Obama to block release of detainee abuse photos

[grumbler]

Not at all crystal clear. In fact, documents are classified all the time, and pictures are certainly documents.

No, neither documents nor pictures are ever classified.  Information is classified, and documents and pictures not containing classified information cannot be classified.

No, the row of the professional military members and the President say that it is a national security issue, even if the ultra liberal lawyer and school teacher don't agree is not such a rough row to hoe, actually. In the balance of things, I am going to defer to the judgment of the generals and President over the lawyer and the teacher.

No, there is no tough row to hoe to demonstrate that some generals and presidents don't want to release the photos for "national security issues," but that isn't what anyone is arguing.  What people are arguing is whether the law applies to the president and his Generals even when it is inconvenient to them.  I will take the views of the ultra-liberal lawyer and school teachers who are citing actual US law and policy over a poster who simply appeals (without attribution) to authority.  Your deference to authority is noted, but should convince no one, especially as the law and policy contradict you and your authorities.

[Berkut]

Of course it is at issue here - the issue of classification has not been tested in the courts at all.

I find it odd that you are arguing that even the attempt to test it is somehow a contravention of the law, when it clearly is not. It may not work, but that doesn't make it illegal to try. You lvoe the "process of law" except when someone uses it in a fashion that doesn't meet your narrow partisan political desires - then it is "not worthy of our respect" because they "don't respect the process". Of course, what you mean by that is that they don't respect YOUR conclusion, and actually wish to explore the process. "The process" includes things like seeing whether a presidential classification can hold up to legal review. There is not reason to simply assume that it cannot, and therefore even trying is some grave crime.

It is always possible to get more freedom by sacrificing some security. The question is where to draw the line. In some countries, we do this by the process of *three* branches of government, rather than just slavishly following the dictate of one. The Executive attempting to exercise their prerogative is not by definition in contravention of the law. If Obama refuses to release the photos after being ordered to do so and the legal options are exhausted, THEN you can start bleating about how the US is just like North Korea.

Classification is impossible if, as we all agree, there is no information that has not already been disclosed. 

In fact these documents have not been disclosed.

In fact, the last time this came up with the AG photos, the Admin was considering doing this until the photos themselves were leaked, making the point moot.

So yes, you most certainly can classify the photos, even if everyone already knows what is in them.

[Berkut]

No, there is no tough row to hoe to demonstrate that some generals and presidents don't want to release the photos for "national security issues," but that isn't what anyone is arguing.
[/quote]

Actually that is precisely what *they* are arguing. Granted, it isn't the sterawman you have constructed for them to argue, but that is largely immaterial.

  What people are arguing is whether the law applies to the president and his Generals even when it is inconvenient to them. 

Really? Where does Obama or Gates argue that the law doesn't apply to them? I am pretty sure neither said any such thing.

I will take the views of the ultra-liberal lawyer and school teachers who are citing actual US law and policy over a poster who simply appeals (without attribution) to authority.

I will take the authoritiies who have actual expertise over the opinions of the lawyer and teacher who seem to enjoy crafting arguments for the other side rather than actually providing evidence.

  Your deference to authority is noted, but should convince no one, especially as the law and policy contradict you and your authorities.

Again, appeal to authority where there is none is not convincing in the face of other authorities who disagree with your conclusions about what the law and policy state.

[The Minsky Moment]

So? Isn't that a perfectly normal legal procedure - making a particular argument does not preclude making other ones of the first doesn't pan out.

Actually now that you mention it, it isn't.  An appeals court will usually refuse to hear an argument that wasn't made at the original trial court level.  Which means if Obama does seek Supreme Court review, and it is granted, the Supreme Court will very likely refuse to allow him to make a national security exemption argument.

What he could do is drop the appeal but classify the documents now, and then use that as a basis to start the whole legal ball rolling from scratch.  But that has its own problems.

You are clearly arguing from a strictly results standpoint, and taking on the "side" of the ACLU. I am not willing to do so, and am perfectly happy seeing the process itself work itself out, rather than deciding ahead of time what the answer must be based on my political ideology.

Of course, it is exactly the opposite.  You are arguing from the result standpoint that the pictures shouldn't be released for policy reasons, and if the law does not permit withholding it, then the law should be evaded or ignored, or spurious arguments concocted to delay the inevitable for a long as possible and obstruct the right to obtain it.

My point is entirely divorced from the results standpoint.  I have taken no position on whether the release of the material would be a good idea or a bad idea.  I haven't supported or condemned the ACLU's decision to seek release of the material in the first place.  I only take the view that having sought the release, the government must comply.

