Torture and Truth By Jonathan Schell

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090615/schell

Schell believes that President Obama is seriously wrong in his call for America to look away from its use of torture in the past and turn instead toward the future. There are many good people around who agree with the new President, thinking he has pretty well solved the problem. Jonathan Schell knows better. He knows that one cannot turn away from the past except by denial, which leads to severe problems in the future. He makes his argument clear by looking closely at what happened in our government after 9/11. He shows that the use of torture had more to do with creating propaganda for invading Iraq than with getting true information. That is a precedent we dare not let stand.