I will never become complacent about what the MILITARY of this country does in the name of being the world's peacekeepers the way you have.

That's it. In total. See for yourself.

As a veteran, I can tell you that the oath that requires one to pledge to protect the United States Constitution (NOT "the US and its citizens") is the oath of enlistment. There is a similar phrase in the oath of citizenship taken by newly naturalized citizens, but again the oath says "I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

There is limited national security interest. The information regarding torture is not going to give anyone secrets they can use to kill more Americans, in or out of uniform.  Other acts we continue to commit do the same job of pumping up the motivation and propaganda points for the terrorists.

A much more critical issue here is whether the President should have the power to conceal evidence about the Government's actions on the ground that what the Government did was so bad, so wrong, so inflammatory, so lawless, that to allow disclosure and transparency would reflect poorly on our country, thereby increase anti-American sentiment, and thus jeopardize The Troops.  Once you accept that rationale -- the more extreme the Government's abuses are, the more compelling is the need for suppression -- then open government, one of the central planks of the Obama campaign and the linchpin of a healthy democracy, becomes an illusion.

Our government tortured people believing they could justify it, that if they could say it was legal, it was okay.  Imagine if they didn't have to justify anything - if they could operate from the position that there is nothing so terrible it could do that it couldn't just hide.  I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I don't want a government that gets any more latitude to ignore us than it already has.

Maybe we don't actually "need" to see the pictures, but we do need a government that has to be responsive to requests for information, that cannot simply say "nope" and be done with it.  

We have a judicial system within which the issues at stake can and have been argued, and that system has, so far, ruled that the government has not met any of the exceptions to FOIA that would allow it to refuse to release the pictures.  Let the government take it to the Supreme Court if they want to keep fighting this - make them work to protect what they've done.  Make them do it out in the open - isn't that what open government is?

Many would like to make this about "the pictures" and the dangers to our troops if they are released, but how long are we going to allow that mentality to determine (1) how our government conducts itself and (2) what kind of government we have?  

And as Glenn so rightly asks, how is it that Candidate Obama could speak so eloquently about having it both ways - keeping us safe while still adhering to our long-standing principles - and President Obama seems to have bought into the concept that there is no way to keep us safe without abandoning those principles?