"credible based on supporting evidence provided by other witnesses"

I initially was down on Obama about not releasing the Abu Ghraib photos - it's easy for me to be down on Obama after all: he's the president of a shitty shitty government during a time when our moral failings as a nation are painfully obvious pretty much across the board, and so his hands are tied I guess, in terms of exercising his much lauded shiny shiny goodness. For example, not prosecuting criminals in a nation of laws simply because to do so would be a huge pain in the ass and might, um, spend too much "political capital" or whatever.

Or maybe I'm an asshole, and I digress either way.

So here is a relevant article in the NYT. It's by Philip Gourevitch, who wrote We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, which is a book about the Rwandan genocide, as necessary as reading gets. He's a smart and thoughtful guy. If Obama's position will inevitably require him to compromise his decency (and let us keep killing innocent Afghani people with drones, and lie about his position on gay marriage, and so on) then Gourevitch is a person whose decency is not compromised, and he agrees with Obama on this one. And he's seen the pictures in question, and he doesn't think they need to be released.

Via Cogitamus, here's an article that talks about the "potential street consequences," that "Baghdad will burn" if the photos are released. That means more dead Iraqis, which is a bad thing, so this is the most convincing argument I've heard in favor of Obama's reversal on the issue.

I'm still not sure I actually agree with Obama. I'm not in favor of painting all American soldiers as criminals - it's not productive, it's overly simplistic, and it's not true. However, I do bet that there are a ton of My Lai Massacres hiding behind our little disaster over there, things that would cause some needed soul-searching if we found out about them. Maybe it's a good time to be reminded of how badly we should hate ourselves for what we've visited on that country.

Case in point: the photos in question apparently show evidence of "every indecency," including rape committed by American soldiers against female and male prisoners:

"Allegations of rape and abuse were included in [Maj. Gen. Taguba's] 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph."

So I have to say: if the pictures have to be released to teach us - if nothing else - that rape is an inseparable part of war and so we shouldn't allow ourselves to be deceived into war, then I still disagree with Obama on this decision.

Sorry for the downer post, Teresa and Lauren and whatever third person visits this blog. Not in love with the world today. I should add that I basically still like Obama, just that now that he's Prez we occasionally need to take more of an adversarial position, just to be consistent and, well, correct.

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