Breaking - White House to delay release of torture photos.

Military requests because of concern of inflamed passions in ME.

No official announcement yet...

It's the abuse & torture

and I assure everyone, people in the ME already know what those abuses are...

the only thing being kept safe by delaying their release are the lies some Americans tell themselves.

Release the photos...

was going on inside.

The only people being kept in the dark is the American people.

release the damned things.

They really mean the USA.

How could that have happened? :eyes:

If what America did was so damn great we should be broadcasting it from all corners of the globe...According to Cheney and the Republicans we saved hundreds of thousand of lives. Let it be shown how we did this. Cheney once said "it is better to be feared than loved" and then went about trying to prove it..

Enough people are creating such a fuss about these photos being harmful -- they're making more and more people in the States (the other countries already know) aware that there ARE more horrible photos and graphic evidence.

When they DON'T come out officially, people will be more and more curious about what exactly is in those photos. Maybe the media will get curious (*gasp*) and (*gasp again*) investigate.

They'll demand to know more about what happened during these "torture" sessions.

Then maybe people can learn about the rape and sodomy that was part of the "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Come on Seymour Hersh, your time is coming to blow the lid off of this thing.

People don't even need to SEE evidence of the rape and sodomy. Just get the truth out there and then instead of the right-wingers saying, "I'd torture the enemy to save my country!"...they can say, "I'd sodomize a 15-year-old boy to save my country!"

I guess they'll have to go to court to stop them since they were released by court order.

Sorry, but still no link that I can find...

I agree with everyone - release them! It's yet another GOP tactic - photos of bad acts are somehow worse than the acts themselves. Ridiculous!

Are they still in the White House that is seeking to block the photos?

:crazy:

But I think this adminstration is buying into the tactic that the photos will cause problems rather than what's in the photos being the problem.

Maybe they don't want to stir the pot regardless of the details. But, ignoring what happened makes us part of the problem.

I was actually addressing post 11 with my "Of course not."

:hi:

It's kind of amazing the contortions people will put themselves through to find a way to keep Obama as pristine as possible vs. admitting that in the end he's just another politician.

It's about playing them - as in playing the media like a fiddle!

The right has always been very good at doing this and the lazy, corporate owned media is easily led.

I disagree with the Obama administration on this, but I also disagree that he's "just another politician". I'm not that cynical about everyone just yet.

Quack

not the process of bringing the guilty to justice by bringing the truth to light. Covering it up will not make what happened vanish from the minds of the Middle East or the rest of the world.

I think the pictures should be released, because it'll slam the door shut on the torture "debate." I can't imagine even scumbags like Gaffney or Rivkin arguing for child rape. On the other hand, proof of something like that will change our reputation forever. We'll be worse than the Soviets or Chinese in the world's eyes. Even in my own eyes.

off due to Obama's trip to Egypt.

That should pretty much tell us everything we need to know.

Some court, somewhere in the world, will want to see these pictures. Obama knows this.

I think he's playing this just right. He will be forced to release the photos by a judge. If the shit then hits the fan, oh well.

Wait until the very last moment, then move to delay. Rinse and repeat. They could drag this out for years, even if the cause is doomed to fail.

(deniability) from the release. If he makes a show of preventing the release he can respond to republican criticism by saying he tried to prevent the release, but this is not a dictatorship so he cannot overrule the courts.

I can't say for sure what his motives are because I can't get inside his mind. He is an astute politician and such a move would make sense in the context of distancing himself from this politically dangerous investigation, but allowing it to go forward anyway.

He did say that he wouldn't prosecute those CIA torturers who stayed within the guidelines, but he didn't say the DoJ wouldn't. He didn't grant amnesty to the torturers. He can't tell the DoJ who to prosecute or who not to prosecute. Unless he grants amnesty for the torturers, they are still in legal jeopardy. Foreign courts can go after all of them.

He's certainly a canny politician and he's made a few moves to date that would fit with that. That is to say, he's allowed the issue to advance without actually touching it himself.

he says. It could not be a good time to inflame passions in the Arab world. Of course it never is, but the situation in Pakistan and his upcoming address in Egypt could be part of it.

Timing is everything. It could be that the release of the images could overshadow other upcoming revelations. Right now Cheney is making the case for Obama, releasing the images could damage that. It could also be that he wants the evidence revealed in a certain order.

Not when it's so easy to kneejerk on the "President Obama is just like bush bandwagon".

"starry-eyed fan club" bandwagon. Enjoy the ride-- it often ends badly.

it 'cause it never ends well.