This leak has hurt our ability to bring the U.S. government to account.
The premature leaked release of photographs that the Dept. of Defense has been ordered to hand over by a federal judge has deeply harmed the impact, importance, and publicity had these photos been instead released by a recalcitrant, secretive U.S. government.
The ACLU has spent untold hours and money trying to force the U.S. to release these photos. What the ACLU wants — and what we should want — is the U.S. government suffering the intense embarrassment of having to show the photographic evidence of its torture policies. Nothing less will do.
Despite its innumerable appeals, perhaps someday the U.S. government would have had to comply with the September 2005 court order (which I wrote about yesterday). I’m patient enough to wait for that historic day when Rummy et al., in a shameful, foot-shuffling (or in Rummy’s case, his typical chickenhawk macho bluster), will be forced to hand over the images.
Since these new images have been leaked to the Australian media, the horror of the finally released photos by the U.S. will be severely diminished.
Is this what the U.S. government wanted? Did someone in our government leak these photos precisely to tamp down the impact when all are eventually released? Isn’t that possible?
And why, and how, did an Australian TV show get the photos and videos? That’s a rather long way from their repository in the D.C. area of the U.S. And that Aussie program is an equivalent in name, at least, and content, probably, to NBC’s very pedestrian Natalie-Holloway-Entwistle-O.J.-Robert-Blake “news” program, Dateline NBC. However, its network, Myriad tells us in her comment below, is multi-cultural and the reporter airing the photo story has covered U.S. prison torture and mistreatment, as well as the Iraq war.
I figure that whoever leaked the photos/video to the Australian media did so because it wouldn’t get enough press here to be a monster story, but it would get out to the people who are most interested in the story: People like us on this blog, ACLU and Amnesty and CCR members, and the rare officials who are.
The only way I want to see these images/video (Reuters has more) is when we receive all from the U.S. government itself after a judge forces them to reveal the images.
ALSO: We know these — as bad as they are, including evidence of bullet wounds — are NOT the worst of the photos, which purportedly (says Seymour Hersh) include photographs of young boys being sodomized and tortured.
See also: the WaPo’s “Australian TV Network Airs More Abu Ghraib Photos.”
There is an Australian tv channel called SBS – it was created to serve the non-english speaking people of Australia & our multicultural background in general. As a result it has excellent in-depth news coverage, particularly of international issues & their implications for Australia. Their flagship program in this sense is Dateline, which has been running for 20 years.
An award-winning reporter for Dateline, Olivia Rousset, who has previously covered Abu Ghraib and the Iraq qar in general, was given these photos and videos by the ACLU. The Australian newspapers are sourcing them from the SBS website etc.
here is the transcript of the Dateline program on the new photos & videos of Abu Graib:
Can I also just point out that from a non-American point of view, with Australians not only serving in Iraq, but one officer implicated in the Abu Ghraib scandal, we and the rest of the world has just as much right to have investigative journalists do their job, and reveal these photos and their story. These happenings affect my country, and many others, not just the USA.
bold emphasis mine above, and here is a link to Dateline
Thanks, Myriad! I added your info and your name to my story.
However, this:
, I obtained a copy of the unreleased photographs and videos.
That’s a leak, unless i missed something else in the story.
that according to the ACLU lawyer interviewed above, the ACLU apparently absolutely supported and wanted this ‘leak’. – IE, you worry that the release of the new pictorial evidence undermines the ACLU’s case, yet it is the ACLU that sanctioned it.
From that point of view, and the point I was trying to make, is that this evidence has not been released without the ACLU’s knowledge and sanction, so I find it hard to see it as someone trying to undo their case. Rousset clearly went straight to the ACLU when she got hold of the photos etc. and framed the story around their case.
I don’t see how this undermines the ACLU case, and, as the transcript reveals, they were consulted and in fact participant in the release.
I wish more people in the international community would come to this conclusion and act on it in efforts to expose to the rest of the world just what kind of criminality runs rampant in the federal gov of this country.
It seems to obvious to me that we, the people, do not have the means (in many cases, because we do not have the will) to hold this gov accountable for its actions or to “humiliate” it into doing anything it doesn’t want to do.
The more the international community steps up to the plate to remind us and our government that there is a whole, wide world beyond the shores of New York and Los Angeles that is being devastated by our actions, the better.
We need to get a serious grip on the fact that we are not “the world” just a very small but pathetically arrogant part of it.
The rest of the world is not the “playground” of the world–and when the “games” Americans play begin having an effect on everyone else–it is time for the rest of the world to stand up and do whatever they think is appropriate to expose the BS and to get it to stop.
I think it is a deliberate attempt to distract the public from Dick Cheney’s shooting of another hunter.
Yes we know that the hunters will begin to riot if we don’t divert their attention to less important issues.
verbally admitted to concerning the photos. Just an opinion but these are not the worst of what has been verbally admitted to being part of the photos. It is far from the worst that we will eventually see. I think that someone has released these photos because the total release has been tied up and the American public has almost forgotten about Abu Ghraib. Someone isn’t going to let the American public forget about Abu Ghraib no matter how long the present administration ties up releasing the photos. Somebody other than those in charge has all the goods too!
Right on, Tracy. And you just reminded me that I meant to say in my story that the expected photos of boys being raped/sodomized were NOT in the Aussie stories.
I think it’s safe to deduce that Rousset received the photos and videos from a source linked close to the ground, ie Abu Ghraib guards/maybe red cross. I think it’s a fair guess that whoever the source was didn’t have all the photos/videos, probably only some.
Copies of all of it, anyway. I would like for him to drop it all. I even wrote him an open letter on my blog when the first ones came out.
There are probably several people who have copies, and I would also invite them to pack them up and give them to Socialist Workers or Teheran Times or Muslim Uzbekistan or Telesur, anybody who will just let them out.
