The Torture Candidates

[Cali_Democrat]

The Torture Candidates
Published: November 14, 2011

As hard as it is to believe, the Republican candidates for president seem to have learned very little from the moral calamities of the administration of George W. Bush. Three of the contenders for the party’s nomination have now come out in favor of the torture known as waterboarding. Only two have said it is illegal, and the rest don’t seem to have the backbone to even voice an opinion on the subject.

At Saturday night’s debate in South Carolina, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann said they would approve waterboarding of prisoners to extract information. They denied, of course, that waterboarding is torture, even though it’s been classified as such since the Spanish Inquisition. “Very disappointed by statements at S.C. GOP debate supporting waterboarding,” Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, wrote on Twitter. “Waterboarding is torture.”

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That argument doesn’t seem to faze the candidate with the clearest path to the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney. On Saturday night, Mr. Romney said nothing about waterboarding. If you thought that was because he might be against it, you’d be wrong. It was just pure cowardice.

On Monday, a campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said he, too, did not believe waterboarding is torture and that he would not specify the “enhanced interrogation techniques” he would use against terrorists. That means he will not rule out using it. It also means he either does not know or does not care that waterboarding is banned by the United States Army Field Manual, and it means he chooses to ignore the testimony of top military officers like Gen. David Petraeus (who now runs the C.I.A.) that such forms of torture are not only useless for gathering reliable intelligence but are detrimental to the security of American forces and the nation’s reputation.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/opinion/the-torture-candidates.html

I think it's safe to say that most of the GOP candidates have some sadistic obsession with torturing people. They appear to get extreme gratification from knowing people are being tortured.

Top military and intelligence officials have said time and time again that such forms of torture are useless when it comes to gathering reliable intelligence. It also hurts America's reputation and provides countries with justification for torturing our own soldiers if/when they're captured, but apparently that doesn't matter.

The GOP can point to no real evidence that torture even works, but they are still pro-torture. The only explanation is sadism.

[Vattel]

1. McCain thinks waterboarding is torture,

but he helped to pass the military commissions act. I think he's such an idiot that he doesn't even see the contradiction there. That act weakened the war crimes act so that waterboarding was no longer clearly and unambiguously criminal under it. The war crimes act needs to be strengthened, but Obama and the Democrats in Congress didn't do anything about that when they had the chance. They are great when it comes to giving lip service to being anti-torture though. I've heard Obama say many times how much he doesn't like torture. But as far as strengtheneing federal criminal laws against torture? He sat on his hands. Now the next President can reverse his executive order prohibiting waterboarding and we are right back where we started. Pathetic.