Monday's Israel-US Showdown: Iran First or Palestine First?

Related Post: Iran - Following Up the Roxana Saberi Case

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit on Monday to Washington is shaping up as a critical early moment --- even amidst the torture controversy, Afghanistan-Pakistan, and a minor thing called the global economy --- in the Obama Presidency.

The Israelis are sticking to the line that something has to be done about the Tehran menace before they will address other regional issues, in particular negotiations with Palestine. That "something" is unlikely to be military action; instead, Netanyahu will ask Washington to step up economic sanctions. At the very least, the demand will be that the US break off its "engagement" with the Iranian Government. (An editorial by Efraim Halevy, the former head of Israel's intelligence service Mossad, in Thursday's Financial Times of London is a must-read: "The 'sequence' must be clear: Iran first.)

Leading Obama officials, notably Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have already countered that the issue of Israeli-Palestinian talks must be the priority. Iran's nuclear programme should not be the excuse (the Americans have stopped short of the word "blackmail") to stall on a two-state solution, which Netanyahu and his Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, still oppose.

How serious is the debate? Consider this story, which just emerged: two weeks ago CIA Director Leon Panetta visited Israel to warn Netanyahu against an airstrike on Iran. Consider, however, that Israeli officials framed this as a warning against a "surprise attack", leaving open the possibility that Tel Aviv could attack if the US was notified in advance.

And consider also this "information", first published in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz but then circulated in The Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration and its European allies are setting a target of early October to determine whether engagement with Iran is making progress or should lead to sanctions.

They also are developing specific benchmarks to gauge Iranian behavior. Those include whether Tehran is willing to let United Nations monitors make snap inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities that are now off-limits, and whether it will agree to a "freeze for freeze" -- halting uranium enrichment in return for holding off on new economic sanctions -- as a precursor to formal negotiations.

What adds a bit of spice to the claim, implying that Iran has less than five months to meet US conditions, is The Journal citation of "senior Administration officials" as sources. The indication is that there is still a battle among Obama's advisors over whether to treat "engagement" as an ongoing negotiation or whether to combine it with guaranteed sanctions if Tehran does not make the required moves within a quick (in diplomatic terms) period of time.

That possibility, while intriguing, is still secondary to what happens on Monday. What President Obama needs now is not an Iranian concession but an Israeli one. If Netanyahu holds fast and does not open up the possibility of "genuine" talks with the Palestinian Authority, including discussions of political status as well as economic development and security, then Obama's message --- launched on Inauguration Day --- of a new day in the Middle East is looking shaky.

Of course, the two leaders may fudge the outcome, claiming success in an ongoing discussion without making any specific commitments on the next step in the Israeli-Palestinian process. And Washington is guarding against disappointment: that is why it left eight days between the visit of Netanyahu and that of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on 26 May and another two days before Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas comes to the White House to see what's happening.

That, however, would not be enough. Obama has tied himself to an address to the "Islamic world" on 4 June from Cairo. His rhetorical approaches so far --- the Inaugural Address, the interview on Al Arabiya television in January, the speech from Turkey last month --- have been warmly received. This time, however, he has to bring something of substance to the table. Otherwise, it will be a speech too far.

Forget that "first 100 days" media fluff. Monday will be a true example of when the initial stages of a Presidency transform into defining moments.

Shifting Alliances: The Israel-Turkey-Syria Triangle

Two weeks ago, Turkey and Syria held, for the first time in history, joint military drills. The exercises were a clear sign of the increasingly close ties between the two states as they co-operate on wider agendas.  At the same time, they raise the question: what happens to other relationship, notably the long-standing ties between Ankara and Tel Aviv?

When Turkey felt isolated by its neighbors in 1995, the first door it knocked on was Israel's. The Turks had one eye on recent manoeuvres by Greece: the Greco-Syrian military training agreement in 1995 followed a similar arrangement between Israel and Greece in December 1994. On the economic front, the volume of trade between Israel and Greece reached $350 million, double that of 1989. Meanwhile, Syria was causing problems with the border dispute over Hatay, arguments over water, and Hafez al Assad's support to the PKK, the Kurdish "terrorist" organization.

