President Obama Does a 180 on Releasing More Detainee Abuse Photos
By Anita Finlay ("Ani") on May 14, 2009 at 7:45 PM in Backtrack Obama, Barack Obama, Current Affairs, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Obama's Broken Promises
According to Jake Tapper at ABC News:
President Obama met with White House counsel Greg Craig and other members of the White House counsel team last week and told them that he had second thoughts about the decision to hand over photographs of detainee abuse to the ACLU, per a judge’s order, and had changed his mind.
The president “believes their release would endanger our troops,” a White House official says, adding that the president “believes that the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court.”
At the end of that meeting, the president directed Craig to object to the immediate release of the photos on those grounds. In an Oval Office meeting with Iraq Commander General Ray Odierno, the president told him of his decision to argue against the release of the photographs.
The move is a complete 180. In a letter from the Justice Department to a federal judge on April 23, the Obama administration announced that the Pentagon would turn over 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration.
The photographs are part of a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU for all information relating to the treatment of detainees — the same battle that led to President Obama’s decision to release memos from the Bush Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel providing legal justifications for brutal interrogation methods, many of which the International Committee of the Red Cross calls torture.
Apparently, ACLU attorney Amrit Singh is none too happy about this:
“The reversal is another indication of a continuance of the Bush administration policies under the Obama administration. President Obama’s promise of accountability is meaningless, this is inconsistent with his promise of transparency, it violates the government’s commitment to the court. People need to examine these abusive photographs, but also the government officials need to be held accountable.”
As Tapper correctly points out, the argument that the release of these photos would pose a national security risk for US troops is the same one President Bush used. What I find troubling is that this is the same argument Conservatives have been making all over the place for the past month and now President Obama is coming to the same conclusion.
The can of worms he has opened is very troubling. While I know opinions are hot on both sides as to what constitutes torture and whether we were acting appropriately or unjustly, if you are going to show the crime, i.e., these photos, then do you not have an obligation to follow through all the way to the end of the line and exact a punishment? Clearly, President Obama is not going to do that because some Democrats would have to go down with this ship of torture as well. Without further action or prosecution going hand in hand with the release of these pictures, would they not, in fact, do more harm than good and be inflammatory? How appropriate is it then to use these photos solely as a political tool to further demonize the prior administration, when clearly there were Democrats who knew about it and kept quiet.
Tapper notes:
Yesterday White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about a letter from Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Ind., and Lindsey Graham, R-SC, asking him to reverse the decision, saying the “release of these old photographs of past behavior that has now been clearly prohibited can serve no public good, but will empower al-Qaeda propaganda operations, hurt our country’s image, and endanger our men and women in uniform.”
Gibbs said “obviously, the president has, has great concern about any impact that pictures of detainee — potential detainee abuse in the past could have on the present-day service members that are protecting our freedom either in Iraq, Afghanistan, or throughout the world. That’s something the president is very cognizant of. And we are working to — we are working currently to figure out what the process is moving forward.”
Certainly Senator McCain made the same argument in various TV interviews over the past month, and he is clearly against torture. Here is the statement, finally, from the Obama administration:
“Through his actions from the first days of his administration, the president has made it clear that the United States will hold itself and all the men and women who serve our country to the highest standards of conduct,” a White House official says. “The president would be the last to excuse the actions depicted in these photos… But the president strongly believes that the release of these photos, particularly at this time, would only serve the purpose of inflaming the theaters of war, jeopardizing U.S. forces, and making our job more difficult in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Unfortunately, this kind of late out of the gate reversal in course is very similar to his response to Russia’s attack on Ossetia, Georgia last summer. Both Hillary and McCain called the situation correctly, yet then-Senator Obama needed to consult with his policy advisors over a weekend and issue four consecutive statements, each stronger than the last, until he finally caught up with the gravity of Putin’s attack. The same has been true with the back and forth regarding Gitmo and what to do with the prisoners incarcerated there.
I can only hope from this day forward, President Obama takes a moment to see the entire chess board before making any more such decrees. That is more important than pleasing a certain constituency, or governing based on polling samples, and then having to retrace his steps when the unintended consequences of his actions outweigh the benefits of taking them in the first place. Knee jerk reactions do not reflect wise leadership. Being Commander in Chief means you are President even of those who did not vote for you. It cannot be about a popularity contest, or, unfortunately, about a particular ideal which may work well in a vacuum, but does not take into account the current realities on the ground.
Beyond taking issue with his latest decision on this matter, I am more concerned with his indecision and growing number of flip flops on important policy. The world is watching.
by Ronald Scott
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