{"id":15936,"date":"2012-09-29T16:52:53","date_gmt":"2012-09-29T15:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=15936"},"modified":"2012-09-29T16:52:53","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T15:52:53","slug":"leaked-memo-suggests-romney-could-restart-waterboarding-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/leaked-memo-suggests-romney-could-restart-waterboarding-programme\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaked memo suggests Romney could restart waterboarding programme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Foster, The Telegraph<\/a> |<\/p>\n

Mitt Romney should scrap Barack Obama’s ban on the torture of terror suspects and consider re-introducing waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” if he is elected president, a leaked Romney campaign policy document has urged.<\/p>\n

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The five-page memo entitled \u201cInterrogation Techniques\u201d advised Mr Romney to \u201crescind and replace\u201d Mr Obama\u2019s executive order outlawing the use of all torture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The publication of the memo in the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0came just days before next Wednesday\u2019s first presidential debate, and puts a clear red line between the Republican challenger and Mr Obama\u2019s positions on handling captured terror suspects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Romney has consistently supported the use of interrogation methods, while in one of his first acts on taking office, Mr Obama shut down the CIA\u2019s interrogation programme, stating unequivocally in April 2009: \u201cI believe that waterboarding was torture and, whatever legal rationales were used, it was a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Romney has consistently refused to specify what interrogation techniques he would authorise as president, arguing that to do so would give unnecessary advantage to the terrorists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However in December last year, when pushed by a reporter on whether he believed waterboarding \u2013 a form of simulated drowning \u2013 was torture, he replied: \u201cI don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The leaked document prepared for his \u201cnational security law subcommittee\u201d in September 2011 also asserted that \u201cGovernor Romney has recognized for years that the sounder policy outcome is the revival of the enhanced interrogation programme\u201d.<\/p>\n

The memo, written by a group of conservative lawyers, many of whom are veterans of the George W Bush administration, argued that Mr Obama\u2019s decision had almost certainly \u201champered\u201d the fight against terrorism.<\/p>\n

Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative and the author of Administration of Torture, a book detailing the Bush administration\u2019s torture policy, said the memo was \u201cextremely dangerous\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe memo is dangerous. Torture is not only immoral, it\u2019s illegal,\u201d she told The Telegraph. \u201cThe US has signed and ratified the UN Convention Against Torture which states specifically there can be no exceptional circumstances. This memo urges the violation of international and domestic law.\u201d<\/p>\n

However she added that Mr Obama, by failing to prosecute those responsible for authorizing torture during the Bush era, was responsible for leaving open the door to the possible return of \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s because of that failure of accountability that we\u2019re now seeing the emergence of these kinds of memos in the Romney campaign,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Obama administration is serious about ending torture, he must set about holding those responsible for authorising torture accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans are divided on the issue of waterboarding. In 2008 Senator John McCain, a Vietnam war veteran who is fiercely opposed to torture, clashing angrily with Mr Romney during a Republican primary debate, attacking him for mincing words over whether the technique constituted torture.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s in violation of the Geneva Conventions, it\u2019s in violation of existing law. Governor Romney, let me tell you, if we\u2019re going to get the high ground and we\u2019re going to be the America that has been cherished and loved for more than 200 years, we\u2019re not going to torture people,\u201d he said in a televised debate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Foster, The Telegraph | Mitt Romney should scrap Barack Obama’s ban on the torture of terror suspects and consider re-introducing waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” if he is elected president, a leaked Romney campaign policy document has urged. The five-page memo entitled \u201cInterrogation Techniques\u201d advised Mr Romney to \u201crescind and replace\u201d Mr Obama\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18,1616],"tags":[49],"class_list":{"0":"post-15936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-politics","7":"category-latest-news","8":"category-usa-news","9":"tag-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}