War Handwavium

Once again, Glenn Greenwald nails it.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/09/transparency/index.html

The Bush and Obama administrations both argued that we need to keep information secret, not because it qualified as a state secret, but because it was information that our government had act so horribly that our enemies would rise up and kill Americans.

Consider if during the Vietnam War that the Mai Lai incident was kept secret on these grounds. An evil act by American soldiers, suppressed because of the “hearts and minds” it would lose.

The only problem with this is that if we follow it to it’s logical conclusion, then the worse Americans act, the more the government will want the power to supress and hide the truth. The more brutal we act, the more silence we will desire.

There is no use in a government that is transparent about things everyone agrees about but hides its torture and imprisonment without due process of innocent people. It’s like saying freedom of speech is reserved for people who agree with the government, reserved for popular opinions.

The worse our government acts, the more we need Freedom of Information, the more we need transparency.