President Obama is strongly disinclined to support an independent investigation of possible criminal violations of U.S. laws and international treaties by the highest levels of the Bush-Cheney administration. He also has no personal interest in going after those Justice Department lawyers who, in 2002 and later, declared “enhanced interrogation techniques” lawful. Says Obama: “Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

In a sardonic response to the president and to those “torture memos” lawyers, Dahlia Lithwick, legal affairs columnist for Slate (April 17), says those lawyers tell us that “it isn’t torture if you can get over it.”

More somberly, Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington legislative office, says plainly: “Our government engages in torture. There were vast human rights abuses that took place during the Bush administration. And we’re just moving on?”

It’s time to bring President Ronald Reagan into this increasingly heated debate – not only in this country but also among some of our allies who believe, as does our Senate Armed Services Committee, that U.S. torture policy was an effective recruiting tool for the terrorists.