The Reasonable Judiciarium Does it Again!

The Reasonable have spoken. Photos and videos that may incite violence among islamo-fascists and their manipulated marks must be shown. It doesn't matter who dies. We're Foolish to even bring it up.

"Release Abu Ghraib Photos!" The Reasonable Judiciarium command

Adding insult to injury, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein attempts to seize the high ground in the delivery of his travesty of justice:

A federal judge Thursday ordered the release of dozens more pictures of prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib (search), rejecting government arguments that the images would provoke terrorists and incite violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said that terrorists "do not need pretexts for their barbarism" and that suppressing the pictures would amount to submitting to blackmail.

"Our nation does not surrender to blackmail, and fear of blackmail is not a legally sufficient argument to prevent us from performing a statutory command. Indeed, the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed," he said.

Hellerstein ordered the release of 74 pictures and three videotapes from the Abu Ghraib prison, potentially opening the military up to more embarrassment from a scandal that stirred outrage around the world last year, when photos of the 2003 abuse became public.

Click here to view the judge's Abu Ghraib ruling (pdf).

The photographs covered by Thursday's ruling were taken by a soldier. A military policeman who saw them turned them over to the Army. Some may be duplicates of photos already seen by the public.

An appeal of Hellerstein's ruling is expected, which could delay release of the pictures for months.

Gen. John Abizaid (search), commander of U.S. Central Command, said Thursday that releasing the photos would hinder his work against terrorism.

"When we continue to pick at the wound and show the pictures over and over again it just creates the image — a false image — like this is the sort of stuff that is happening anew, and it's not," Abizaid said.

The American Civil Liberties Union (search) sought release of the photographs and videotapes as part of an October 2003 lawsuit demanding information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture. The ACLU contends that prisoner abuse is systemic.

The photos and video of Abu Ghraib do nothing to foster debate about torture that the Abu Ghraib story itself hasn't already done. The release of these previously withheld media will only radicalize more fence-sitters among the irate muslims throughout the Islamic world. The erroneous Newsweek story about the desecration of the Q'uran caused rioting in Afghanistan that killed 23 people. Imagine how many homicide bombings might occur against US servicemen in Iraq when these controversial photos and video become public. Allowing this puts American soldiers' lives at needless risk.

The ACLU has little interest in the consequence of this action to American soldiers. They have an unprecedented opportunity to embarrass the Bush Administration and further the Agenda that all Reasonable elites believe. Foolish as I am, I'd rather stuff the agenda that has little support from many Americans and save soldiers' lives.

Unfortunatel, the Reasonable Judiciarium don't agree with me. They have spoken.

God have mercy on us all.