Debate Topic: Romney Win Would Be A Mandate For Torture Per UN Official

Tomorrow’s presidential debate will be focusing on foreign policy. Instead of wasting 90 minutes on shallow disputes over out-of-context soundbites and arguments over who gets credit/blame for events that only tangentially reflect on the office of the presidency, the public would be better served if there was a substantive discussion on the issue just raised by the UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson. In a symposium on the negative impacts of post-9/11 security measures, Emmerson said…

“There is no doubt that the Romney administration would be able to claim — in the event of a Romney presidency — a democratic mandate for torture. That would put Romney as the first world leader in history to be able to claim a democratic mandate for torture.”

Emmerson’s remarks are based on Romney’s advocacy for the euphemistically-named “enhanced interrogation” techniques such as waterboarding. The rest of the world calls it torture, and even many U.S. experts regard it as an inhumane tactic that produces unreliable results.

Mitt Romney Supports Torture

As usual, Romney has taken both sides of this issue. In a debate in 2007 he said that he opposed torture, but refused to say whether he considered waterboarding torture. However, he also refused to rule out the use of waterboarding, and just Last month, when asked directly if he believed waterboarding to be torture, he responded, “I don’t.”

President Obama can exploit both Romney’s wavering positions and his current stance approving of practices that include torture. Obama signed an executive order that put an end to the use of enhanced interrogation, which Romney has promised to rescind. Romney’s position is of concern to international allies, as expressed by the UN’s Emmerson…

“The re-introduction of torture under a Romney administration would significantly increase the threat levels to (Americans) at home and abroad. Such a policy, if adopted, would expose the American people to risks the Obama administration is not currently exposing them to.”

Were Obama to point out this fatal flaw in Romney’s foreign policy platform he could draw a sharp distinction between his steady leadership that is in harmony with our allies around the world, and Romney’s extremism that would serve only to alienate our friends and give our enemies justification for accelerating their attacks in an ever more brutal fashion.

Hopefully Obama will raise this subject if the moderator does not. It would provide for a far more enlightening discussion than one consumed by nonsense like when Obama said that the attack in Libya was an act of terror, or how badly Romney hurt U.S./British relations by insulting their Olympics.

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3 thoughts on “Debate Topic: Romney Win Would Be A Mandate For Torture Per UN Official

  1. That is a very sad truth but the republicans like torture and think it is a good thing. Romney is saying this for the same reasons he says everything, he thinks that is what his audience wants to hear. Romney would have to renege on many things he has said in this campaign, he has told so many falsehoods they can no longer all be brought to light. The torture thing, I’m confident, he would not renege on and use it with a vengeance to show his supporters how tough he is. This to me is a very disturbing component of today’s rebublican authoritarian party-the williingness to chuck the constitution and all that this country stands for.

    This should surprise no one, considering the republican extra-legal goon squads, aka true the vote, that will be wandering the nation’s polling places on election day in their efforts to intimidate and terrorize the demographic they don’t want voting, especially in swing states. Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC did a piece on it, and quite frankly it is a little terrifying.

    • If Obama were to raise this topic at the upcoming debate, it would just be one more bullet point in the running hypocrisy of this President’s 2012 campaign. Ben Emmerson’s poorly informed and assuredly inappropriate advocacy on behalf of the Obama campaign must crumble in the face of the extrajudicial killings directed by President Obama in October 2011 against American citizens, Anwar Awlaki, his 16-year old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and Samir Khan (a 20 year old born in North Carolina). See for more detail. These targeted killings of American citizens without due process of law are apparently the first of their kind. It does seem that such killings and the radical uptick in corollary drone strikes on non-U.S. citizens are a source of pride for the current administration. Notwithstanding the administration’s pride, maybe our citizenry, and really any practitioner concerned with the Rule of Law and International Human Rights, should think a little more deeply about the precedents being set by THE most anti-“Rule of Law” administration the U.S. has EVER seen (W’s included). The Obama administration has exhibited an unprecedented disdain for the Rule of Law and the process due thereunder and under the Constitution of the United States of America. Given the actions that have been taken by this administration, I would recommend that each U.S. citizen register to vote and then take the most sensible act of casting that vote to remove from office a known, documented and unabashed violator of the Rule of Law. That vote, by definition, would be a vote FOR Mitt Romney.

      • You’re conflating two unrelated issues. The matter of torture and waterboarding of prisoners is clearly a violation of the international treaties to which we are signatory.

        With regard to what you call “extra-judicial” killings,I wouldn’t dismiss criticisms of it, but it has nothing to do with this topic. And there is a big difference between executing a broad policy of engaging in torture and one of targeted attacks on known terrorist enemies of America like Awlaki, whose activities put him in the class of folks like Bin Laden.

        Finally, the notion that voting for Romney represents a more legally sound choice than Obama is absurd in the extreme. For all of your animosity toward Obama, at least he articulates a platform of opposition to torture, while Romney advocates for it. Romney has said he wants to double Gitmo, and he seems to be hankering for a war with any nation with whom we have a disagreement. Romney is a far more dangerous violator of law and ethics than Obama would ever be.

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