The primary argument against the release of these photos of captured enemy combatants is that it will inflame public opinion against the United States. This seems, to me, a simply bizarre argument, given that the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq are, by now, intimately familiar with the kinds of tragedies that can take place at times of military conflict. For example, with US airstrikes killing many innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, will pictures of US soldiers treating Afghani men shamefully really do much more to harm our international image?
I suspect that, in fact, the people of those places--Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and many other places around the world--already know what happens when another country--even a democratic one--intervenes militarily on your soil. The outcomes aren't good. Arguments that the release of disturbing images will endanger US lives abroad seem strange to me when, in fact, we are engaged in the activity of using military force--with all the nastiness that implies--in these countries, and, I believe, the vast majority of the residents of those countries have some sort of fairly accurate idea of what that consists of.
The people who don't know what happens--because the US mainland has not been invaded since 1812, and because life in the United States is overwhelmingly peaceful and secure--are the Americans. Giving them a glimpse of what it means to have sent troops to Afghanistan through these pictures is one way of acquainting the US public with the reality of military conflict. Only when people have such information can they make informed choices as voters and citizens in this democracy, about the way they would like their government to act abroad.
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