Turkey's nightmare was wider cooperation between Syria and Israel, meaning that Tel Aviv would be tied to long-standing rivals both in Damascus and in Athens. So Ankara countered with a full alignment with Israel. Military, economic and technological agreements were reached in 1996, and a trilateral operation in the Eastern Mediterranean by Israel, Turkey and the US was conducted in January 1998.

More than a decade later, it is Tel Aviv which is concerned about "isolation" as other countries establish alliances. Defense Minister Ehud Barak called the Turkish-Syrian exercise "a worrisome situation" and the Israeli press featured the issue after the head of the Turkish military, Ilker Basbug said Turkey was not interested in Israel's reaction. The Jerusalem Post tried to limit the exercise's significance, with the claim of Professor Efraim Inbar that he had spoken to Turkish army officers: "The Turkish military does not like Syria, and views it as a problematic state." The newspaper also highlighted tensions between the army and Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party.

The Israeli criticisms are evidence that the fallout from the rhetorical war between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israel's leaders has not dissipated. The revenge for Erdogan's attack on Israel at the Davos summit is the wearing down of his Justice and Development Party. Thus the hostility to the Turkish-Syrian exercises is in part a message to Turkey's military: keep your Prime Minister under control.

As for the regional politics, the Israeli response is another signal that  any peace will have to start with Israeli-Syrian talks rather than alignments beyond Tel Aviv. Yet the Israeli-Syrian discussions have been sidelined with the Netanyahu Government's focus on Iran, set against the US insistence on a two-state solution with Palestine.

So the Israeli media fills the political vacuum while trying to keep both Turkey and Syria off-balance. The question arises: is this also the aim of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, or are they also trying to figure out how to reconcile Israel's relationship with its immediate crises with its wider but now suspect "alliances" in the region?

Secret Wars: Pentagon $50 Billion "Black Budget" Reaches for the Sky

So much for the Obama Administration putting a check on the Pentagon and its ambitions. Writing in The Intelligence Daily, Tim Burghardt reveals the expansion of the military "black budget". Next year's expenditure on covert operations will be close to the entire military budget of Britain, France, Japan, or even China,the next supposed superpower rival to the US.

Big Increases for Intelligence and Pentagon "Black" Programs in 2010

Continuing along the dark path marked out by his predecessors in the Oval Office, President Barack Obama's Defense and Intelligence budget for Fiscal Year 2010 will greatly expand the reach of unaccountable agencies--and the corporate grifters whom they serve.

According to Aviation Week, "the Pentagon's 'black' operations, including the intelligence budgets nested inside it, are roughly equal in magnitude to the entire defense budgets of the UK, France or Japan, and 10 per cent of the total."



Yes, you read that correctly. The "black" or secret portions of the budget are almost as large as the entire defense outlays of America's allies, hardly slouches when it comes to feeding their own militarist beasts. The U.S. Air Force alone intends to spend approximately $12 billion on "black" programs in 2010 or 36 percent of its entire research and development budget. Aviation Week reveals:

Black-world procurement remains dominated by the single line item that used to be called "Selected Activities," resident in the USAF's "other procurement" section. This year's number stands just above $16 billion. In inflation-adjusted terms, that's 240 per cent more than it was ten years ago.

On the operations side, secret spending has risen 8 per cent over last year, to just over $15 billion--equivalent to more than a third of Air Force operating costs.

What does it all go for? In simple terms, we don't know. It is apparent that much if not all of the intelligence community is funded through the black budget: for example, an $850 million USAF line item is clearly linked to reconnaissance satellites. But even so, the numbers are startling--and get more so year by year. (Bill Sweetman, "Black budget blows by $50 billion mark," Aviation Week, May 7, 2009)

How's that for change! The Register gives a break down of the numbers for added emphasis:

1) Mainstream US armed forces $490bn-odd
2) UK armed forces $60bn
3) Chinese armed forces $58bn
4) French armed forces $54bn
5) "Black" US forces $50bn+
6) Japanese Self-Defence forces $44bn

While the American government refuses to disclose the CIA or NSA's budget, "both the Agency and other non-military spooks do get money of their own. Some of this is spent on military or quasi-military activities," The Register reports.

Toss in the world-wide deployment of CIA and U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) paramilitary operatives hidden among a welter of Special Access Programs (SAPs) classified above top secret and pretty soon we're talking real money!

One such program may have been Dick Cheney's "executive assassination ring" disclosed by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh during a "Great Conversations" event at the University of Minnesota in March.

And should pesky investigators from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have the temerity to probe said "executive assassination ring," or other DoD "black" programs well, their Inspector General's had better think again!

According to the whistleblowing security and intelligence website Cryptome, a May 8, 2009 letter from Susan Ragland, GAO Director of Financial Management and Assurance to Diane Watson (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement, lays down the law in no uncertain terms to Congress.

Ms. Ragland wrote: "the IG Act authorizes the heads of six agencies to prohibit their respective IGs from carrying out or completing an audit or investigation, or from issuing any subpoena if the head determines that such prohibition is necessary to prevent either the disclosure of certain sensitive information or significant harm to certain national interests."

Neat, isn't it! Under statutory authority granted the Executive Branch by congressional grifters, Congress amended the IG Act "to establish the Department of Defense (DOD) IG and placed the IG under the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary of Defense with respect to audits or investigations or the issuance of subpoenas that require access to certain information."

What information may be withheld from public scrutiny? Ms. Ragland informs us: "Specifically, the Secretary of Defense may prohibit the DOD IG from initiating, carrying out, or completing such audits or investigations or from issuing a subpoena if the Secretary determines that the prohibition is necessary to preserve the national security interests of the United States."

The same restrictions to the IG Act that apply to the Defense Department are similarly operative for the Departments of the Treasury, Homeland Security, Justice, the U.S. Postal Service (!), the Federal Reserve Board, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Talk about veritable mountains of dirty laundry--and "black" programs--that can be hidden here!

Space-Based Spies

Among the items nestled within the dark arms of Pentagon war planners is a program called "Imagery Satellite Way Ahead," a joint effort between "the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Defense designed to revamp the nation's constellation of spy satellites," Congressional Quarterly reports.

As Antifascist Calling revealed in several investigative pieces in June, October and November 2008, America's fleet of military spy satellites are flown by the secretive National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

According to the agency's own description, "The NRO is a joint organization engaged in the research and development, acquisition, launch and operation of overhead reconnaissance systems necessary to meet the needs of the Intelligence Community and of the Department of Defense. The NRO conducts other activities as directed by the Secretary of Defense and/or the Director of National Intelligence."

As investigative journalist Tim Shorrock revealed in his essential book, Spies for Hire, some ninety-five percent of NRO employees are contractors working for defense and security firms. Indeed, as Shorrock disclosed, "with an estimated $8 billion annual budget, the largest in the IC, contractors control about $7 billion worth of business at the NRO, giving the spy satellite industry the distinction of being the most privatized part of the Intelligence Community."

While the Office's website is short on information, some of the "other activities" alluded to by NRO spooks include the Department of Homeland Security's National Applications Office (NAO).

As I wrote in October, the NAO will coordinate how domestic law enforcement and "disaster relief" agencies such as FEMA use satellite imagery (IMINT) generated by spy satellites. But based on the available evidence, hard to come by since these programs are classified above top secret, the technological power of these military assets are truly terrifying--and toxic for a democracy.

DHS describes the National Applications Office as "the executive agent to facilitate the use of intelligence community technological assets for civil, homeland security and law enforcement purposes." As Congressional Quarterly reveals, the "classified plan would include new, redesigned 'electro-optical' satellites, which collect data from across the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as the expanded use of commercial satellite imagery. Although the cost is secret, most estimates place it in the multibillion-dollar range."

How these redesigned assets will be deployed hasn't been announced. The more pertinent issue is whether or not DHS, reputedly a civilian agency but one which answers to the militarized Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), will position these assets to illegally spy on Americans. The available evidence is they will.

DHS avers that "homeland security and law enforcement will also benefit from access to Intelligence Community capabilities." With Pentagon "black" programs already costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars the question remains, with NAO as the "principal interface" between American spooks, DHS bureaucrats and law enforcement, who will oversee NAO's "more robust access to needed remote sensing information to appropriate customers"?

Certainly not Congress. Investigative journalist Siobhan Gorman writing in The Wall Street Journal documented last year, that despite a highly-critical June 2008 study by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Congress partially-funded the program "in a little debated $634 billion spending measure."

Indeed, a fully-operational NAO now provides federal, state and local officials "with extensive access to spy-satellite imagery--but no eavesdropping--to assist with emergency response and other domestic-security needs, such as identifying where ports or border areas are vulnerable to terrorism." But as CRS investigators wrote:

Members of Congress and outside groups have raised concerns that using satellites for law enforcement purposes may infringe on the privacy and Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. persons. Other commentators have questioned whether the proposed surveillance will violate the Posse Comitatus Act or other restrictions on military involvement in civilian law enforcement, or would otherwise exceed the statutory mandates of the agencies involved. (Richard A. Best Jr. and Jennifer K. Elsea, "Satellite Surveillance: Domestic Issues," Congressional Research Service, June 27, 2008)

While these serious civil liberties' issues have apparently been swept under the carpet, huge funding outlays by Congress for Pentagon's "black" budget operations indicate that President Obama's promises of "change" in how "government does business" is so much hot-air meant to placate the rubes.

Driven by a Corporatist Agenda

Wholesale spying by the American government on its citizens as numerous investigators have uncovered, is aided and abetted by a host of well-heeled corporate grifters in the defense, intelligence and security industries. These powerful, and influential, private players in the Military-Industrial-Security Complex are largely unaccountable; it can be said that America's intelligence and security needs are driven by firms that benefit directly from the Pentagon's penchant for secrecy.

Federal Computer Week reported in April that the program to revamp America's spy satellites "has the backing of the Obama administration, and the program is expected to win congressional approval, according to a senior intelligence official."
The same anonymous "senior official" told the publication, "given the backing of the Defense Department, ODNI and the Obama administration, lawmakers are expected to approve the plan." And as with other "black" programs, the cost is classified but is expected to run into the billions; a veritable windfall for enterprising defense corporations.

The electro-optical satellite modernization program involves building new satellites that the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) would operate and expanding the use of imagery from commercial providers, according to a statement the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released April 7. Under the plan, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency would continue to integrate imagery products for government customers. (Ben Bain, "Spy satellite tally could increase," Federal Computer Week, April 8, 2009)

While no decision has been reached on the "acquisition approach for the program," ODNI and NRO "would oversee the acquisition strategy for the new government-built satellites and a contract would likely be awarded within months."

In a toss-off statement to justify the enormous outlay of taxpayer dollars for the new initiative, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, said last month, "When it comes to supporting our military forces and the safety of Americans, we cannot afford any gaps in collection." Or perhaps "any gaps in collection" on Americans. As Tim Shorrock revealed:

The plans to increase domestic spying are estimated to be worth billions of dollars in new business for the intelligence contractors. The market potential was on display in October at GEOINT 2007, the annual conference sponsored by the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), a non-profit organization funded by the largest contractors for the NGA. During the conference, which took place in October at the spacious Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio, many companies were displaying spying and surveillance tools that had been used in Afghanistan and Iraq and were now being re-branded for potential domestic use. ("Domestic Spying, Inc.," CorpWatch, November 27, 2007)

Indeed, according to Shorrock when the NAO program was conceived in 2005, former ODNI director Michael McConnell "turned to Booz Allen Hamilton of McLean, Virginia--one of the largest contractors in the spy business. The company was tasked with studying how intelligence from spy satellites and photoreconnaissance planes could be better used domestically to track potential threats to security within the U.S."

Tellingly, McConnell was a senior vice president with the spooky firm for a decade. Booz Allen Hamilton was acquired by the private equity firm The Carlyle Group in a 2008 deal worth $2.54 billion. In addition to Booz Allen Hamilton, other giant defense and security corporations involved in running Homeland Security's National Applications Office include the scandal-tainted British firm BAE Systems, ManTech, Boeing and L-3 Communications.

Among the firms in the running to land ODNI/NRO new spy satellite contracts are: BAE, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. All of these corporations according to the Project on Government Oversight's (POGO) Federal Contractor Mismanagement Database (FCMD) have "histories of misconduct such as contract fraud and environmental, ethics, and labor violations."

Unsurprisingly, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE and Northrop Grumman lead the pack in "total instances of misconduct" as well as fines levied by the federal government for abusive practices and outright fraud.

