Charles C. Krulak, commandant of the Marine Corps 1995-99 and Joseph P. Hoar, commander in chief of U.S. Central Command 1991-94 write in the Washington Post Torture Betrays Us and Breeds New Enemies. "As has happened with every other nation that has tried to engage in a little bit of torture -- only for the toughest cases, only when nothing else works -- the abuse spread like wildfire, and every captured prisoner became the key to defusing a potential ticking time bomb. Our soldiers in Iraq confront real "ticking time bomb" situations every day, in the form of improvised explosive devices, and any degree of "flexibility" about torture at the top drops down the chain of command like a stone -- the rare exception fast becoming the rule."
"If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it."
Andrew Sullivan is now calling the GOP The Party of Torture. "But increasingly, the explicitly pro-torture position of the GOP will define their party. And it should define their party. The attempt to hide behind the ludicrously Orwellian term "enhanced interrogation techniques" won't work if it's properly challenged."
"Romney's and Giuliani's position that they don't favor 'torture' but would support any method necessary to extract information...is transparently absurd. The simple legal definition of torture must be thrown in their faces at every opportunity. These people do not get to define torture in a country under the rule of law. We are not in a Lewis Carroll novel. The law and our treaty obligations define torture."
On the good news front, last week General Petraeus sent a letter to every servicemember. Sullivan describes it as: "Petraeus is finally doing what no one has yet done in this war: he is asserting the immorality, illegality and dishonor of torture and abuse from a position of authority. It has taken six years to hear that clarity again, after the shameful stain of this president's record."
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