My opinion on the torture photos

Though I understand the issue is probably more complex than the data I, a layperson, have been presented suggests, I doubt more information would change my basic opinion.  I can think of few substantial reasons to not release photos of what our previous administration did.  (I also believe Gerald Ford was wrong to pardon Nixon.)

Some fear the negative effect this will have on Obama’s rating, but since these photos were taken under the Bush regime, I asuspect the flak will accord to the Republicans.  They already look like such a horrible party that this could be the nail in the coffin. 

Moreover, when most people talk about torture, it is such an abstract term that they are going to support it without greater reflection.  This is why no one who has undergone water boarding supports its use afterwards, not even crazy right wing radio jocks.  It’s also the same reason we as a nation are blase about reforming health care: we don’t think the extraordinary costs are a problem until it affects us or someone we know, probably through a bankruptcy.  “Torture” is so abstract that these photos are as close (in conjunction with the Abu Ghraib ones) as we can get to internalizing torture.  In other words, I suspect that seeing exactly what we, THE GREATEST NATION THAT HAS EVER LIVED AMERICA HELL YEA, does to these people will shock a lot of that 57%.
 
And I don’t think that it is such smart triangulation either.  Obama is supposed to be about change, and switching stances here, so soon after reaching the White House, makes him look increasingly like a Washington insider.  We all understand that there is a difference between a stump speech and pragmatism, but you don’t break a campaign speech on something gigantic like this.  You switch stances on protecting nature preserves or your stance on desk regulation, but you don’t change it on one of your central issues (government transparency and the rule of the law).  Just as China can tell us to shove it because of these photos, Israel can do the same by refusing to stop expanding its West Bank settlements. 
 
Finally, it is interesting that no one has offered specific instances of when and where the torturing has saved lives.  If it is such an imperative practice and so defensible, then surely the hand of the defenders of torture would be strengthed by revealilng, “We interoggated Mr. X in fashion Y and he revealed Z.  This took us to A and we prevented B deaths.”  What state secrets would be revealed?
 
All in all, I think it is hard for us as Americans to often realize how backwards we can often look.  In 1957, the National Review was arguing against the Civil Rights Acts because “Negros” were less civilized than “Whites.”  50 years ago!  We conflate our military supreriority with moral superiority, and so we bury clear, universally immoral actions under red herrings about national security and domestic sovereignty.  Surely no one who defends Guantanamo would defend North Korea’s actions towards our two journalists.  The only difference is that it’s Them, not Us, doing it.