Obama Breaks his Promise

Even though Dick Cheney is running around denying it, we all now know that the Bush administration ordered the torturing of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. We have seen the "smoking gun" memos from the White House that proves it beyond a doubt.

The only thing left to decide was whether we would admit to the world that the Bush administration acted like war criminals and punish them for their actions. That is what should be done. That would be the morally correct thing to do.

But we learned early in the Obama administration that would not happen. Instead of allowing a full investigation to be conducted and charges brought against the criminals in the Bush administration, Obama decided to "look forward instead of back". That was a nice way of saying their would be no charges.

Obama had decided to do the politically expedient thing instead of the right thing. After getting taken to task for that, he later said it would be up to his Attorney general, but we all know the Attorney General is not going to do anything the president doesn't want him to do. The fact is that Obama has decided it might hurt him politically to do the right thing, so he's not going to do it.

Many of us had hoped that Obama would turn out to be a strong leader who was not afraid to do the right thing. That was probably a foolish hope. We now know he is the consummate political animal, and will do nothing that might hurt him politically -- no matter how right it might be.

But even if the war criminals would never be charged, they could be exposed before the world by releasing the pictures of their heinous actions. Releasing the pictures and exposing their actions would show the world the United States has changed and will not condone torture -- even if it is ordered by the White House.

Obama had promised that he would release the pictures. He even had a judicial order for the release to cover his political self. But he evidently lied to us, because now he is saying he will fight against releasing the pictures. He said the release of the pictures would make it more dangerous for our soldiers, even though he says the photos "are not particularly sensational, especially when compared with the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib."

If the pictures are not that bad, then why not release them? It makes it look like we are not only protecting the criminals responsible for the torture, but we are now also trying to hide what they did. Lying and hiding the truth is what puts our soldiers in danger, because it makes it look like the United States is not willing to change its criminal policies. By not making a clean break with the past administration, the Obama administration looks like it condones what the past administration did.

It's too bad that Obama has turned out to be a politician rather than a leader, and it doesn't bode well for the future of our country. What will he cave in on next -- health care or energy policy? Who knows?