Making America Less Safe

The White House has decided to reverse course and attempt to block release of photographs that show U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq (see reports from AlterNet, MSNBC, and Huffington Post).

No, President Obama, releasing pictures documenting the torture does not make Americans less safe. Being a nation that tortured and abused human beings is what inflames anti-American sentiment and makes us less safe--in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and here at home.

It appears to me that the real issue is that the president would like to avoid having a truth commission and accountability. With that his domestic agenda would surely be sidetracked. And while I want universal health care, I don't believe that we can afford to ignore the question of what type of nation we seek to be. Hiding the photos will not quell the rage against what we, as a nation, have done. In fact, not releasing them seems to show that we plan to continue to allow the military a cloak of secrecy to conduct these operations. Restarting the military commissions at Guantanamo is not the act of a just nation. Giving individuals a reason to hate us does not make us safe.

If we want to be safe, we must "live our values," as General Petraeus said in an interview on Fox News. He also stated that we as a nation have been rightly criticized when we have violated the Geneva Conventions (see video clip on John Amato's blog). He further stated that the detainee treatment and interrogation techniques in the Army Field Manual work.