I don't buy this excuse about the torture pics for a second.

[JackDragna]

Any objective person who has payed attention to the Middle East for the last 20 years knows our rep is crap there. We have overthrown governments, fought wars and acted like bullies. They hate us for many reasons, many of which are wholly justifiable to any reasonable person. The release of torture pics isn't going to make more people more zealous to any significant degree. The Abu Ghraib pics are already out there: will more really make conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan any more tenuous?

The reason the pics are being suppressed is clear: Obama is bowing to pressure from the right and from the military to avoid a firestorm here over a public that might actually pull its collective head out of its ass and notice its military, and government, is a major threat to world stability.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

1. RE-INSTATE THE DRAFT AND GET THE PROFESSIONAL BULLIES OUT

ONLY GET PROMOTIONS DURING WAR-TIME

[uppityperson]

6. No draft, not ever.

Giving promotions to people forced into servitude is good?

[11 Bravo]

13. Fuck that!

I've got two teen-age sons and I'm not feeding them into anybody's meat grinder. Been there, done that.

[L0oniX]

2. Said the same thing earlier today. Copy cat!

:evilgrin:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5646730&mesg_id=5649775

[Fresh_Start]

3. Must keep US citizens in the dark

so they keep electing one or the other of the two political parties.
Real reform isn't going to happen while we have those two political parties as a duopoly.

[Individualist]

4. Nor do I

The only people being protected by withholding the photos are the Bush/Cheney criminals.

[Prune Belly]

5. Would the torture photos cause a firestorm of outrage?

They're supposed to be milder than the ones taken at Abu Ghraib and we all remember the American public's reaction to Abu Ghraib (something between horror and sexual arousal)

[spanone]

7. if they showed rape and murder, it couldn't be a good thing regardless of our low standing

:shrug:

[JackDragna]

8. The good that could come from it..

..is to force the American public to see the true face of our government in action, what torture really looks like. We must be shocked from our stupor, from our tacit acceptable of impersonal, push-button war, where the dead, maimed and raped are statistics.

[rhett o rick]

10. So what do you suggest? nm

[kristopher]

9. I don't buy it either...

but I think he is just giving the burden of release to the courts. IF HE releases them, it is perceived as a political act. If the court does it, it is confirmed as a legal issue. From what I've seen this is a common strategy he uses to maintain his popularity and in turn, his ability to govern effectively.

If the court turns down the release and he does nothing, we'll know I'm off base.

[madfloridian]

11. Salon has had many Abu Ghraib photos and videos up for ages.

http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/introduction/

"279 photographs and 19 videos from the Army's internal investigation record a harrowing three months of detainee abuse inside the notorious prison -- and make clear that many of those responsible have yet to be held accountable.

Editor's note: On Thursday, the Department of Justice released four memos produced by its Office of Legal Counsel under former President George W. Bush. The so-called "torture" memos provided the Bush administration's legal justification for CIA interrogation methods like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions and "insects placed in a confinement box." In 2006, Salon published the most extensive archive of photos and videos capturing detainee abuse at the U.S. Army's Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, some of it carried out by CIA agents. It's worth noting that when we did so, the Pentagon claimed we were damaging national security by publishing such inflammatory images -- the same argument former Bush admininistration officials are making about Obama's decision to release the memos this week. Shortly after we published "The Abu Ghraib Files," the Pentagon released much of the same material to the ACLU.

The 10 galleries of photos and videos appear chronologically in the left column, followed by an additional Salon report on prosecutions for abuse and an overview of Pentagon investigations and other resources. The nine essays accompanying the photo galleries were reported and written by Michael Scherer and Mark Benjamin. Photo and video captions were compiled by Page Rockwell. Additional research, reporting and writing for "The Abu Ghraib Files" were contributed by Jeanne Carstensen, Mark Follman, Page Rockwell and Tracy Clark-Flory.

By Joan Walsh"

[Wednesdays]

12. K&R

:kick: