Torture views evolve as past meets present

"The past is a different country. They do things differently there." So goes a wise aphorism that should be applied to the debate over whether those who authorized and used torture should be prosecuted. In a very different country called Sept. 11, 2001, the answer would be a resounding no.

Back then, a Washington Post poll gave George W. Bush a 92 percent approval rating. Questions about the viability of torture were very much in the air. Alan Dershowitz suggested the creation of torture warrants - permission from a court to, in effect, break some bones.

Dershowitz, mind you, was not in favor of torture but argued that if torture was to be done, it was best done legally. Thoughtful Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter mulled the legality, morality and efficacy of torture, ultimately ruling it out - although not sodium pentothal (truth serum) or off-shoring terrorism suspects "to our less squeamish allies," as, in fact, the government already was. Alter's essay created quite a stir - and to his surprise, much whispered support from liberals. Historian Jay Winik wrote of the usefulness of torture, how Philippine agents in 1995 got Abdul Hakim Murad to reveal a plot to blow up 11 American Airlines over the Pacific and send another plane loaded with nerve gas into CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Beaten nearly to death, it was the hollow threat to turn him over to Israel's Mossad that broke him, an example widely mentioned then even by those who opposed torture. The conventional wisdom that torture never works - so counterintuitive as to be an absurdity - was not yet doctrine. Neither was the belief that the coming war in Iraq was a moral and practical absurdity. Congress overwhelmingly voted for war with America's staunch support.

That, though, was the other country called The Past. In the country called The Present, certain people are demanding that torturers and their enablers be dragged across the time border and brought to justice. There are many practical difficulties involved, but the impetus is understandable: A nation once posed to the world as lawful and civil turned out to be brutish and indifferent to international law. We tortured. So says incoming attorney general, Eric Holder. We tortured. So says the decision maker at Guantanamo. We now must ask: What are we going to do about it?

President Obama's inclination, it seems, is to not do much. "I don't believe anybody is above the law," he recently said. "On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards."

That nifty formulation ignores reality; to look forward, you need to know where you've been. If we don't learn precisely how our government came to waterboard at least three suspects and abuse others, we won't know how to ensure the future doesn't look much like the past.

We have to be respectful of those in that 9/11 frame of mind, who thought they were saving lives - and maybe were - who were doing what the nation and its leaders wanted. It is imperative our intelligence agents not fear being hauled before some congressional committee or a grand jury. We want the finest people in these jobs - not time-stampers who take no chances. The best suggestion comes from David Cole of Georgetown Law School who, in the Jan. 15 New York Review of Books, proposes the president or Congress appoint a blue-ribbon commission, arm it with subpoena power, and turn it loose to find out what went wrong, what (if anything) went right and to report to Congress and to us. We were the ones, remember, who just wanted to be kept safe. It is important, as well as fair, not to punish those who did what we wanted done - back when we lived, scared to death, in a place called The Past.

©2009, Washington Post Writers Group