Dr. Errington Thompson

There is a scene in the blockbuster movie “Spiderman II” in which Peter Parker runs out of a destroyed restaurant. He looks for the villain, but everything is blurry. When he takes off his glasses, though, he can see perfectly. There are those in our current political climate who would have us believe that the world looks much better through lenses that distort our vision.

Ann Coulter asserted on “Larry King Live” that the United States has never tortured. “Enhanced interrogation techniques,” says Coulter, were nothing more than fraternity hazing. Other conservatives have expressed a similar argument.

But according to United States law (Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 113c, § 2340), torture is defined as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control.” It seems to me that stress positions and waterboarding clearly fit this definition.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has urged that several memos be declassified because they would prove that we extracted valuable information using “harsh interrogation techniques.” Other conservatives have asked us to remember that we were under significant time restraints and needed to get information quickly. They miss the point. Torture is illegal. Period. These conservatives want us to believe that there was absolutely no other way to get intelligence. We know better.

After the US Embassy bombing in Nairobi, Kenya, which killed 147 people, including 12 Americans, we captured a suspect. FBI counterterrorism agents obtained an important phone number belonging to the father-in-law of one of the future 9/11 hijackers. The FBI turned the phone number over to the CIA and the National Security Agency, and we got actionable intelligence. Without stress positions, without simulated drowning, we got actionable intelligence.

Conservatives would have us believe that 9/11 succeeded because we were not aggressive enough. Horse feathers! When we look at the evidence with clear eyes, a completely different picture comes to light – human error.

The FBI and the CIA dropped the ball on a number of occasions. We learned about Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the 9/11 hijackers, without the use of torture. The CIA tracked him through Yemen, Dubai, and finally to a January 2000 Al Qaeda terrorist meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Both the bombing of the USS Cole and the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 are believed to have been discussed at this meeting.

After this meeting, al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi traveled from Malaysia to Bangkok to California. But the CIA lost the suspects in Thailand. Human error. Several months later, when they figured out that two central figures in the 9/11 terrorist plot had entered the United States, the CIA did not notify the FBI. Human error. Nor were the men put on a terrorist watch list until they were already in our country. Human error. Finally, both al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi met an FBI informant. One of them actually lived with an FBI informant for several months, but the FBI never pressed the informant to get information. Human error, again.

These are mind-numbing mistakes, but torturing suspects would have done nothing to fix them.

We need to take off the conservatives’ distorted “prescription glasses” and see the world as it is. Torture is wrong, and it is illegal. No matter how unpleasant it may be, those who broke the law should be prosecuted. Once the truth has seen the light of day and the guilty have been prosecuted, our president may decide that the country has been through enough and may pardon the guilty. Then again, he may not. But at least justice will have been done.