David Ignatius thinks release of the interrogation memos serves the purpose of improving America’s image. I disagree, but at least he is honest enough to admit the damage done:

Obama seems to think he can have it both ways — authorizing an unprecedented disclosure of CIA operational methods and at the same time galvanizing a clandestine service whose best days, he told them Monday, are “yet to come.” Life doesn’t work that way — even for charismatic politicians. Disclosure of the torture memos may have been necessary, as part of an overdue campaign to change America’s image in the world. But nobody should pretend that the disclosures weren’t costly to CIA morale and effectiveness.

As a result of the disclosure,  Ignatius explains, we see that agents are more cautious, the CIA doesn’t want to interrogate anyone under any rules, and we now have a group of “broken and bewildered” operatives who foolishly believed one administration wouldn’t pull the rug out from under those who acted on legal advice from another. Ignatius wants Obama now to tell the howling  crowds to pipe down and put any “truth commission” behind closed doors.

So we are back to good old fashioned secrecy because we’ve learned. . . what exactly? That “unburdening ourselves” entails human costs we cannot calculate; that in the great “moral” act of disclosure (well, not disclosing everything, we learn from the Gray Lady) we have to weigh the great immorality of empowering our enemies and betraying our own officials; and that starting a national feeding frenzy is destructive and threatens to engulf most of the political oxygen, perhaps endangering the new administration’s broader agenda. (Think of the parallel history in which Ford didn’t pardon Nixon and the trial went on for months.)

It is very hard for those on the Left to give up the notion that all this revelation was “necessary.” But if they now have had quite enough and see what they have wrought that is progress, I suppose. They may be learning that there are higher values than displaying our past deeds for the sake of currying applause, as if we were a washed up celebrity on Oprah. The damage however can’t be undone and the mob, I strongly suspect, won’t stand for putting this behind closed doors. Ignatius  expects the president to stand up to those crying for more blood. Good luck with that. Standing up to the crowd has not been his strong suit.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 11:25 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.