Las week, after President Barack Obama announced his plan to end the Iraq combat mission by 2010, he sat down for an interview on "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer."
Lehrer asked the president whether Iraq was worth the American lives lost and wounded, as well as the Iraqis who have been killed?
The president responded:
"Well, you know, I don't want to look backwards. As you know, I opposed this war, I did not think it was the right decision, but I don't want to in any way diminish the enormous sacrifices that have been made by our men and women in uniform."
I understand the president's response at a visceral level, but given where we are as a country, it just feels too safe and too vacuous for someone of his obvious intelligence, which leads me to conclude it was too political.
The president may not want to look back, but behind us is where the truth lies.
Iraq was not only the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the republic; it was the cornerstone to the amorphous war on terror. As information trickles out, it becomes increasingly apparent that the war on terror was a systematic circumvention of the Constitution.
It was previously reported that the CIA, in 2005, destroyed two videotapes from 2002 depicting "severe interrogation." But it was recently revealed it wasn't two videotapes -- it was 92!
Moreover, the Justice Department released nine post-9/11 legal memos this week from the Bush administration indicating the Fourth Amendment, which grants the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, was not applicable in the war on terror.
There is also the Oct. 23, 2001, memo written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo stating:
"First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully."
This is the advice given to the president of the United States from the Justice Department?
When one also factors in former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007 that "the Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas," we have more than a notion that the previous administration operated as if Constitution was optional.
In an unprecedented manner, the Justice Department rescinded these controversial memos days before President George W. Bush left office, citing them as "bad advice."
Obama may not want to look back, but just over his shoulder may be an administration that found exceptions to arguably 80 percent of the Bill of Rights -- leaving only the right to bear arms and no soldier shall be quartered during peacetime without the owner's consent as secure.
Perhaps that president's reluctance to review past events may be due to his own complicit actions in rendering the Fourth Amendment a secondary consideration.
As candidate Obama, he left the campaign trail to return to Washington, voting to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- legislation that many constitutional scholars believe violates the Fourth Amendment.
However, the Senate Judiciary Committee has already scheduled hearings into whether to create a "truth commission" -- an independent panel to investigate Bush administration policies.
I have long been in favor of a truth and reconciliation commission, but I am opposed to one that is led by Congress.
Regardless of its intentions, there is no way to avoid a "truth commission" led by Democrats from becoming anything short of partisan. Whatever is proven, the ensuing political cacophony from both sides runs the risk of drowning out the importance of the truth.
The American people must know definitively if the war on terror was a battle cry, a public-relations campaign, or an insidious attempt to sidestep the Constitution.
Only the president has the moral standing to rise above the current political atmosphere to realize the truth that is owed to the American people.
But if he is content to only look forward, he may tragically miss an opportunity to stop the bleeding from the nation's gaping wound that did not heal when he took office.
Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist. He is the author of Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War. E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com or visit his website: byronspeaks.com