Obama is Tarnishing His Own Mystique

The new American president is getting knocked off his stride. He is encouraging doubts about the new openness he promised with his reversal on the publication of new torture photographs. By doing so, he cannot bring down the curtain on the Bush era just yet.

Transparency was Obama’s biggest promise. It now seems that he is breaking it, and this is not the first time. Approximately 2,000 photographs, which document the abuse of prisoners detained by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, are to remain under lock and key. ACLU civil rights activists had successfully fought for the release of these photographs and the White House had agreed to this release despite reservations from the Pentagon. Now, at the urging of U.S. commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq, and after Obama himself had personally looked at the photos, the White House is backpedaling. According to Obama’s reasoning, their release could endanger soldiers in the field.

The president’s sudden about-face shows that after more than 100 days in office, he is conceding a higher priority to the military and its operations in both countries than to the principle of openness. Until now, it has been only an abstract fear that new torture or other disturbing photographs of detained and dead Iraqis could lead to violent riots like those that occurred after the publication of the Mohammed cartoons. Obama does not want to subject soldiers coping with difficult missions in Iraq and Afghanistan to this sort of risk.

His shocked liberal supporters are protesting. They will fight to the end for the release of these photographs in any U.S. court because the last word has not yet been spoken. Many are so disgusted by the breaches of law during the Bush era that they would love to drag Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Alberto Gonzalez and their legal accomplices into court. Obama, on the other hand, has made it clear on many occasions that current crises such as the economy, climate change, and Taliban terrorism should be managed now rather than going back and reopening old wounds.

But this leaves behind a stale aftertaste just like Obama’s previous change in position on the legally dubious military commissions for trials of the Guantànamo detainees. Only the unrestricted reappraisal of past breaches of law can put all of this to rest. Many former dictatorships, such as those in South Africa, Guatemala, and Argentina, have used truth commissions to make real and convincing new beginnings. After the Iran Contra scandal during the 1980s and the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Congress established investigative boards of inquiry that brought all failures to light.

Obama may want to lower the curtain on the Bush era as soon as today, but he will only find peace when all of the open questions about the conduct of his predecessor have been answered.