When war crimes are provocative and when they are not
by digby
Per Greenwald, the Obama administration has filed a request for an emergency stay to keep the court from making the government reveal photos of torture and atrocities which they say will endanger America’s national security if people see what we have done. How convenient.
But for some reason it’s ok for the former Vice President to go around patting himself on the back for ordering torture and calling it a “no brainer.” It’s fine for former top level CIA officials to appear on camera and defend the use of torture by saying “it’s war, bad things happen in war” and make ridiculous comments like:
“The CIA faced a real dilemma here. On the one hand, we knew this program would be contentious. On the other hand, we asked ourselves, wouldn’t it be equally immoral if we failed to get this information and thousands of Americans died?”
These people are all over the media bragging about torture and declaring that they’d do it again. Evidently, this is not considered to be provocative or possibly motivate our enemies to attack us. These photos, on the other hand, will do that and must be suppressed.
The ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer said of the government’s arguments over the photos:
To allow the government to suppress any image that might provoke someone, somewhere, to violence would be to give the government sweeping power to suppress evidence of its own agents’ misconduct. Giving the government that kind of censorial power would have implications far beyond this specific context.
Basically, the US government is saying that it has a moral obligation to do anything it chooses and by any means it deems necessary to carry out its mission to defend the nation. If that means suppressing evidence of US wrongdoing because it might provoke our enemies, then that’s what it will do. If it means torturing people that’s what it will do. To hell with all that constitutional mumbo jumbo — if they want people to have free speech, they will have it. If they don’t, they won’t. There is no consistency. It’s random and depends upon whose ox is being gored on a particular day. Might makes right.
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