Obama, Bush, and the Politics of Torture

By Ken Theisen

On May 13^th the Obama administration announced a reversal of its pledge to make public photos depicting “detainee abuse” by U.S. personnel overseas. In plain English, Obama is continuing the Bush Regime coverup of U.S. torture. And it will continue the Bush Regime policy of torture.

The Department of Defense (DOD) had previously told a federal judge that it would release a "substantial number" of photos in response to a court ruling in an American Civil Liberties Union Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.  With this latest decision the Obama administration is continuing its minimization of the crimes of torture committed by the U.S. government and it agents.

Obama told reporters "that the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

Here’s one key truth Obama is fully aware of, and is lying about: torture was official U.S. government policy, not the act of a “few individuals”.  Beginning in 2002 and continuing into 2005, high-level government officials discussed the details of torture within the White House situation room.  These officials included VP Cheney, National Security Advisor Rice, Secretary of State Powell, DOD Secretary Rumfeld, Attorney General Ashcroft, Bush legal advisor Gonzales, CIA Director Tenet, and others.  They discussed which tortures would be allowed to be used by government paid torturers. President Bush admitted that he knew of and approved these discussions.  They set government policy that then resulted in the torture of thousands of prisoners in the U.S. war of terror. 

And now Obama pretends as if torture was the act of a “small number of individuals.”  That is BS.  What you are trying to cover up is systematic abuse ordered from the top of the Bush regime.  But that is not surprising.

Obama and his Attorney General have already announced that they will not go after the men who conducted the torture.  It is also likely they will not try to prosecute those listed above who ordered the torture.  Obama in his latest announcement stated the photo release could result in "a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse." One thing he wants is that anyone who from this day forward falls into the clutches of the armed forces or spy organizations of the U.S. fears that he too will face waterboarding, being torn apart by snarling dogs, electrodes attached to his genitals, and other forms of “interrogation” mastered

But what he is really afraid of is releasing mass outrage at what the U.S. government has done in its war of terror.  The photos of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib made people throughout the world realize the true nature of the U.S. war in Iraq.  These latest photos will show that the abuses were not confined to that nation and that the abuses did not end back then.

Obama stated that "Any abuse of detainees is unacceptable. It is against our values. It endangers our security. It will not be tolerated." But by covering up abuse he will allow it to continue.  Remember the old saying a picture is worth a thousand words.  Obama can say all he wants about American values, but the pictures depict the real values of American imperialism and that is why Obama wishes to suppress them.

This is also not an off the cuff decision by the Obama administration. Last week Obama met with his attorneys. Like in past cases where the national security state feared revealing its secrets, the Obama legal team has repeatedly gone to court to protect the dirty secrets of the U.S.  According to the Washington Post Obama told the lawyers that “he believes that the national security implications of such a (photo) release have not been fully presented to the court.”  He then directed the attorneys to fight the release of the photos.

On May 13^th the Department of Justice sent a letter to the Judge informing the court of the Obama reversal. (See http://www.aclu.org/ for a copy of the letter.)

In response to the reversal Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU stated, "The Obama administration’s adoption of the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration flies in the face of the president’s stated desire to restore the rule of law, to revive our moral standing in the world and to lead a transparent government. This decision is particularly disturbing given the Justice Department’s failure to initiate a criminal investigation of torture crimes under the Bush administration.”

"It is true that these photos would be disturbing; the day we are no longer disturbed by such repugnant acts would be a sad one. In America, every fact and document gets known – whether now or years from now. And when these photos do see the light of day, the outrage will focus not only on the commission of torture by the Bush administration but on the Obama administration’s complicity in covering them up. Any outrage related to these photos should be due not to their release but to the very crimes depicted in them. Only by looking squarely in the mirror, acknowledging the crimes of the past and achieving accountability can we move forward and ensure that these atrocities are not repeated.

A point worth thinking about: a core argument of Obama’s Department of Justice against releasing the photos was that doing so would violate the prisoners’ “Geneva Convention protections”. Apparantly a new found government interest in the rights of the countless people tormented and persecuted by the U.S. government and its armed forces over the past 7 years doesn’t recognize that the torture itself was and is, among many other things, a contemptible violation of “Geneva Convention protections”.

Obama’s opposition to releasing these photos is a declaration that his administration is commited to continuing the wars of terror and torture initiated in the Bush years. He is fighting to cover up the monstrous crimes of the Bush years. He is doing this so that the same basic path of unjust, murderous war – and its inevitable accompaniment, torture – systematic, cold-blooded, carefully calibrated torture, will continue in the interest of expanding and fortifying the blood soaked U.S. empire.

The question remains – what are we going to do about this.  Get with World Can’t Wait on May 28th, organize protests in your own city or town or country hamlet on May 28th, let the world know we won’t stop until the war criminals face justice, and until the unjust wars and the torture stop.