Friday, May 15, 2009

Despite Obama blocking torture pictures, the photos are emerging

In the age of 24/7 cable channels, instant news, twitter, the internet, eventually these photos were going to be leaked and the pictures are now emerging. I won't put any torture pics up, but start looking at one here.

The shocking images of inmates in Iraq and Afghanistan were published just a day after the US president announced plans for a legal battle stop them ever being seen.

They risked provoking renewed hostility in the Middle East as Mr Obama attempts to build bridges with the Islamic world.

He is scheduled to make a major speech in Cairo on June 4 when he will launch his version of a plan to bring peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

One picture showed a prisoner hung up upside down while another showed a naked man smeared in excrement standing in a corridor with a guard standing menacingly in front of him. Another prisoner is handcuffed to the window frame of his cell with underpants pulled over his head.

Others yet to be released reportedly show military guards threatening to sexually assault a detainee with a broomstick and hooded prisoners on transport planes with Playboy magazines opened to pictures of nude women on their laps.

The images emerged from Australia yesterday where they were originally obtained by the channel SBS in 2006 in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. They were not distributed around the world at the time but are now believed to be among those the president is trying to block.

I wrote that though Obama is trying to block these images, they are going to come out. This is the day and age we live in. Yes, these images are despicable and we should be ashamed of our government under the Bush Administration, for putting our international image on the line, as well as breaking the law. In the end, there must be accountability for what happened and the sooner we deal with this, the better it is taken off the table.

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