Conclusion

Unaccountable federal agencies and corporations will continue the capitalist "security" grift, particularly when it comes to "black" programs run by the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Despite a documented history of serious ethical and constitutional breeches, these programs will persist and expand well into the future. While the Obama administration has said it favors government transparency, it has continued to employ the opaque methods of its predecessors.

From the use of the state secrets privilege to conceal driftnet surveillance of Americans, to its refusal to launch an investigation--and prosecution--of Bush regime torture enablers and war criminals, the "change" administration instead, has delivered "more of the same."

War on Terror Newsflash: Guantanamo Stays Open, Military Tribunals Resume

A day after President Obama's reversal on the release of photographs of detainee abuse, his Administration made another concession to critics in Congress and the media. Three administration officials spread the word that Guantanamo Bay military tribunals will be resumed for some detainees.

Obama had suspended the tribunals in January, days after he promised the closure of Guantanamo within a year. The two issues are linked: Obama's intention was to put some detainees through the American criminal courts. This in turn meant imprisoning them in the US, rather than on the edge of Cuba. (Other detainees would not be tried but would be sent to "third countries".)



As soon as Obama issued the announcement, critics --- especially former Bush officials and legislators, "experts", and media who had backed the Bush Administration --- lined up to blast the softness of the President. From within the Administration, some military and civilian officials in the Pentagon leaked tales of detainees who would return to terrorism. In the last two weeks, accompanying the even louder blast against the claims of Bush-era torture, the criticism escalated, with Republican Congressmen declaring that no Guantanamo detainee would step foot on US soil. Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder effectively surrendered to a Senate committee, when he said about cases in which a detainee was acquitted:

We are not going to do anything that will endanger the American people. If there were a sufficient basis to conclude they pose a danger to the United States, we would not release them.

The immediate effrect of the decision is to rule out any possibility of due process. The military commissions were a belated "quick fix" when the Bush Administration, which had not intended to do anything with detainees except interrogate them and hold them in perpetuity, had to give some appearance of justice. By the time they put this in practice, however, detainee's files were lost or in a state beyond recovery, lawyers had been denied (and, in some cases, would continue to be denied) access to their clients, and evidence against the accused had been obtained in some cases through "enhanced interrogation".

The Obama officials said that there will be "expanded due-process rights", but this may be a case of putting the genie back in the bottle. Evidence has already been tainted, either because it has not been collected and maintained properly or because it has been obtained under duress. Unless all of that is thrown out by the tribunals (which in some instances means the collapse of the cases), then this is just a nicer face on a dubious system.

However, for the vast majority of the detainees (only a few have been brought before the tribunals), the significance is that they stay in Guantanamo. Difficulties had already stalled the plan to send at least 60 of the 240 to countries in Europe, and the whipped-up outcry about terrorists being let loose in the US has blocked that option. There may be individual releases back to home countries (Canada is now under a court order to take Omar Khadr, imprisoned seven years ago when he was 15), but that will be the extent of the grand intention announced by the President in January.

But maybe the most significance effect of the second  Administration "shift" in two days --- if you put emphasis on domestic politics rather than justice --- is the exposed weakness of the White House. While Obama had (impressively) won political victories in his first months on the economy and on some foreign policy issues like Iran, his critics will now take away the lesson that, if you hit this President with the "national security" club, he will buckle.

That has repercussions not only for the legacy issues of the Bush War on Terror but on Obama's new conflicts. He has another running battle on his hands with some US military leaders, who will keep poking at policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan to shape it to their vision of counter-insurgency rather than the President's. Expect their allies in media, if not the commanders themselves, to ramp up a public vigilance on any perceived Obama mis-steps in the new American wars.

I may be mistaken, for there could be an Administration cunning plan here to put a few high-profile detainees before the tribunals, get the required convictions and sentences, and then --- having bought time --- return to the original scheme to place most of the not-so-dangerous detainees in other countries, if not the US. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be the first showcase: the planner of 9-11 and four others pled guilty in December, and most Americans won't care about due process in his trial.

At best, however, this means that Guantanamo stays open indefinitely and those detainees who aren't KSM are kept in the limbo that they have enjoyed for seven years. More likely, the Administration hasn't even thought this far ahead and is simply scrambling for time. And time means little unless you can find the strength to hold your line when you come under pressure.

