FOIA Suit for Release of Detainee Abuse Photos

Why are they called detainees? Are they not prisoners?

Last week, US District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein scheduled a hearing on the matter for September 8 and said he would allow the government to submit additional evidence to justify the withholding of the pictures before he renders a decision. But he also signaled that he may ultimately order the Department of Defense to release the abuse photographs, stating in a 21-page ruling that the government did not submit evidence to back up its 2012 claims that releasing the photographs would endanger national security and the lives of US military personnel.

[...]

Obama was pressured by Bush-era holdovers at the Defense Department to withhold the photographs and, going against his own promises of transparency — "The government should not keep information confidential… because of speculative or abstract fears," he'd said months earlier — he reversed his stance.

"The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals," Obama told reporters in explaining his flip-flop. "The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

  Vice News

“Carried out by a small number of individuals.” And ordered to be carried out by an even smaller number who have yet to answer for it. I won’t hold my breath.

A US official told VICE News that government attorneys would likely argue next week that the photographs could "lead to a violent reaction" by Islamic State insurgents, [...]

What? Because they aren’t already violently reacting to our behavior???

[...] who have reportedly subjected American captives to CIA interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, a detailed description of which is contained in the memos Obama released in 2009.

The fear, the US official said, is that the "terrorists will parade their victims around" in the same manner US soldiers did with the detainees in their custody.

How dare they do to ours what we have done to theirs?

In that regard, the US official said, the photographs become nothing more than a propaganda tool for terrorists.

As if they needed more.

No, the only people who are still unconvinced of the nature of the US military assault on Iraqis are Americans. And if the government/military learned any lesson in Viet Nam, it was that you don’t want to show the American public what is really going on.