Shorter Froomkin.

1. Nothing to see here.

Obama: “photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”

2. A few bad apples have been dealt with.

Obama: incidents “were investigated — and, I might add, investigated long before I took office — and, where appropriate, sanctions have been applied….[T]his is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action. Rather, it has gone through the appropriate and regular processes. And the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken.”

3. No good would come of this.

Obama: “the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals.”

4. We have to protect the troops.

Obama: “In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”

5. There will be a chilling effect.

Obama: “Moreover, I fear the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse.”

6. This is a new argument, not just the same old excuses.

Gibbs: “The President isn’t going back to remake the argument that has been made. The President is going — has asked his legal team to go back and make a new argument based on national security.”

You should read the whole article because Froomkin pretty much shoots down every one of these excuses.

Hat tip Glenn Greenwald, also worth reading (warning, graphic images).

Photographs convey the reality of things in a way that mere words cannot.  They prevent people who want to deny what was done the ability to do so.  They force citizens to face what their country did and what they are now justifying and advocating.  They impede the ability of political leaders to use euphemisms to obscure the truth.  They show in graphic detail what the effects are of sanctioning torture policies.  They prove that this was about more than “dunking three terrorists into water.”  They highlight the fact that no decent person believes that this should all just be forgotten and its victims told that they have no right to have accountability.  That’s precisely why the photographs are being suppressed:  because of how much good they would do.

Glenn Greenwald

It’s tough to keep talking about torture, but we simply have to.

It’s a black and white issue.  A bright line between us and the barbarians.

We consider it shameful to kill people without due process of law particularly in brutal fashions memorialized in the Constitution, that scrap of paper, as cruel and unusual punishment.

We don’t beat or stone people to death, it’s hard even to muster much enthusiasm for lethal injection given how often it has been wrongly applied to the objectively innocent.  I much prefer the guilty rot in any event without wishing them physical ills like anal rape or beatings and I want that punishment to last as long as possible.  I hope you die a lingering death- old, broken, and wasted.

Over 99 people have died in custody and the actual number is probably much higher.  I pretty much call that massive organ failure, all of them at once.

Even given the patently illegal latitude of the Torture Memos every guideline was violated.  How can you claim that the people physically administering this punishment, the actual torturers, DID NOT KNOW that they were killing people?  We have pictures of them posing next to corpses on ice in body bags.  We had videos of ACTUAL TORTURE SESSIONS taking place that were destroyed specifically to obstruct justice.

The brazenness of these criminal actions is breathtaking.  They have self confessed on video tape and in print.  Do you think there is more evidence against them or Drew Petersen?

And we cannot ignore the law-

Article VI

…

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution…