Everybody needs to settle down about "torture porn"

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There's a kneejerk shitstorm of reaction today against Obama's decision to resist the release of more Cheney-era torture photos in response to a Freedom of Information Act request and a court decision supporting it. For once, however, I agree with the frequently odious Harry Reid: we've already seen enough torture pictures.

During the Cheney era, pictures of government-inflicted torture were hard evidence of crimes in progress --- crimes that were being denied and covered up in real time by the Bush administration. We have plenty of pictures now. More importantly, we have hard documentation of how Cheney-era torture policies were developed and implemented. I cannot see how the public release of more torture photos at this point in time contributes anything to public discussion of the subject. Pictures will sensationalize the issue, making it more difficult for the debate to proceed on its legal, logical, and philosophical bases.

All available effort, including the work of lefty bloggers, should be directed toward ensuring that the people who developed and implemented illegal and treaty-breaking interrogation policies for the U.S. government be criminally investigated and prosecuted. And elected officials who served as enablers for Cheney's monsters, especially gutless Democrats in the Congress, should be exposed and shamed for giving the Bush administration cover and comfort in this area.

Only prosecutions (and the imprisonment of those convicted) have a real chance to eradicate torture as a tool of U.S. military operations, intelligence, statecraft, and law enforcement. Horrifying pictures won't do it, except when introduced into evidence during criminal trials.

When torture prosecutions are completed, appeals have been exhausted, and the American public has understood for all time that torture is as unacceptable as terrorism or political assassination, then the pictures should be released to the national archives for examination by news organizations, scholars, and the public. They're part of our ugly history, and they need to be preserved and curated.

Meanwhile, professional "outspoken critics" should consider keeping their eyes on the real fucking ball if they want justice. The Congress and the President need to be lobbied mercilessly, shamed if necessary, into investigating and prosecuting those involved in the 8-year Cheney-era crime spree called the "Bush administration." Nobody must be let off the hook.