The Dower Power Hour

Thank you Mitt Romney for that jewel of wisdom. So basically McCain is the only major Republican candidate against American use of torture. Oh, Rudy and Romney can say they want “enhanced interrogation techniques” but what does that actually mean? Here are six examples of identified enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA. The first three aren’t too bad, but they get worse fast.

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.
2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.
6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

During the second Republican debate, only McCain held his moral ground, stating, “The use of torture — we could never gain as much we would gain from that torture as we lose in world opinion. We do not torture people.”

He continued, “When I was in Vietnam, one of the things that sustained us, as we went — underwent torture ourselves, is the knowledge that if we had our positions reversed and we were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on them. It’s not about the terrorists, it’s about us. It’s about what kind of country we are… I think that if we agree to torture people, we will do ourselves great harm in the world.”

In an interview after the debate, McCain explained that he considers Water Boarding a form of torture and observed that it was first used by the Spanish Inquisition. But surely the other candidates wouldn’t support such detestable tactics?

Rudy, “I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of … and I would support them in doing that.” I like how this avoids mentioning any specifics, thus leaving the door open for plausible deniability later. You can almost imagine him stating, at a future press conference, that when he told the interrogators to use every method, he automatically assumed they would know that didn’t include finger-breaking.

Seriously though, all morality issues aside, American use of torture is never worth the political backlash. But surely Romney, a devout Mormon who is touting his “pro-life” stance on abortion, surely he wouldn’t endorse such brutal methods of information extraction.

Romney, “I’m glad [the detainees] are at Guantanamo. I don’t want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil. I don’t want them in our prisons, I want them there. Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo.”

Wow. Really, Mitt? Do we really want to double it? After all the damage it has done for American prestige worldwide and the boost it has given to terrorist recruitment and even after President Bush, of all people, has said he would “like to close Guantanamo,” even after all that you want to double it?

I don’t have that much more to say about this except I don’t think America should justify torture or withhold rights guaranteed under the Constitution just because someone is a terrorist. Everyone should have access to a fair trial to prevent potential government abuse. We have already seen that sometimes innocent people are snatched by mistake, whether it’s a tourist accidentally videotaping the wrong building or just a German citizen that made the mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Do we really want them to be locked away and tortured before they are found guilty? I don’t think so.