GOP candidates quietly put torture back on the table

[DonViejo]

By Steve Benen

In the last presidential election, the issue of Bush/Cheney-era torture policies rarely come up. On his first day in office, President Obama issued an executive order limiting interrogators to tactics approved in the Army Field Manual, and by 2012, few Republicans were publicly challenging the policy.

Behind the scenes, Mitt Romney’s advisers reportedly wrote a memo, privately recommending that he “rescind and replace” the no-torture policy, permitting secret “enhanced interrogation techniques against high-value detainees,” but the GOP nominee made no real effort to make this part of his national platform.

In the 2016 race, will Republicans try to roll back the clock? Maybe.

Enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, which were used by the C.I.A. against Qaeda suspects after Sept. 11 attacks, were prohibited in one of President Obama’s first executive orders in 2009.

Earlier on Thursday, at a forum on national security in Davenport, Iowa, [Jeb Bush] had declined to commit to preserving that order.

more
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-candidates-quietly-put-torture-back-the-table?

[Gothmog]

1. Torture is wrong and does not work

The fact that the GOP want to bring back torture is sick and sad

[babylonsister]

2. Rec'd for exposure. nt