This diary is in reference to two different recent controversies, the torture photo issue and military trials for those held @ Gitmo. I know many people here will call me an Obama apologist or worse for what I write, but I'm going to defend him based on one principle: Power is complicated.
We don't know everything the President knows. I think we can all agree on that. We haven't seen the photos. But if the people responsible for what happened in the photos have already been punished, what is the value in releasing them? This is a question I've asked my self quite often since this controversy emerged. We know our government tortured. The world knows our government has tortured. What is the value of these photos?
Let me pose a hypothetical: The photos are released. A week later, there is suicide bombing in Kabul. 20 American soldiers are killed. Two days later, a video of the bomber's final words is sent to an Arab news channel. In it, the bomber says his principal motivation for his actions was a photo he saw of American soldiers abusing a prisoner. Maybe he even holds up a copy of the photo that sent him over the edge. I know many of you will claim this is an exaggerated hypothetical, but is it really? So, I ask you: was the release of a photo of something for which a soldier has already been punished worth the lives of 20 Americans?
Let me address the other issue, the military trials. I think the President is in an impossible position here. The Cheney Administration rounded up these guys, some of whom were innocent, and tortured them to the point where if they were not terrorists, they probably want to be once they get back home. A previous malaise towards the U.S. has turned into hatred, with fairly good reason. And, there are prisoners at Gitmo who are actually guilty. But they were tortured. So any confessions gotten from them are inadmisable in court. What do you do with them? Bring them to a civilian court for trial, where the case will be tossed out? Then what happens to the defendants? Are they set free? Deported? I don't know. I don't disagree with putting them in American prisons. Of course we can hold them. The problem is getting them to that point.
Power is complicated. Power is messy. All Presidents, even the great ones, do or say things none of us like. FDR put Japanese Americans in internment camps. JFK started the escalation in Vietnam and may have continued it had he lived. Numerous great leaders did absolutely nothing about the civil rights of African Americans. Sometimes, there are no good options to a problem, just less bad ones. I think the President is doing the best he can.