Thursday, May 28, 2009

Release the Torture Photos Now

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
- The Daily Telegraph, Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'

[The photos] are not particularly sensational, especially when compared with the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.
- Barack Obama, May 13, 2009

I want to speak generally about some reports I've witnessed over the past few years in the British media. In some ways, I'm surprised it filtered down.

Let's just say if I wanted to look up, if I wanted to read a write-up of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I might open up a British newspaper. If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I'm not entirely sure it'd be the first pack of clips I'd pick up.
- Robert Gibbs, May 28, 2009

Lying is an accursed vice. It is only our words which bind us together and make us human. If we realized the horror and gravity of lying, we would see that it more worthy of the stake than other crimes...Once let the tongue acquire the habit of lying and it is astonishing how impossible it is to make it give it up.
- Montaigne, "Of Liars"


The Obama administration isn't responsible for these atrocities, but it seems they are helping to cover them up . And lying about them. It's better to release the photos now; if they don't come out now, they'll leak out one by one and further poison our national life and our relationship with the world, even with ourselves. Just get it over with: release the photos, then we'll see who's bending the truth. It's time to come clean.

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