As candidate Barack Obama was pledged to release photographs of abuse of prisoners by the military and to end the mililtary commissions that George W Bush established to try the inmates of Guantanamo Bay.
In recent days President Obama has reversed both of those positions.
He has decided that the release of abuse photographs will only risk inflaming opinion towards America and towards US forces in particular. He has also reluctantly decided that military commissions - with reform - are the only effective way of trying prisoners who were captured in theatres of war.
Rich Lowry of National Review welcomes the White House's double shift:
"To the extent Guantanamo Bay has stoked terrorist recruitment, it probably has more to do with the photos of the facility from its earliest days — with captives bound, in orange jumpsuits — than anything that happened there. The most infamous photo from Abu Ghraib — of a man with a black hood over his head, his arms outstretched — has negatively branded the War on Terror for millions, no matter how sincerely we hope to protect Muslims from the depredations of the vile murderers in their midst. Obama isn’t going to subject us to another self-inflicted disaster in the information war. At least not yet. If he wants to keep the photos permanently under wraps — and show he’s truly willing to buck the loudest faction in his own coalition — he can’t rely on the courts, where he’s now appealing the decision to release them. He’ll have to issue an executive order exempting the photos from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act."
