Which Way Is Up?

Dr. Errington Thompson

I’m not sure how many of you are old enough to remember that Richard Pryor movie called Which Way Is Up? It was not one of his funniest movies. He played Leroy Jones, who was confused, naïve and pulled in many different directions. When I look at President Barack Obama, I see some similarities. It’s not every just month or even every week, but every single day that the Obama administration is putting out a new fire and trying to lay the groundwork to make sure that fire does not happen again. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from Wall Street to Detroit, from toxic assets to Guantánamo Bay, Barack Obama has been cleaning up the messes that President George W. Bush left.

This brings me to an article I saw on the Washington Post website
over the weekend entitled “Detainees Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots.”
Abu Zubaydah. Do you remember him? He was the first big “high-value
target” that the Bush administration captured. On April 9, 2002
President Bush said, “the other day we hauled in a guy named at Abu
Zubaydah. He’s one of the top operatives plotting and planning death
and destruction on the United States. He’s not plotting and planning
anymore. He’s where he belongs [in Guantánamo Bay].”

This Washington Post article points out the problems that the
Bush administration has left for the new president. Abu Zubaydah was
once characterized by President Bush as the “chief of operations” for
all of al Qaeda. Unfortunately for us, that wasn’t true. As a matter of
fact, it is now believed that he really wasn’t an Al Qaeda member. He
was an associate. According to Ron Suskind’s book, “The 1% Doctrine,”
Zubaydah was a guy who had a head injury at a relatively young age. He
kept a diary, which was found by the CIA. The diary clearly shows that
the “Al Qaeda operative” was insane. He truly had a split personality.
His diary was written in two, if not three, distinctive voices. It is
now believed that Al Qaeda used him as a kind of travel agent because
he was clearly expendable.

Think back to 2002 and 2003. Do you remember the terror alert
that asserted that Al Qaeda was going to attack the malls? This
information came from the torture of Abu Zubaydah. Then, after a little
bit more waterboarding, Al Qaeda was going to attack banks in the
financial district – so the terror level went up yet again.

But the fact is, we did not get one bit of actionable
intelligence from Abu Zubaydah. Even if, as some argue, we got some
information out of him about how Al Qaeda worked, we got no information
– none, nada, zip – about any active plans.

So, what do we do with an Al Qaeda operative who isn’t really an
Al Qaeda operative – but who has been tortured? Who has been in
American custody for more than seven years. Seven years, for no reason!
This is the conundrum that the Obama administration faces.

If we release him, what can we expect from him? Where can we
release him to? He was born in Saudi Arabia. His father was a
Palestinian. He was captured in Pakistan. If we send him overseas, who
will take him? What danger might he pose to us now, after seven years
of incarceration punctuated by torture?

What is fair? How do you keep America safe? What do you do with the other approximately 245 detainees?

This is just one of the thousand or so problems Barack Obama
must deal with, just one part of the vast and awful legacy left by
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their colleagues.

My head is spinning. Do you know which way is up?