Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Obama Reverses Course - Refuses to Release Detainee-Abuse Photos

I am relieved as well as I expect many Servicement are. Contentions has He Who Shouts Loudest

Also another postive that I agree with here "This is an overwhelmingly positive sign that the president is subject to persuasion and reason and that those defending the country by placing their own lives on the line carry more sway than ideological extremists in the Justice Department.

As noted yesterday at Sanity Returns? when the word was starting to leak this would happen

It would also further aggravate a festering domestic wound and thereby weaken our resolve as a nation at war. The president must realize that as the country ramps up the fight against extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we cannot indulge in open-ended self-flagellation of this sort. The memo stunt has already taken its toll on morale and the Guantanamo stunt is proving to be more-or-less undoable. Perhaps Obama himself is finally putting aside childish things. If so, it’s not a moment too soon. We await tomorrow’s news.

Update- A sort of real world example of this I was thinking of. In a murder trial the scenes of the dead body and murder scene are of course introduced to the jury to look at. The prosecution of course would like lets say get all hundred of the very gruesome photos be shown to the jury. The defense rightly and under the statutes of the rules of evidence and case law SCREAMS prejudicial. That is we have recognized that such a move could inflame the jury beyond reason and cloud their judgement. A sort of case of sensory and emotional overload. So instead of a hundred photos the jury gets to see perhaps 12 or 15.

It is the same situation here. The United States is a desperate campaign to win hearts and minds. Also the people that are doing that are at great risk. We don't need to have the "Jury" Muslim world opinion inflamed beyond all reason for the misconduct of a few.

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