Perhaps transparency isn’t always morally superior to keeping some things private.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan has just ruled that the U.S. government can keep pictures of detainee abuse secret while it asks the Supreme Court to permanently block release of the photographs on the grounds they could incite violence in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. The one-paragraph ruling by the came after the Obama administration asked the court to keep the pictures secret so it could appeal to the nation’s highest court.
The ACLU and others whose moral compass is almost always pointed in the right direction, continues to call for the release of the photos of torture at Guantanamo because, says Anthony Romero, ACLU Director,
“– as painful as it is — confronting the evidence of what was done is essential if we are to live by the law…. And, no matter how hard some might try to turn us away from the facts, we also have no right to ignore the rule of law. We have to call to account those who did this and follow the evidence wherever it leads.”
But it is not necessary for the public to view photographic evidence of US personnel engaged in torture in order for the government to identify the participants, find out precisely what was going on in these “enhanced interrogations,” and to bring criminal charges against these individuals and their commanders, if it is warranted. And should there be criminal prosecutions, these photographs will no doubt be introduced as evidence.
Still, I believe that President Obama is once again demonstrating a level of wisdom that transcends politics. In declining to release these images, he is simultaneously declining to reduce them to a level of “sensationalism” perhaps lower than that we see practiced by The Enquirer and similar unsavory publications. Considering that there are reports of sexual abuse involving both men and women within the documentation, the President’s insistence on keeping much of it from the eyes of the public appears even wiser than may have first appeared.
The behavior of interrogators at Guantanamo surely degrades American principles and law. But our President apparently realizes that releasing images of the physical and psychological violence perpetrated on these prisoners, some of whom were guilty of nothing whatsoever, is also degrading. It further degrades the prisoners, which serves no useful service, it degrades US personnel (many of whom were no doubt repulsed by what they were being commanded to do); and it degrades the human spirit of each of us.
Romero concluded a recent letter to ACLU supporters, with this:
“But, the real heartbreak — the real betrayal of our values and principles — would come if we denied our moral and legal responsibility to bring to account those who involved our country in torture so horrid that we hesitate to even look it in the eye.”
No one is suggesting that we should “compromise our values and principles,” Perhaps Mr. Romero and others who are so eager to criticize our President might recognize that when torture is so horrid that we hesitate to “look it in the eye,” photographs of it should not be seen – on moral principle alone.
(Crossposted to robertamorris.wordpress.com)