Obama might not want those now notorious photos released - for the torture they are said to show is not only horrific but offensive to boot - but they are already out there and will gradually gain circulation around the globe. If the description of what they show is even half right, hang on USA for a blast from many quarters, not least from Middle East countries.
Naomi Wolf comments on The Huffington Post on the still supposedly under-wraps photos:
"The Telegraph of London broke the news - because the US press is in a drugged stupor -- that the photos Obama is refusing to release of detainee abuse depict, among other sexual tortures, an American soldier raping a female detainee and a male translator raping a male prisoner. The paper claims the photos also show anal rape of prisoners with foreign objects such as wires and lightsticks. Major General Antonio Taguba calls the images `horrific' and `indecent' (but absurdly agrees that Obama should not release them - proving once again that the definition of hypocrisy is the assertion that the truth is in poor taste).
Predictably, a few hours later the Pentagon issues a formal denial.
It is very likely that the Pentagon lying. This is probably exactly what the photos show, because it happened. Precisely these exact sex crimes - these exact images and these very objects -- are familiar and well-documented to those of us who follow closely rights' organizations reports of what has already been confirmed."
Meanwhile, over at The Daily Beast, Scott Horton - a law professor and writer on legal and national security affairs for Harper's Magazine and The American Lawyer, among other publications - writes:
"The Daily Beast has confirmed that the photographs of abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, which President Obama, in a reversal, decided not to release, depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition, and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.
These descriptions come on the heels of a British report yesterday about the photographs that contained some of these revelations—and whose credibility was questioned by the Pentagon.
The Daily Beast has obtained specific corroboration of the British account, which appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, from several reliable sources, including a highly credible senior military officer with firsthand knowledge, who provided even more detail about the graphic photographs that have been withheld from the public by the Obama administration.
A senior military officer familiar with the photos told me that they would likely provoke a storm of outrage if released. The well-informed source confirmed, just as reported in the Telegraph, that many of the photographs are sexually explicit, including those mentioned above. The photographs differ from those already officially released. Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed. In another, a prisoner is suspended naked upside down from the top bunk of a bed in a stress position."
Naomi Wolf comments on The Huffington Post on the still supposedly under-wraps photos:
"The Telegraph of London broke the news - because the US press is in a drugged stupor -- that the photos Obama is refusing to release of detainee abuse depict, among other sexual tortures, an American soldier raping a female detainee and a male translator raping a male prisoner. The paper claims the photos also show anal rape of prisoners with foreign objects such as wires and lightsticks. Major General Antonio Taguba calls the images `horrific' and `indecent' (but absurdly agrees that Obama should not release them - proving once again that the definition of hypocrisy is the assertion that the truth is in poor taste).
Predictably, a few hours later the Pentagon issues a formal denial.
It is very likely that the Pentagon lying. This is probably exactly what the photos show, because it happened. Precisely these exact sex crimes - these exact images and these very objects -- are familiar and well-documented to those of us who follow closely rights' organizations reports of what has already been confirmed."
Meanwhile, over at The Daily Beast, Scott Horton - a law professor and writer on legal and national security affairs for Harper's Magazine and The American Lawyer, among other publications - writes:
"The Daily Beast has confirmed that the photographs of abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, which President Obama, in a reversal, decided not to release, depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition, and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.
These descriptions come on the heels of a British report yesterday about the photographs that contained some of these revelations—and whose credibility was questioned by the Pentagon.
The Daily Beast has obtained specific corroboration of the British account, which appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, from several reliable sources, including a highly credible senior military officer with firsthand knowledge, who provided even more detail about the graphic photographs that have been withheld from the public by the Obama administration.
A senior military officer familiar with the photos told me that they would likely provoke a storm of outrage if released. The well-informed source confirmed, just as reported in the Telegraph, that many of the photographs are sexually explicit, including those mentioned above. The photographs differ from those already officially released. Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed. In another, a prisoner is suspended naked upside down from the top bunk of a bed in a stress position."
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