Moment of Zen #6 ( for May 26, 2009 )

Obama on torture-pictures from external American prisons

Recently he changed his mind. President Barack Obama does not want to show pictures from torture-procedures in prisons in Iraq like Abu Ghraib or Afghanistan anymore. The inhabitants had been humbled and abused by their guardsmen (exactly these people who should have protected them!)

This decision caused him a huge wave of worldwide outrage and criticism. It is in fact exactly the opposite of what Obama had proclaimed in his election campaign. At that time he had accused his political enemy of hiding those terrible pictures and leaned on this statement in respect of his voters. And it is a change in his current political guideline. After exposing the “water-boarding-affair” – which was incredibly horrible – he now does everything to inhibit sticking to his promise he gave. So, why does he start to backpedal so suddenly?

Fortunately a lot of criticism comes from human rights organizations as well. The President had to be forced by judicial order (in the initiation of an American civil-rights movement) to reveal these pictures. He now wants to contest this action.
He argues, taking these photos was a part of official inquiries against the suspects in the US-army and could maybe hinder the commissioned courts of justice for offenders and victims in equal shares. These photos have no information value and are less sensational than the ones before.
He now suddenly fears, showing them would “inflame anti-American opinion” and endanger American soldiers abroad. Three weeks earlier when he made this promised he obviously did not care about that.

But, as we now know him, in the future everything will work better and everything will be alright and now please calm down and relax: He promised to not tolerate those behavior in his political leadership and prohibited it. I am sure, this will do the trick. Of cause, those pictures from torture done by the military and tolerated by their elites could be a new medium for terrorists to recruit new members to their mission against the western world. But please mind your own business first. What you can do right immediately.

So, why doesn’t he show those pictures to calm down the public and his critics? If these photos are as boring as he proclaimed? We have to ask ourselves: Where is the problem? If he says the truth – and for these effected inhabitants I hope he does so – I don’t see any.
Well, is this the kind of change we voted for?

See links:
http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/audio/audio38272.html /
http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/audio/audio38282.html /
http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video496424.html /
http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video496154.html /
http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/audio/audio38326.html /
http://www.tagesschau.de/kommentar/kommentarfolterfotos100.html
and previous links