Judge Orders Release of Abu Ghraib Pictures, Videos

This is a very dicey issue.

As in many questions of free information in a national security context, the problem is that Americans have the right to know but that it's dangerous for Americans for our enemies to know.

Yes, there are obvious political reasons the government has for wanting to suppress this stuff. And when the government has a political investment in suppressing information, one should be pretty careful about granting their desire for secrecy.

However: We all know what happened at Abu Ghraib. Andrew Sullivan writes about it every other day. There have been a lot of pictures released; just not all of them. We certainly have enough information as citizens to make informed judgments about this matter.

Given that, there seems to be little incremental value to Americans in having access to these pictures and videos. But a very great value to America's enemies -- including jihad-pornographers like Al Jazeera -- in running these pictures and videos constantly.

The judge erred. It is right and good to be suspicious of the government. However, one must also be suspicious of America's enemies.

The left is quite good about the former. Regarding the latter... not so much.

posted by Ace at 01:48 PM

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