The US has a bunch of photos of prisoners held by Americans being tortured. The Bush administration and now the Obama administration are arguing that these photos cannot be released because they will create international backlash and cause terrorists to attack Americans.
Let’s assume for the moment, that this backlash argument is true. Let’s assume that these photos are never released. Let’s assume that the American Government is able to torture prisoners for years, including killing at least 100 of them, and are never prosecuted for those crimes.
Are we saying that these Americans who authorized, ordered, and executed the torturing of prisoners have learned their lessons? That they’ll never do it again? Are we saying that the US Government will never again overstep its bounds?
Because if the government did NOT learn it’s lesson, if the people who authorized, ordered, and executed the torture of prisoners are simply waiting to torture again, then doesn’t that mean there could be another torture incident? Maybe more photographs that will have to be suppressed because it will create an international backlash that could kill Americans?
Obama is currently working on a way transfer prisoners from Guantanamo but keeping them in a due-process-free zone identical to Guantanamo. He’s working on a way to imprison people without due process, who have not committed a crime, indefinitely and without recourse to law.
We still have massive domestic spying going on. We still have a massive chunk of rights ripped up and thrown to the ground.
And now Obama is looking to ramp up the military presence in Afghanistan, from 30,000 troops when he got into office to 120,000 by the end of his first year in office.
This is the same Afghanistan where CIA predator drones have repeatedly killed Afghan civilians, Afghan civilians at wedding parties. This is the same Afghanistan where Afghan General Abdul Rashid Dostum working with our military and paid by the CIA committed a massive attrocity of killing some 2,000 prisoners by suffocating them in container trucks.
Are we really saying that the US government will stop committing attrocities that will create international backlash? Are we really saying that these torture photos are the only ones we have to worry about?
If backlash is the true concern here, then the long view is that we must make sure that these incidents stop. Because if the US government continues to violate humanitarian laws and cause incidents that generate international backlash that threatens American lives, then we’re in for serious trouble in the long term.
And how do we make sure the US government does NOT commit more attrocities in the future? How do we prevent more backlash in the future? We have been given two options: (A) Bury the evidence or (B) Air the evidence and prosecute those who violated the law.
If we bury the evidence, that may reduce the backlash from that one particular incident. But it enboldens the government to continue its behaviour of law breaking. And if the US government continues to break humanitarian law in the future, then that can do nothing but create far more backlash than any single incident.
The alternative is to release the evidence and prosecute the law breakers. Make it known to future Americans that using the government’s power to commit attrocities will not be tolerated.
The “we must keep the photos secret to prevent international backlash and protect American lives” only works if you are short-sighted. It only works if you think the American Government has somehow “Learned its lesson”.
Tell me, has Dick Cheney learned his lesson? Has he had a change of heart? Has he shown regret and remorse for his hand in the torture of thousands of prisoners for years, many of whom were innocent?
I don’t think so.
In fact, it seems fairly apparent that Dick Cheney is trying to exert influence on the US government to get it to continue his lawless and inhumane methods. And Cheney isn’t the only one, just the most visible and the most cranky.
If we want to prevent international backlash and protect American lives, then we must think of the long-view of American behavior. Covering up this one attrocity and letting the criminals get away with breaking the law will only enable and encourage more law-breaking in the future, creating more attrocities, and creating more international backlash, endangering more lives.
If the Government were truly interested in saving American lives, they would publish all the photos and prosecute those who broke international law.
But the government isn’t interested in that at all. It’s interested in maintaining its power. Obama is interested in his own agenda and doesn’t want prosecutions to be a distraction. He wants to get reelected in 2012. Much lower on his priority is protecting American lives. And the neo-conservatives don’t give a damn about anything but themselves and their power. Like Cheney, they want to continue exerting their power and want nothing to be a restraint on their power, including an American public that would be aghast by their behaviour if it were revealed in the photos of their crimes.
Release the photos. Prosecute those who violated international law. Protect American lives.
