In our view May 14: Obama Flip-Flops

Much of President Barack Obama's success in last year's election was based on his promise to foster open government, transparency and accountability. Now he has reversed that course as he tries to block the release of hundreds of photos showing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan being abused.

How many more times will Obama reverse or abandon positions that he articulated in his campaign for the presidency?

His reasons for changing his mind in this case are shallow, even naíve: The results of releasing the photos, Obama said on Wednesday, would "be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger." Such logic implies that terrorists are subject to mood swings based on U.S. policy decisions. History screams the opposite. Americans have learned in recent years all we need to know about how intractable and committed terrorists are to their evil crusade. It is foolish and dangerous to believe their hatred of Americans could be abated or modified by any president's decision to hide photos of terrorists being abused.

Furthermore, to believe Obama's premise is to assume that the infamous Abu Ghraib photos never existed. Five years ago, the whole world learned about abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. That knowledge came forth through one simple but monumental act: illumination of the truth. Photos emerged of U.S. soldiers posing with detainees, many of whom were naked or held on leashes. As a result, Americans were able to hold their government and its military leaders accountable.

Terrorists are not simpletons. They will hate us no less because photos are kept hidden. They already know about these most recent photos, and if Obama pursues a policy of secrecy, terrorists logically will conclude the photos show violations even worse than what occurred at Abu Ghraib.

Clumsily, Obama tried to quell that assumption with a statement that, ironically, contradicts his decision to keep the photos secret: "I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational." Really? Then release them. He added: "… particularly when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib." Prove it. Show the truth.

From a domestic perspective, failure to release the photos not only violates Obama's campaign promise, it suffocates the public's right to know. The president earlier showed a fresh, bold commitment to the public's right to know when he reversed a Bush Administration stance and allowed photos of slain soldiers' caskets to be released (upon approval of such release by the soldier's family). Now, he moves to defend the government's right to hide. That should alarm Americans of all partisan and independent persuasions.

A second domestic concern is the president's defiance of the courts. Federal appeals judges, responding in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ruled that the photos must be released. So convincing was that ruling, the Justice Department dropped plans to appeal. Yet Obama shunned the judicial mandate for open, transparent government.

We're a country of exposure and access, not the opposite. Many abuse photos already are out in the public, and these will end up there as well. To try to suppress them makes us look like the enemies we are fighting. We're fighting for more openness. Let's show it despite the possible negative consequences.