[grumbler]

In fact these documents have not been disclosed.

these documents have been disclosed.  It is only the photos which are at  issue, and they contain 9as well all agree) no information not in the documents.

In fact, the last time this came up with the AG photos, the Admin was considering doing this until the photos themselves were leaked, making the point moot.

So yes, you most certainly can classify the photos, even if everyone already knows what is in them.

Cite, please?  Mere assertion is unpersuasive.

[grumbler]

Actually that is precisely what *they* are arguing. Granted, it isn't the sterawman you have constructed for them to argue, but that is largely immaterial.

  I say that there is not any dispute over what the Administration is arguing, and then you falsely claim that I say there is a dispute and that my claim is a strawman? 

Really? Where does Obama or Gates argue that the law doesn't apply to them? I am pretty sure neither said any such thing.

When Obama argues that these photos are not subject to FOIA, he is arguing that the clear provisions of FOIA that disagree with his claim do not apply.

I will take the authoritiies who have actual expertise over the opinions of the lawyer and teacher who seem to enjoy crafting arguments for the other side rather than actually providing evidence.

You have cited no such authorities.

Again, appeal to authority where there is none is not convincing in the face of other authorities who disagree with your conclusions about what the law and policy state.

My appeal is not to authority, but to law whose provisions I have cited.  You have cited nothing, merely appealed to authority (and even then without cites).

[grumbler]

Again, appeal to authority where there is none is not convincing in the face of other authorities who disagree with your conclusions about what the law and policy state.

An additional thought along these lines:  none of the authorities you cite claim to disagree with me about what the law and policy state.  It is only you who so disagree.  The authorities simply state that they think bad things would happen if the law was applied.  They may well be right.  But the law is the law.  Bureaucratic imperatives pretty much force them to take a worse-case position on the subject, because they are, after all, the people who would be blamed if they followed the law and released the photos.

We are not driven by bureaucratic imperatives, and are probably in a better position to state that the law is the law than those who will suffer (unjustly, to be sure) by following the law.  That does not make us superior in judgement, simply superior in objectivity.  Our employees, Obama, Gates, and company, would do better in the long run to simply submit to the law that we have, through other employees, established.  As GW Bush found out, in the end the law will out.

[jimmy olsen]

When I saw this I knew it was perfect for Languish! 

I can't believe I'd forgotten this episode until I read this.

http://www.slate.com/id/2217905/

There Are Four Lights!Revisiting Star Trek: The Next Generation's eerily prescient torture episode.
By Juliet LapidosUpdated Thursday, May 7, 2009, at 4:28 PM ET

Nestled within J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie is a standard Hollywood torture scene. Nero, the Romulan antagonist, straps Capt. Pike of the Enterprise to a futuristic hospital gurney and demands secret defense codes. Naturally, Pike refuses. So—in a nod to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan—Nero forces a mind-control insect down the captain's throat as he stoically recites his name, rank, and serial number. Torture, here, is routine—not an ethical atrocity but an item on the blockbuster checklist—and predictable: The captain has the information his interrogator needs, but, as long as he's in his right mind, he's able to resist divulging it.

It's too bad Abrams didn't look deeper into the Star Trek canon for inspiration. There is a remarkable depiction of torture in Star Trek: The Next Generation, one that is both more sophisticated than the Capt. Pike scenario and more pertinent to current affairs than the ticking-time-bomb set pieces of 24. In an episode from the series' sixth season, Capt. Picard embarks on a mission to destroy a biological weapon and is taken prisoner by a hostile alien race, the Cardassians. Believing that Picard is privy to strategic military secrets, the Cardassians inject him with a truth serum. When this technique fails to produce information, the Cardassians string up their captive in a stress position, strip him naked, and subject him to extreme physical torment—zapping him with a pain-administering device. For good measure, the lead Cardassian interrogator also devises a test meant to inflict mental anguish: He points four bright lights at Picard and asks him, repeatedly, to say that there are five. (A clear homage to the four-vs.-five-fingers sequence in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.)

Powerful when it aired in 1992, the episode is even more resonant in 2009. When Picard's comrades on the Enterprise learn of Picard's capture, they insist that the Cardassians abide by the terms of a Geneva-like "Solanis Convention." The Cardassians rebuff the request: "The Solanis Convention applies to prisoners of war ... [Picard] will be treated as a terrorist."

