The Torture Secrets Are Coming

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/10/20/torture-secrets-are-coming
Published on
Monday, October 20, 2014
by Blog of Rights / ACLU
by Marcellene Hearn

Once you've seen the Abu Ghraib photos, they're not easily forgotten.

The hooded man, the electrodes, the naked bodies piled upon each other, and the grinning soldier with a thumbs up. The images are the stuff of nightmares. They're also incontrovertible evidence that our government engaged in torture, and their publication sparked a national conversation that helped end the Bush administration's torture program.

Nevertheless, the Obama administration is still fighting to keep the full truth about torture – including photos the public hasn't yet seen – from the American people. But recently the courts and the Senate have been pushing back, resisting the government's claims that it can't reveal its torture secrets. As a result, those secrets may finally be dragged into the light.

The government is holding back as many as 2,100 never-released images from Abu Ghraib and other detention centers overseas. The ACLU first sued for their release 10 years ago, and in August, District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled that the government must publish the photos unless it can defend withholding them on an individualized basis.

Tomorrow the government will appear in court and tell Judge Hellerstein and the ACLU what it plans to do.

The government based its suppression on a 2009 statute, enacted after the ACLU won the release of the images in the trial and appeals courts, that permits the secretary of defense to withhold an image for up to three years if the secretary certifies that its release would endanger Americans. In 2012, then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued a half-page certification for the entire collection, of more than 2,000 images.

..more..

[Thinkingabout]

1. First let me say I do not like the torture but to want to view pictures of

Torture is in itself a little sick. I can not see where it would serve any purpose to release the pictures and again another project by ACLU of which I do not agree, surely there are many areas where there could be lots of benefits.

[vi5]

2. People don't want to view it for joy or pleasure...

The ACLU believes that the full scope of what was done in our name needs to be seen by people so that we can work towards it never happening again.

The threshold of what the American people will put up with in the name of fighting terror has already had its boundaries pushed too far, and unfortunately there is a need to shock them back in to reality, otherwise they will continue to be o.k. with this.

[Thinkingabout]

5. Are you saying the full scope can not be realized and stopped from happening

Without these pictures being released? I would think there are those intelligent enough to di the necessary steps of prevention without seeing pictures.

[vi5]

6. You don't have to see them yourself if they disturb you.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't be released or public record. These acts were done in our name.

And yest there are some intelligent enough to do the necessary steps without seeing the pictures. But sadly, not enough people. There are many who do not want to confront things being done in the name of "freedom" or whatever without being made to look at it first hand.

[Enthusiast]

14. PLUS ONE, a huge bunch!

[Thinkingabout]

19. It disturbs me to see the retaliation by radical groups when they conceive wrong has occurred,

We do not have assurance there will not be any retaliation when these pictures are released, to continue to rub salt in a wound does nothing to encourage healing of a very bad time in our history.
Ergo to continue to keep these bad events on the fore front is not good. Is there going to be action taken against the guilty, doubtful but with ACLU to give so much attention to something which is not going to be acted on when there are so many issues such as violence against women and children right here in the US and other countries is a waste of manpower. Raise hell about the voter ID laws, this would fall under the civil liberties umbrella.

[Marr]

21. Covering it up doesn't do anything to 'heal' it either.

In fact, it only makes a repeat of the same sorts of abuses more likely.

[Thinkingabout]

31. I know about the torture, many others knows about the torture, don't think it was covered up, even

Dick Cheney talked about the torture.

[Orsino]

7. And the Powers That Be want them hidden...

...because the photos will undermine our Eternal War over there.

[gratuitous]

8. Yep

It would put the lie to "they hate us for our freedom" and "they're just a bunch of bloodthirsty savages." There's a reason that some people harbor murderous fury toward the United States. But it's so much more profitable for certain folks to peddle the notion that the exceptionally exceptional United States is the target of their hatred because we're just so gosh darn exceptional, and our enemies need to be "destroyed." In the name of justice, of course.

[Enthusiast]

13. PLUS ONE, a huge bunch!

[Bandit]

3. Remember the "Outrage" of Senator Inhofe over the nation's Outrage about torture

"I am Outraged over the Outrage" as he pounded on the podium. He spoke for most Republicans at that time. They simply love the idea of America demonstrating it's superior strength by torturing helpless individuals.. They love it..

[gratuitous]

4. I paid for it, let me see it

It's a sure bet that the details (if not the actual evidence, like these photos) are out in the public domain among people who have a grudge against the United States. It certainly seems like they might have some justification for their antipathy. And what are we doing about it? Trying to sweep it under the rug. Will that make these people more hostile or less hostile toward us? I'd bet on more hostile.

