You Can't Handle the Truth

President Obama's dilemma on torture recalls this famous line uttered by Jack Nicholson's character, Col. Nathan R. Jessep, in the movie "A Few Good Men." Jessep continues:

"And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall."

President Obama has, apparently, come to the same conclusion: Americans don't want to know the truth about the torture of military detainees. The issue will be divisive for Americans, who are already struggling with the economic repercussions of an administration that catered to special interests at the expense of the American people. We can't handle the truth. Not now.

The problem is that the torture issue is not going to go away, and we don't think of ourselves as a nation that values truth only when it's convenient. Obama's insistence that we look "forward and not backward" can't be reasonably applied to the concept of justice. Justice always looks at the past. And, with all due respect, it's not his call.

The report released yesterday by the Senate Armed Services Committee sheds light on the role of Bush administration officials in approving the military's use of torture. The report was approved by the Armed Services Committee on November 20, 2008, and was declassified by the Department of Defense this week.

Along with other information gradually coming out, we now have a very different picture of the issue:

• The interrogation techniques were adapted from methods used by Chinese Communists on U.S. soldiers during the Korean War, not to gather intelligence, but to coerce false confessions.
• The Bush administration was more focused on finding a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, than on gathering intelligence that might prevent future attacks.
• The abuses discovered several years ago were not simply the result of a few "bad apples," as we were led to believe. The direction came from "senior officials" in the Bush administration.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had this to say about the importance of this new information:

If we are to retain our status as a leader in the world, we must acknowledge and confront the abuse of detainees in our custody. The Committee's report and investigation makes significant progress toward that goal. There is still the question, however, of whether high level officials who approved and authorized those policies should be held accountable.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has come out of hiding place in recent weeks, and is now in the news more often than Paris Hilton. The Armed Services Committee report may provide a clue as to why. In interviews with FOX News and elsewhere, he makes it makes it very clear what he thinks about the idea of being "held accountable."

Maybe he thinks of himself as the fictional Col. Jessep, who considered himself above the law. Let's hope he's right... in the end, Jessep is led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.