Employing a bizarre line of logic, President Obama has decided to withhold hundreds of images of Abu Ghrraib-like detainee abuse. President Obama reversed his earlier decision to release the photos May 28th on the grounds that they would only serve to "inflame anti-American sentiment."
Such a conclusion has rather nefarious implications. First, Obama is withholding stark evidence of abuse of power while at the same time trumpeting the virtues of transparent governance. Obama's reversal suggests two dire aspirations: cultivating an electorate to trust the government's capacity to decide what information is and is not suitable; and defending the faulty assumption that abuse was simply a matter of 'bad apples' by withholding evidence of systemic abuse.
More striking though is the logical conclusion of Obama's justification for withholding the pictures: the way to defend American prestige is to hide the evidence of her crimes--as if photography is a danger to American sentiment but not what is being photographed.
First of all, even if this move successfully minimalized damage to the American image, the incident serves as a clear indication that the Obama administration will compromise its promise of transparency as long as it is politically advantageous to do so. It should not come as a surprise that governments are concerned with crafting a particular image that is sometimes incongruous with reality, but to proclaim it so definitively as Obama has done is positively Orwellian.
Not only is such a defense wrong on moral grounds--contradicting the very principles Obama is so quick to trumpet--but it obviously won't even succeed as a PR matter. The contradiction serves as fodder for radicals who can point to American hypocrisy, and sparks the imagination of those who wonder why these pictures are too much for our bleeding little hearts. Does the Obama administration not know that such teasing only serves to provoke our morbid imaginations? The shock of the initial photographs are now but a starting point for imagination to take us to new depths of sordid depravity. Isn't this a predictable psychological conclusion?
Why are threats from parents and authority figures always veiled and ambiguous? Why are the most provoking and salacious clothes not necessarily the most revealing? It is clear that we are most petrified by and most captivated by what we can't see and what we can't have. Just like the boogy man who hides underneath my bed at night, these pictures--shrouded by executive privilege--will warp fears beyond what is warranted. Only if the evidence of our systemic torture abuses is released and dealt with can we move on and justly face those who charge us with hypocrisy and tyranny. Will Obama let us confront this very real boogy man?
Such a conclusion has rather nefarious implications. First, Obama is withholding stark evidence of abuse of power while at the same time trumpeting the virtues of transparent governance. Obama's reversal suggests two dire aspirations: cultivating an electorate to trust the government's capacity to decide what information is and is not suitable; and defending the faulty assumption that abuse was simply a matter of 'bad apples' by withholding evidence of systemic abuse.
More striking though is the logical conclusion of Obama's justification for withholding the pictures: the way to defend American prestige is to hide the evidence of her crimes--as if photography is a danger to American sentiment but not what is being photographed.
First of all, even if this move successfully minimalized damage to the American image, the incident serves as a clear indication that the Obama administration will compromise its promise of transparency as long as it is politically advantageous to do so. It should not come as a surprise that governments are concerned with crafting a particular image that is sometimes incongruous with reality, but to proclaim it so definitively as Obama has done is positively Orwellian.
Not only is such a defense wrong on moral grounds--contradicting the very principles Obama is so quick to trumpet--but it obviously won't even succeed as a PR matter. The contradiction serves as fodder for radicals who can point to American hypocrisy, and sparks the imagination of those who wonder why these pictures are too much for our bleeding little hearts. Does the Obama administration not know that such teasing only serves to provoke our morbid imaginations? The shock of the initial photographs are now but a starting point for imagination to take us to new depths of sordid depravity. Isn't this a predictable psychological conclusion?
Why are threats from parents and authority figures always veiled and ambiguous? Why are the most provoking and salacious clothes not necessarily the most revealing? It is clear that we are most petrified by and most captivated by what we can't see and what we can't have. Just like the boogy man who hides underneath my bed at night, these pictures--shrouded by executive privilege--will warp fears beyond what is warranted. Only if the evidence of our systemic torture abuses is released and dealt with can we move on and justly face those who charge us with hypocrisy and tyranny. Will Obama let us confront this very real boogy man?
No comments:
Post a Comment