SOME SORT of DISCRETION practiced?
How long will it take for the voters who folled NObama like the Pied Piper to realize that he does NOT have the best interests of this country at heart???
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