Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg approved an Obama administration request to have an additional 30 days to submit their appeal to justify suppressing the photos of US troops torturing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration can now dally until July 9 before submitting their brief arguing their case.
This is simply one more layer of BS atop of all the government excuses that have piled up since May 2004. Ginsburg’s order is a green light for the government to continue playing games and concocting excuses not to disclose the hard evidence of U.S. war crimes.
The SCOTUS Blog notes: “President Obama and his aides are pursuing two paths for trying to overturn that disclosure order: first, they are seeking action by Congress to amend the FOIA to bar the release; if that does not succeed, they plan to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the Circuit Court decision…. The Ginsburg delay order gives Congress more time to act. The Senate has passed a measure to block the photos’ disclosure, and the two houses are expected to work on the issue early this month.”
The torture scandal continues revealing the sham that there are any checks and balances to restrain our rulers from seizing and abusing absolute power.
Jim, one bogus reason being offered for not releasing the photos is that it might imperil American troops stationed in Iraq. I think that most of the insurgents and aspiring insurgents in that region already know about the torture that had taken place. Word of mouth from trusted sources can be quite effective. In fact, knowledge of torture was apparently used as a recruitment tool. If anything, they are probably wondering why Americans are being kept in the dark by their own government.
One also has to consider the propaganda quality of torture in that those who exercise it use it as a part of their ongoing intimidation and psychological warfare against opposition. The Empire Project virtually guarantees that these sordid policies will continue and our media as well as the political class it covers seem to think it is an acceptable and even prudent bargain to “preserve” our security….said security gone once these policies come into play.
We are told these are “hard choices”…made for “our safety”….when “our safety” and general welfare is obviously subservient and secondary to the various machinery of the Imperial Project.
Yes Dirk, the political class thinks that as long as the helots are fed, supplied with Chinese toys and kept ignorant everything will run smoothly. They may be in for a surprise.