Torture scenes are typically an opportunity to demonstrate a protagonist's fortitude or an antagonist's ruthlessness. In this episode, however, torture is an exercise in futility. Picard doesn't have the information the Cardassians are after. They can zap him all they want, but they'll never learn the Federation's secrets. Picard states, truthfully, that he knows nothing of value, but the interrogator refuses to believe him and to let him go. Torture is thus portrayed not as a reasonable if barbaric strategy but as a waste of time. That is, not really a strategy at all.

The extended torture sessions take a toll not just on Picard but on his interrogator as well. The more time the Cardassian spends with Picard, the more he becomes fixated on breaking his prisoner. And so the supposed goal of torture—information—is sidelined, while the means by which the goal will theoretically be achieved—mental submission—becomes an end in itself. As Picard puts it, "Torture has never been a reliable means of extracting information. It is ultimately self-defeating as a means of control. One wonders it is still practiced."

The episode acknowledges, however, that even the most determined prisoner is no match for acute suffering. In a last-ditch attempt to break Picard, the Cardassian interrogator offers him a choice: Either state that there are five lights and enjoy a life of comfort, or insist that there are four and prepare for more torture. Before Picard can answer, two Cardassian guards enter and reveal that the Enterprise has brokered the captain's release. "There are four lights!" Picard shouts, in what seems like a triumph. Later, though, he admits to a fellow officer that he was on the brink of succumbing: "I would have told him anything. Anything at all. But more than that, I believed that I could see five lights." The interrogator has, in fact, won the battle of wills, though he'll never have the satisfaction of knowing it. But what, exactly, has he won? In the end, Picard was willing to tell his captor anything at all and was so distraught that he was willing to believe a transparent falsehood. It follows that any further information would have been hopelessly compromised.

The torture scene in the new Star Trek does not glorify the practice, but it doesn't question it, either. From the interrogator's perspective, it's an effective way of extracting vital information. For Capt. Pike, it's a winnable test. The Next Generation take is darker and more politically progressive: Torture is counterproductive for the interrogator and devastating—both physically and emotionally—for the subject. It makes one wonder it is still practiced.

[MadImmortalMan]

Ruh-roh...

Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'

Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.


By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent and Paul Cruickshank
Last Updated: 8:21AM BST 28 May 2009
Iraq prison abuse: Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'


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.



Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President's attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.

Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President's decision, adding: "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.

"I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.

"The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it."

In April, Mr Obama's administration said the photographs would be released and it would be "pointless to appeal" against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.

Earlier this month, he said: "The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.

Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: "I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib."

The latest photographs relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Mr Obama said the individuals involved had been "identified, and appropriate actions" taken.

Maj Gen Taguba's internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found "credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses."

Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: "I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn't covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid's ***.... and the female soldier was taking pictures."

The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.

Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman's "stick" all of which were apparently photographed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html


I really hope this is false.

[Neil]

Valmy's Arab linguists are a threat to the military.

[Sheilbh]

Some pretty extreme images have already been released or leaked.  I remember one of a guy who was smeared in shit, made to shove a banana up his arse, pinned in foam between two stretchers (and sat on).  The last pictures of him where ones of him banging his head against a metal door until he was bleeding rather heavily.  That last one is believed to have been self-inflicted.

[CountDeMoney]

I see no reason to release the photos, and neither does the President.  Good enough for me.

But here, grumbler and Jewn Robinson, is a temporary fix for your anti-Americanism--

[dps]

Not at all crystal clear. In fact, documents are classified all the time, and pictures are certainly documents.

No, neither documents nor pictures are ever classified.  Information is classified, and documents and pictures not containing classified information cannot be classified.

I know that during WWII, documents and photographs were definately withheld from release, and while some of them may have not been classified, but rather simply withheld, I am under the impression that some of them were indeed classified. 

Of course, that doesn't mean that today's practice is the same as that of 2/3 of a century ago.  But I don't have a security clearance, so I don't know what's classified and what's not, so I can't say if it's the same as it used to be.   And if I did, I couldn't tell you anyway. 

[Siege]

The gov't didn't take the pictures, the perps did.

Military security allows people to take personal snapshots of interrogations of prisoners?  WTF?

I got pictures far worst than that.

"Military security" is nothing more than a couple bored MPs that hate their lives and never take an step outside the wire.

I don't have pictures of interrogations, because I don't do that.
I have done a couple missions in which the gathering of tactical intel have been necesary, and I usually get kicked out of the room by my LT because I can tell from a mile away when a moonslim is lying, and I tend to lose my patience rather quickly.
I wasn't built for interrogations.
Other dudes can do that job far more effectively than me.

But I do have great pictures.