The Torture Photos: Obama's Six-Step Sidestep

The always excellent Dan Froomkin, blogging for The Washington Post, captures a lot of what I was trying to say --- but finding it difficult because of anger and sadness --- this morning. Drawing on other analysts as well as Obama's own words, he takes apart the six excuses for refusing the court order to release the photographs of detainee abuse:

Deconstructing Obama's Excuses

In trying to explain his startling decision to oppose the public release of more photos depicting detainee abuse, President Obama and his aides yesterday put forth six excuses for his about-face, one more flawed than the next.

First, there was the nothing-to-see-here excuse. In his remarks yesterday afternoon, Obama said the "photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib."

But as the Washington Post reports: "[O]ne congressional staff member, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the photos, said the pictures are more graphic than those that have been made public from Abu Ghraib. 'When they are released, there will be a major outcry for an investigation by a commission or some other vehicle,' the staff member said."

The New York Times reports: "Many of the photos may recall those taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which showed prisoners naked or in degrading positions, sometimes with Americans posing smugly nearby, and caused an uproar in the Arab world and elsewhere when they came to light in 2004."

And if they really aren't that sensational, then what's the big deal?

Then there was the the-bad-apples-have-been-dealt-with excuse. This one, to me, is the most troubling.

Obama said the incidents pictured in the photographs "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."

But this suggests that Obama has bought into the false Bush-administration narrative that the abuses of detainees were isolated acts, rather than part of an endemic system of abuse implicitly sanctioned at the highest levels of government. The Bushian view has been widely discredited -- and for Obama to endorse it suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of the past.

The notion that responsibility for the sorts of actions depicted in those photos lies at the highest -- not lowest -- levels of government is not exactly a radical view. No less an authority than the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded in a bipartisan report: "The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own....The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."

But as The Washington Post notes: "[N]o commanding officers or Defense Department officials were jailed or fired in connection with the abuse, which the Bush administration dismissed as the misbehavior of low-ranking soldiers." And the "appropriate actions," as Obama put it, have certainly not yet been taken. The architects of the system in which the abuse took place have yet to be held to account.

Then there was the no-good-would-come-of-this excuse.

Obama said it was his "belief that 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."

But the photos would add a lot. It was, after all, the photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq that forced the nation to acknowledge what had happened there. There is something visceral and undeniable about photographic evidence which makes it almost uniquely capable of cutting through the disinformation and denial that surrounds the issue of detainee abuse.

These photos are said to show that the kind of treatment chronicled in Abu Ghraib was in fact not limited to that one prison or one country. They would, as I wrote yesterday, serve as a powerful refutation to former vice president Cheney's so far mostly successful attempt to cast the public debate about government-sanctioned torture as a narrow one limited to the CIA's secret prisons.

Then there was the "protect-the-troops" excuse.

Said 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."

But the concern about the consequences of the release, while laudable on one level, is no excuse for a cover-up.

Glenn Greenwald blogs for Salon: "Think about what Obama's rationale would justify. Obama's claim...means we should conceal or even outright lie about all the bad things we do that might reflect poorly on us. For instance, if an Obama bombing raid slaughters civilians in Afghanistan..., then, by this reasoning, we ought to lie about what happened and conceal the evidence depicting what was done -- as the Bush administration did -- because release of such evidence would 'would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.' Indeed, evidence of our killing civilians in Afghanistan inflames anti-American sentiment far more than these photographs would. Isn't it better to hide the evidence showing the bad things we do?...

"How can anyone who supports what Obama is doing here complain about the CIA's destruction of their torture videos? The torture videos, like the torture photos, would, if released, generate anti-American sentiment and make us look bad. By Obama's reasoning, didn't the CIA do exactly the right thing by destroying them?"

Then there was the chilling-effect excuse.

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

But how so? Under questioning, press secretary Robert Gibbs failed miserably to explain that particular rationale at yesterday's press briefing.

"[I]f in each of these instances somebody looking into detainee abuse takes evidentiary photos in a case that's eventually concluded, this could provide a tremendous disincentive to take those photos and investigate that abuse," Gibbs said.

