May 13, 2004 - We live in an open society – at least we claim we do. We conduct our government in the public view – at least we claim we do. We have a free and uncensored press – at least we claim that we do. With all of that we permit the government to prevent the press from photographing the stream of anonymous casualties arriving at Dover Air Force Base. We let the government get away with the claim that their policy is intended to protect the privacy of the families of the unidentifiable dead. Ask Nicholas Berg’s father about the invasion of a family’s privacy as the image of his son’s death is shown and re- shown.

The Secretary of Defense argued today from Baghdad against letting the public see photographic evidence of American violations of international law and common decency, American law and the Geneva Convention by saying that displaying the photographs is a violation of the Geneva Convention. In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee he was more disturbed by the publication of the evidence than he was with that which the evidence showed saying that the “real question” was how the photographs and the Taguba Report got out. He suggested then and repeats today that showing the American people that evidence endangers the men and women whose lives he has gambled in Iraq. It is as though he believes that the Iraqi detainees will forget their treatment unless reminded by the photographs. It is as though he believes that the Iraqi people have not heard the survivors of post-Saddam Abu Ghraib describe the treatment they endured.

I don’t need to see the new pictures. I already know what they show. People who have seen them have described them in graphic terms and the media have circulated those descriptions. Those descriptions of the conduct are enough to fill me with dismay at the depth of depravities committed in our name.

I did not need to see the stop-action image of the masked terrorist holding up his trophy or view the videotaped slaughter of Nicholas Berg. I read the description of what the material showed and that was enough to convey the horror of it. I saw the photograph of Mr. Berg’s father – on the ground – in agony - as his surviving son tried to comfort him. What interest does it serve to rip away the veil over his private grief?

We are a people at war and not just with a dedicated enemy on an amorphous battlefield. We are engaged in a second war; a war to determine just what kind of people we are. We are at war with our own principles, our own traditions, and our own heritage and that is the war that we are losing.