Despite what Republican candidates think, president's approach to torture has not softened
The most unsettling moment came when the candidates were asked about torture and "enhanced interrogation techniques," and only two (Jon Huntsman and Rep. Ron Paul) were willing to repudiate the torture of detainees.
Herman Cain refused to call waterboarding torture, saying he would allow the technique to be used. Rep. Michele Bachmann falsely claimed waterboarding was "effective" when used under former President George W. Bush and suggested President Barack Obama has "decided we want to lose in the War on Terror." She accused Obama of "allowing the ACLU to run the CIA," claiming, "when we interdict a terrorist on the battlefield, we have no jail for them."
What's most striking is not Bachmann's misrepresentation of torture under Bush or her eagerness to reinstate those policies. Although Sen. John McCain denounced torture in 2008, the Republican base has always supported it. It's interesting how the GOP has embraced one of the great myths of Obama's presidency: that he has softened our approach to terrorism.
It's true the use of waterboarding was officially ended by an executive order issued by Obama in 2009, constraining interrogation techniques to those allowed by the Army Field Manual. However, the Army Field Manual was revised in 2006 to legitimize some of the techniques being employed at Guantanamo Bay, so while the most egregious techniques practiced by the CIA have been ended, a wide array of brutal techniques is still available.
Obama has continued the practice of extraordinary rendition, wherein we hand prisoners over to foreign governments so our consciences need not be troubled by whatever is done to them.
Officially, we require assurances that these prisoners will not be tortured, but in practice Obama's policy is no stricter than Bush's. Contrary to Bachmann's claim that we have no jail for prisoners captured on the battlefield, we still operate a prison at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, including, according to the Red Cross, a secret site where prisoners are subject to abuse.
And, of course, the Afghans operate prisons that no executive order can touch. What's helped Obama's record on detainee treatment most is his focus on killing rather than capturing.
Far from abandoning the War on Terror, Obama has stepped it up, expanding it via drone strikes into Pakistan and Yemen.
This president's administration charged a child soldier with war crimes, for maybe having thrown a grenade during a battle, so it's hard for those of us who have been paying attention to see him as a dove.
But it's important to Obama politically that he appear to be a gentler, more law-abiding commander-in-chief than Bush, and this perception is politically useful to the Republicans, too. That both sides repeat the myth does not make it true.