Q. "Wait, try that once again. I don't follow you. Where's the disincentive?"

Gibbs: "The disincentive is in the notion that every time one of these photos is taken, that it's going to be released. Nothing is added by the release of the photo, right? The existence of the investigation is not increased because of the release of the photo; it's just to provide, in some ways, a sensationalistic portion of that investigation.

"These are all investigations that were undertaken by the Pentagon and have been concluded. I think if every time somebody took a picture of detainee abuse, if every time that -- if any time any of those pictures were mandatorily going to be necessarily released, despite the fact that they were being investigated, I think that would provide a disincentive to take those pictures and investigate."

Get that? Yeah, me neither.

And finally, there was the new-argument excuse.

Gibbs said "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."

But as the Los Angeles Times reports, the argument that releasing the photographs could create a backlash "was raised and rejected by a federal district court judge and the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which called the warnings of a backlash 'clearly speculative' and insufficient to warrant blocking disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

"'There's no legal basis for withholding the photographs,' said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, 'so this must be a political decision.'"

Margaret Talev and Jonathan S. Landay write for McClatchy Newspapers: "The request for what's effectively a legal do-over is an unlikely step for a president who is trained as a constitutional lawyer, advocated greater government transparency and ran for election as a critic of his predecessor's secretive approach toward the handling of terrorism detainees.

"Eric Glitzenstein, a lawyer with expertise in Freedom of Information Act requests, said he thought that Obama faced an uphill legal battle. 'They should not be able to go back time and again and concoct new rationales' for withholding what have been deemed public records, he said.

"The timing of the president's decision suggests that a key factor behind his switch of position could have been a desire to prevent the release of the photos before a speech that he's to give June 4 in Egypt aimed at convincing the world's Muslims that the United States isn't at war with them. The pictures' release shortly before the speech could have negated its goal and proved highly embarrassing. Even if courts ultimately reject Obama's new position, the time needed for their consideration could delay the photos' release until long after the speech."

Peter Wallsten and Janet Hook write in the Los Angeles Times: "President Obama's decision Wednesday to try to block the court-ordered release of photographs depicting alleged abuse of detainees by U.S. soldiers sets him on a confrontational course with his liberal base. But it is a showdown he is willing to risk -- and may even view as politically necessary...

"Obama now can tell critics on the right that he did his best to protect the nation's troops, even if the courts eventually force the disclosure.

"Obama has been facing intense criticism from former Vice President Dick Cheney and other conservatives, who have argued that the new administration's efforts to roll back Bush-era interrogation policies have made the country less safe.

"The praise for Obama that came Wednesday from Republicans such as House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina can only help undercut those arguments."

But, Wallsten and Hook write: "Obama's dilemma is that he risks undermining one of the core principles he claimed for his presidency: transparency."

The Washington political-media establishment seems to approve of Obama's decision.

Rick Klein writes in ABC News's The Note: "In the broader context, it's cast as a sign of political maturation, maybe even classic Obama pragmatism. This is what it's like to be commander-in-chief -- one of those tough choices where there's no easy answer, and no shame in reversing yourself."

Ben Smith and Josh Gerstein write in Politico that Obama's reversal "marks the next phase in the education of the new president on the complicated, combustible issue of torture."

Washington Post opinion columnist David Ignatius blogs: "Is this a 'Sister Soulja' moment on national security, like Bill Clinton's famous criticism of a controversial rap singer during the 1992 presidential campaign -- which upset some liberal supporters but polished his credentials as a centrist?"

But anti-torture bloggers reject the comparison.

Andrew Sullivan blogs: "The MSM cannot see the question of torture and violation of the Geneva Conventions as a matter of right and wrong, of law and lawlessness. They see it as a matter of right and left. And so an attempt to hold Bush administration officials accountable for the war crimes they proudly admit to committing is 'left-wing.' And those of us who actually want to uphold the rule of law ... are now the equivalent of rappers urging the murder of white people."

In a separate post, Sullivan writes: "Slowly but surely, Obama is owning the cover-up of his predcessors' war crimes. But covering up war crimes, refusing to proscute them, promoting those associated with them, and suppressing evidence of them are themselves violations of Geneva and the UN Convention. So Cheney begins to successfully coopt his successor."