Most especially: We need the photos/videos of the boys being sodomized.
I’m still very sore with Sy Hersh and The New Yorker for thinking that the rest of the photos were too sensitive for their readers to handle.
(I’ve heard him say that a couple times in speeches — although I’ve also wondered if he really wanted them all published, but David ___, editor of the New Yorker, refused to do so.)
I agree with Militarytract that these are far from the worse photos. I hope we will get to see the rest. I support the ACLU case to have them released, but we could be kept waiting until hell freezes over. Besides this does not make the ACLU case moot. It can go forward. We should have seen these photos 2 years ago – these and all these rest. So, I am very thankful these few additional photos and videos were released. It is amazing that government officials have to comment anonymously because they fear prosecution. Also the government is complaining about another “leak”. I think the Bush administration is coming unraveled. I would not be surprised if Cheney resign in weeks – certainly before the fall elections. That resignation sets the stage for impeachment of the President. Except for the ongoing human tragedies we witness with every additonal day of war (4 children killed today) this was a great day! Let justice roll down like the mighty waters!
in what way am I not getting real? How do you know that this isn’t the first phase of an operation to leak these slowly but surely?
I understand your logic, Susan, but in this case your logic is wrong.
The steady drip drip of a story is infinitely more significant than any big, one-off story. Political candidates delay their entry in order to keep the story in play. The worst scandals are the ones that last the longest, even when there is relatively little new information coming out.
Leaking the photos bit by bit is the best way to keep it in the public mind.
Because you said you were angry these photos were leaked instead of the government being forced to release them. Tell me this. If you had the photos would you publish them on the Booman Tribune? I know the answer. The answer is “Hell, yes!” The Aussies did everyone a favor IMO. I do understand why it is important to hold our government accountable. I would prefer our government to have voluntarily released these photos. That wasn’t going to happen. Stalling isn’t helping anything. The ACLU case can and should continue, and I, along with you, support it. Keep the Bush administrations feet to the fire! Peace out.
I am NOT ANGRY with the Aussie media.
I’m upset with the leaker because they weaken the ACLU’s case.
Got a phone call and didn’t finish.
I want the U.S. government HUMILIATED by being forced by a judge to release those photos and videos.
That’s what I’m really after…. having them be forced to do what they have stalled and stonewalled for two-plus years now.
My guess is that humiliation must be imposed on the White House from outside. Thankfully, there are war crimes tribunals that are typically set up precisely for those purposes. It may take a few years, and that may be frustrating, but I suspect that our nation’s victims are a patient lot. The Abu Ghraib photos and videos, as horrifying as they may be, are but a small piece of a larger picture – that larger picture being a pervasive pattern of human rights abuses that have occurred.
Again, substantiation for your thoughts on this point, from Salon.com’s justification for publishing the images:
Although the inhumanity depicted in this batch of photos is absolutely
horrific, I insist that the administration hand over all video & photos, at the very least, before their trials. These items are proof of crimes against humanity & hiding them will forever stain this land. The fact that they were released by another nation does not absolve this one from accountability & responsibility.
earlier today on CNN (she’s one of those pentagon reporters who laugh at Rummy’s little jokes while people die. Here’s a little portion of the transcript:
What puzzled me was how preventing their “publication in the United States” would prevent any violence in the Arab world if they were published everywhere else.
Oh, Ed. It’s clear you don’t have the logical mind for working in the Pentagon.
Eyes Wide Open
Salon.com has obtained a cache of torture photos and videos from Abu Ghraib, along with previously unreleased investigation reports which detail
“a total of 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse, 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse, 660 images of adult pornography, 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts, 20 images of a soldier with a Swastika drawn between his eyes, 37 images of Military Working dogs being used in abuse of detainees and 125 images of questionable acts.”
We have put together a special page containing the photos released by Salon.com (which, as the website notes, represent only a small fraction of the total), along with other materials, including video of the recent Australian TV broadcast that first brought this new belching of Bush-filth to light. You can find it here: Abu Ghraib Part II. *WARNING FOR UNPLEASANT PHOTOS AND FOOTAGE*
Yes, we said Bush-filth. Let’s lay the blame for these tortures squarely where it belongs: on the shoulders of the “Commander-in-Chief.” It’s only fair; if this gibbering goon is going to lay claim to unrestricted powers, then by God he will have to bear unrestricted, unmitigated responsibility as well. And in truth, it has been well-documented by now that the widespread, systematic — and on-going — use of torture throughout America’s new worldwide gulag was instigated at Bush’s order, “justified” by the pretzel logic of his legal bagmen — Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, among many others — and promulgated through presidential “executive orders” and directions laid down by Donald Rumsfeld.
Of course, these Abu Ghraib photos themselves represent only a small fraction of the atrocities carried out — in our name — in secret hell-holes around the globe. The photos depict the raw and brutal dawn of a system that has become progressively more refined, more “professional,” now largely removed from the hands of untrained grunts with digital cameras, and instead carried out in secret by CIA agents and other operatives of the America’s mammoth “security organs” — again, acting under presidential orders, and presidential protection.
What shall we say when history asks how such crimes came to be committed in the name of America? Will we say that we stood silently by, shrugging our shoulders, filling our bellies, closing our eyes? Or will we be able to say: We saw. We dissented. We resisted. We condemned.
For all those who want to open their eyes to the horrors of the illegal war in Iraq, and to the brutality and moral corruption of the “War on Terror” click here… Go, see, open your eyes, and let them know — these torturers, these bloodstained betrayers of our common humanity — let them know that you know what they are, what they have done.
We have the Australian Video Documentary online for those that are interested in viewing it. It’s not very pleasant to watch.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/abu/