Glenn Greenwald reacts to President Obama's decision not to release detainee abuse photos

[Old Hank]

Excerpt:

Think about what Obama's rationale would justify. Obama's claim -- that release of the photographs "would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger" -- means we should conceal or even outright lie about all the bad things we do that might reflect poorly on us. For instance, if an Obama bombing raid slaughters civilians in Afghanistan (as has happened several times already), then, by this reasoning, we ought to lie about what happened and conceal the evidence depicting what was done -- as the Bush administration did -- because release of such evidence would "would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger." Indeed, evidence of our killing civilians in Afghanistan inflames anti-American sentiment far more than these photographs would. Isn't it better to hide the evidence showing the bad things we do?

Apparently, the proper reaction to heinous acts by our political leaders is not to hold them accountable but, instead, to hide evidence of what they did. That's the warped mentality Obama is endorsing today, and has been endorsing since January 20.

Read the rest: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/13/photos/index.html

[Thrill]

1. What a surprise from Greenwald

NOT

[Old Hank]

2. Wow. You sure read his article quickly

World record in speed reading :)

[Thrill]

5. Why would it take more than 2 minutes?

[BlooInBloo]

9. Why, exactly, couldn't he or she have read the article before the DU OP was posted?

Please explain to me how you know that isn't the case.

Thanks!


EDIT: Clarified the question.

[Old Hank]

10. He/she already claimed to have read it in approximately 2 minutes

Thus making your assumption impossible.

[BlooInBloo]

11. Ah - must have been somewhere else...

It's certainly still not impossible, of course, but it does at least make your statement make sense.

[katandmoon]

3. So, is he wrong?

[Old Hank]

4. No

We shouldn't hide the truth simply because it will make our enemy angry. If that were the case we would never know what our leaders are up to.

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

12. No we shouldn't hide the truth. The last time I looked Obama has all

but apologized for all of the atrocious things done by bushco. Maybe there are worse things in these photos then Abu Ghraib, but even so, we already do know that prisoners died as the result of their treatment. I doubt that there is evidence in these photos of much worse things then the things that we already know about.

[Uzybone]

6. Greenwald 2012

he always knows exactly what should be done.

[Zodiak]

7. He's right

I honestly sit in awe at the excuse-making going on over this. There is no excuse to cover up war crimes....none.

[Old Hank]

8. Dan Froomkin (WAPO), Steve Benen (Washington Monthly) and John Avarosis (America blog) weigh in

Froomkin: "Obama joins the cover-up"
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/torture/obama-joins-the-cover-up.html?wprss=rss_blog

Avarosis: The logic is a bit Bushian. The photos don't add anything new to our understanding of the crime, but they're so bad that they'll incite violence against our troops? Uh huh. Yes, because actually witnessing a crime in progress does nothing to shed light on the crime itself. Sure.
http://www.americablog.com/2009/05/obama-reverses-self-on-releasing.html

Benen: "A disappointing White House reversal"..."You can tell when the president makes a bad decision by the number of high-profile Republicans who offer Obama praise."
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_05/018166.php

[Clio the Leo]

13. It's times like this.....

.... that I miss that big red "skip" button or whatever it was that we had last year when could rank all the threads. That system would have been SO much more fun if we had it when we'd left the Land of Campaign Unity Euphoria. :)