One of Barack Obama's first acts after taking office as president in 2009 was banning the use of torture – including waterboarding. Torture was the signature policy of the Bush Administration, and the current contenders for Republican Party candidacy for the 2012 presidential race are eager to reinstate torture,
Spiegel's US correspondent Mark Pitzke was amazed at what he witnessed at the last televised debate of the GOP contenders:
Heraus kommt ein atemberaubender Rückfall in die Wildwest-Jahre George W. Bushs. Mehr noch: Im Vergleich zu diesen hüftschießenden Hosentaschenkriegern war Bush geradezu ein Pazifist. Im Namen der nationalen Sicherheit wollen sie foltern, morden und das Lager Guantanamo wieder auf Trab bringen. "Dies ist Krieg!", ruft Rick Perry. "Das passiert im Krieg nun mal!" Da juchzen die Claqueure im Saal.
("What emerges is a breathtaking return to the wild-west days of George W. Bush. Even more: compared to these shoot-from-the-hip armchair warriors Bush was practically a pacifist. In the name of national security they want to torture, murder, build up the camp at Guantanamo. "This is war", yells Rick Perry. "Things like this happen in war!" The audience cheers wildly.)
No surprise at all that the practice of torture remains wildly popular among the Republican Tea Party base:
First, in GOP circles, support for torture remains painfully strong, even now. Post-Cheney, it’s become practically a party norm to support torture techniques that America used to consider unthinkable. Though Rick Santorum didn’t comment on this last night, it was just this summer when he said John McCain “doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works,” because the former prisoner of war opposes torture.
And second, Republican debate audiences continue to be a legitimate story in their own right. Over the last few months, we’ve seen GOP audiences cheer the execution of 234 people, cheer letting the insured die, boo an American soldier who happens to be gay, and now applaud torture.
See also today's editorial in the New York Times: The Torture Candidates
3 comments
Of course, you could have highlighted this, from the above-linked New York Times article:
“Only two candidates on the debate stage recognized the danger of the path being advocated by Mr. Cain and Mrs. Bachmann. Representative Ron Paul said waterboarding is not only torture, it is illegal, immoral, uncivilized and has no practical advantages. Former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. eloquently pointed out that waterboarding and other forms of torture diminish the nation’s standing in the world.”
I like Huntsman but he has zero chance of winning the Republican nomination. He lives in a reality-based world.
I’m afraid America’s standing in the world can’t be reduced to the treatment of prisoners. The damage done is much bigger and the best thing to say about President Obama is that he is the minor evil. On the average the US have 10x more people imprisoned than any other civilized nation in the world, the death penalty, the lack of social security, a crime rate only topped by very few nations like Brazil. Bush’s hot war against terrorism has been transformed into a kind of cold war and military engagements are increasingly carried out by mercenary companies like DynCorp or Xe.
In many regards the USA of today remind me of the last years of the Soviet Union. Obama’s efforts about an American perestroika are restricted by a nomenclatura of republican apparatchiks and yet it is not clear which side will prevail. In the meantime the rest of the world should be advised to consider Obama just another US President…