There is no question that publishing the photos of the Army 82nd Airborne posing with body parts of dead Afghanistan militants was the right thing to do.
It’s predictable that SecDef Leon Panetta would cite blowback as a reason to refrain, but there is too much secrecy in what the U.S. does through our military as it is. The contagion of events inside Afghanistan, from the Quran burning to the murderous rampage of a U.S. soldier recently, to the photos, proves we are not only in over our head, but we’ve lost control of the U.S. mission to the point of unraveling our own integrity and ethical purpose.
From the LA Times, who felt compelled to explain their job:
“We considered this very carefully,” Maharaj said. “At the end of the day, our job is to publish information that our readers need to make informed decisions. We have a particular duty to report vigorously and impartially on all aspects of the American mission in Afghanistan. On balance, in this case, we felt that the public interest here was served by publishing a limited, but representative sample of these photos, along with a story explaining the circumstances under which they were taken.”
… “The two photos published were chosen because they clearly and unambiguously depict conduct that the Army described as inappropriate. In examining the full set of images, we set aside others on grounds of taste, relevance or repetitiousness. Some were too gruesome. Others were very similar to the two images already chosen or were difficult to interpret,” he said.
It seems the American public has a huge appetite for the trivial, but when it comes to the serious, like the wars we are waging, we’d rather just close our eyes, because it’s all too horrible.
Our society hasn’t even begun to process the cost of rehabilitation and long-term care of the veterans coming back from Afghanistan. In America, war is something that happens in an alternate universe that is driven by partisanship.
It makes it easier for the fearmongers to squeal about the ludicrous charges that Pres. Obama is “weak” on North Korea, Iran or whatever national security fantasy they can concoct for the ideologically besotted and proudly ignorant.
The costs of war — in the broadest sense, most definitely including things like the huge number of suicides among servicemember and the huge numbers of civilian deaths — should be a key focus of the 2012 campaign.
That won’t happen if it’s up to the two likely presidential candidates. They have no real differences on this issue that I can see, and thus there is no reason to discuss the costs.
If Afghans don’t understand by now that stuff like this has been going on, then they’re a people who are remarkably uninformed about what’s going on around them. I think the blowback Panetta is concerned about is what will happen when Americans see this, not to mention the rest of the world.
At some point, wars become too costly, even if that cost is having to look at pictures like this in news reports.
And yes, there is far too much government secrecy, particularly at DoD. It’s not good for a democracy when so much of its vital business is done behind the scenes.
When there is a decision to be made, the LA TImes makes the choice to hurt the USA and our Troops, every time.
Oh, puleeze. The people in Afghanistan KNOW this is going on. If you don’t want pictures to leak out then don’t do this kind of crap.
Oh FU*K OFF. The TRUTH about what war is and does to people will hurt our troops? Keeping them there for no reason will hurt our troops. Bring them homw. But for jeebus crispies sakes show the American people what their tax dollars are doing there.