Unsurprisingly, the government has just appealed Gladys Kessler’s order that it release the videos of Abu Wa’el Dhiab. h/t Josh Gerstein
DOJ cited a number of reasons why releasing videos of US service members feeding a indefinitely detained prisoner who had been cleared for released years earlier. But one of them is the propaganda to which our adversaries might use such videos.
(4) use of the videos in propaganda by entities hostile to the United States;
Apparently, if the rest of the world saw how we fed our indefinitely detained prisoners, they would start bombing us.
But honest, DOJ says, it’s not torture and it’s not punitive.
Update, from an affidavit submitted by Rear Admiral Sinclair Harris. (h/t Ryan Reilly)
There is little doubt that ISIL would use imagery from Guantanamo Bay to further encourage its supporters and followers to attack military and government personnel.
He likens releasing these videos to the release of Marines pissing on corpses and news of the US burning Qurans.
He explains if AQAP got it, they might use it to support a recent claim made in Inspire claiming, “America has lost the most important element of global leadership: morals and principles.”