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.

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.