We are America. We do not torture.

A liberal blogger or Democratic representative didn’t make this concise assertion. Instead, it was Shepard Smith, a Fox News anchor, who declared that regardless of the information gained, the United States should not accept torture as a means to gain information for alleged terrorists.

The recent discussion of torture was spurred by the Obama administration’s decision to release memos from the Bush administration on the topic of torture. Obama has ended several practices deemed necessary by the previous administration, including such tactics as waterboarding and wall-slamming, according to an article in the New York Times published on April 22.

An opinion piece by former FBI special agent Ali Soufan, who was involved in the interrogations, argued the information retrieved was obtained not by torture but by traditional interrogation methods.

“I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified.”

Yet Bush administration figures contend those brutal interrogation methods yielded “high value information” from alleged terrorists.

It is time for the country to take a step back and analyze what information resulted from torture. A commission needs to investigate which intelligence agencies were involved, what they learned and how they acquired that information. Soufan wrote it was mostly defense contractors who requested the use of such brutal tactics — not CIA or FBI agents.

Once we understand why such methods were used and by whom, the next step should be to hold responsible those at fault. They should be brought to a hearing and discuss, under oath, how they justified the treatment of alleged terrorists.

This is not an argument to jail former Vice President Cheney or other Bush officials. Instead the American people and the global community need to hear their stories and the stories of opponents of torture in order to learn from the mistaken decisions that were made — and through that process, heal each other.

Although Obama recently said he opposes such an examination of the past on the grounds that looking backward keeps us from moving forward, his concern is misguided. Foreign relations are still affected by other countries and their citizens’ perceptions of the United States. Perhaps a commission on torture could bring closure to an era of fear and torture and be the channel through which we can start repairing our image abroad.