By suppressing this evidence and keeping it from the American people, the administration does a grave (npi) disservice to its citizens, and becomes an active aider and abettor of the original crimes against humanity. The people who will get the blowback from this will not be the perpetrators or the people who sent them out, but we the people.

[Solly Mack]

10. Too true.

The people who will get the blowback from this will not be the perpetrators or the people who sent them out, but we the people.

[Solly Mack]

9. K&R

Some background

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5743957

[G_j]

11. Thank you!

[Solly Mack]

15. I haven't forgotten.

You're welcome!

[Enthusiast]

12. When I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s we knew only the bad guys tortured.

The bad guys were the Imperial Japanese, The Nazis and the Russian and Eastern European Communists.

Now, because of the lawlessness of the Bush-Cheney regime, we can no longer claim the moral high ground. Now we are the bad guys too. All because of a group of Far Right criminals that stole an election.

[CJCRANE]

16. Let the sunlight in

to the dark corners.

[madokie]

17. I don't see how releasing the photos will help anything

in fact I see it as a shit stirrer that will cause more harm than good. We've/Obama stopped the torture so what is to be gained by this?

[G_j]

18. I think a public record is important, these were crimes

AND, the perps. have not been prosecuted.

[LeftyMom]

20. The perpetrators WERE NOT PROSECUTED.

Let's not give Obama an unearned gold star just because he decided to drone strike people rather than capturing them, because the latter is politically messy. That's not an improvement.

[madokie]

22. Do you really think that dragging those photos out

will cause any positive movement towards the bush/cheney cabal of war criminals being held accountable? I don't
If Obama even tries to hold them accountable there will be a public hanging and it won't be the war criminals being hanged. You forget or maybe not, that Obama is a black man and if he tries to do anything about any of this he will be seen as an angry black man and the results of that won't be pretty. We are very much a racist country yet and that is a fact.

[LeftyMom]

24. If those images are half as bad as I expect, I think you'd be surprised.

But no, I don't expect Bush or Cheney to be prosecuted (though I do think their international travel options would become VERY limited, not that they care.) I do think people in the DOD and CIA can and should be, and a lot more careers can and should be ruined.

More importantly, I don't think we're going to reestablish the rule of law until that happens.

Obama doesn't need to be re-elected and the Secret Service exists. Don't make stupid excuses for his inaction.

[madokie]

25. Look, I'm not making any stupid excuses for anyone about anything

I stated facts as I see it

[hootinholler]

26. Do you really believe that torture has stopped?

I certainly don't and I still want them held accountable.

[madokie]

27. I'd like to see them held accountable too

and yes I do think that torture has ceased

I know I would be beside myself if this was all happening when I was in Vietnam
I spent a tour of duty at the Navy S.E.R.E. training camp teaching the people in my war who were the most likely to be tortured if they were captured. I'm not at liberty to disclose what all we did in preparing them for that if it was to happen but I'm here to tell you I know what torture is

[hootinholler]

28. Yeah I thought that was a VN campaign ribbon...

We didn't go into Cambodia either, right?

Funny, but all the seadaddies I knew when I was in (78-83) acknowledged the use of torture in that war. The difference being that most of it was somewhat prosecuted.

The international community disagrees with you on the torture has stopped thing. The players in the intel community have not changed. Hell they've played a few rounds of musical chairs, but they haven't been fired, or otherwise disciplined. Even the ones who destroyed those pesky recordings after the court ordered preservation was issued.

[madokie]

30. I spent 15 months in VN

june of 69 to october of 70 with a 30 day free leave back home in there. I was there when nixon/kissinger went into Cambodia. I knew it when it was happening not something I became aware of later.
I'm not aware of the international community saying that we're still torturing. Thats news to me, sorry

Interrogation is not torture. We taught the difference between the two in S.E.R.E. training. I am aware that interrogation is still going on though.

[JEB]

23. To get well, you first have to admit you have a problem.

This is not something you can just dismiss and forget. Dirt swept under a rug is still dirt.

[PAProgressive28]

29. It won't change much

I have heard so many people praise what we've done because the Muslims are "savages" or "animals." They love stuff like Abu Ghraib. It will only motivate their anti-Muslim attacks.

[Solly Mack]

32. ...

[flamingdem]

33. Isis will go to town

With those photos, a propaganda coup x1000

[G_j]

34. the evidence needs to be public

especially since the criminals behind the crimes are getting paid to offer their commentary all over the airwaves.
Justice is justice.