The Obama administration said it would seek to block a court-ordered release of photographs which depict what US personnel actually do overseas. This is a major reversal of Obama’s promise over three weeks ago in which he stated that he would not oppose the release of the photos.

The president claimed that the photos would “further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in danger.” Funny, I thought an imperialist foreign policy was what inflamed anti-American sentiment and that forcing Americans to occupy those “anti-American” countries was what actually put them in danger. It’s our actions that actually need to change if we’re to curb anti-American sentiment. Disclosure of these embarrassing photos could actually help our image by showing the world we’re making a break with the past.

Lets take a further look at the president’s claim that the publication of these photos will unarguably “put our troops in danger”. According to Donald Rumsfeld, as horrific and disgusting as the photos from Abu-Gharib prison were, they were just a small percentage of the photos and tapes that existed. They were actually the least offensive photos of the bunch - those deemed safe for public consumption. And yet as shocking as photos of sexual and physical abuse were to the American public in 2004, their reception was fairly low-key in Iraq because Iraqis already knew what was happening. The photos were tame in comparison to their everyday reality and what they’ve already heard. There was no surge in anti-American sentiment beyond that which already existed from the actual acts themselves. Simply put, President Obama’s justification for secrecy doesn’t hold up. The rest of the world already knows what we’ve done. It’s the American public that he’s trying to keep ignorant.

The president additionally stated 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.” Now there’s an interesting motivation for withholding information. President Obama has declared that disclosure won’t benefit anyone. That seems like an oddly familiar line of reasoning. Does the president really have the authority to decide what we can and can’t publish? Is he declaring himself “The Decider”?

Executive Director of the ACLU Anthony D. Romero stated, “The Obama administration’s adoption of the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration flies in the face of the president’s stated desire to restore the rule of law, to revive our moral standing in the world and to lead a transparent government. This decision is particularly disturbing given the Justice Department’s failure to initiate a criminal investigation of torture crimes under the Bush administration.”

Like all imperialits, Obama is not concerned with the safety of American soldiers. If he was he’d bring them home where they actually would be out of harm’s way. No, the president is much less concerned with the lives of the proletariat and much more concerned with blocking the exposure of the criminality of the government. The more he discloses, the more likely it is that fellow members of the ruling elite will be prosecuted (including members of his own party like Pelosi). That would be a dangerous precedent for an administration that has decided to continue many of the same crimes of their predecessors - including criminal wars and domestic spying.

The Obama administration is not appealing to us with any new argument that the Bush administration didn’t already put forth, and should therefor not be treated any differently by liberals and human rights advocates than the previous administration. We must have the same tenacity for justice when faced with the same obstacles. In a democracy, citizens have the right to know what is being done in their name and officials do not have the right to withholding information they deem inappropriate.

While the entire world has been demanding prosecution of the Bush administration, Obama has simply stated that we need to “look forward” and not go down the dangerous path of accountability. Self-described pragmatists (aka apologists) argue that if we did our whole damn government might be behind bars. Not such a bad thing in my opinion.