Garling Gauge

Romney OK’s Torture With Knives

James Marks & Mitt Romney prefer ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’

“I’d stick a knife in somebody’s thigh in a heartbeat.”

Earth to Romney: Two wrongs don’t make a right

Either Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney condones torture or he thinks putting a knife in someone’s thigh isn’t torture.

What a wicked man.

Greg Sargent reports for TPM that Republican Mitt Romney has named retired General James “Spider” Marks the new national security adviser for his presidential campaign. Marks “asserted in a 2005 interview that he would readily torture prisoners to save a soldier’s life or stop a terror bomb, saying: ‘I’d stick a knife in somebody’s thigh in a heartbeat.’ ”

From TPM:

In announcing the appointment of Marks, the Romney campaign put out a press release emphasizing his “more than three decades of experience in the intelligence field.” But according to CNN, Marks also is a teacher of “interrogation.” And as a CNN analyst, he elaborated on his views of torture on the network on November 8, 2005:

TOM FOREMAN (voice-over): If you could save the life of a soldier, rescue the hostage children; stop the next terrorist bomb by torturing a prisoner for information, would you do it?JAMES “SPIDER” MARKS, MAJOR GENERAL, U.S. ARMY (RET.): I’d stick a knife in somebody’s thigh in a heartbeat.

FOREMAN (on camera): Retired General “Spider” Marks, a CNN consultant, worked for U.S. Army Intelligence, teaching interrogation.

MARKS: The kinds of enemies we’re fighting have no sense of right or wrong. They will go to any depths to achieve their ends.

FOREMAN: Do we have to go with them?

MARKS: We don’t need to go with them. We need to preclude them from going there. And that might include some use of torture in order to prevent it.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Polls have shown that more than 60 percent of Americans think torture can sometimes be justified. But here is the catch. Experts, including General Marks, are convinced with the vast majority of prisoners, it just doesn’t work.

In addition to seeming to suggest that we should torture even though it doesn’t work in the “vast majority” of cases, Marks also added this later in the same broadcast:

FOREMAN: …So in your experience and in your view, torture as a policy should be against the law?MARKS: True.

FOREMAN: And yet, we might still have to use it.

MARKS: True.

That would appear to be an explicit endorsement of illegal torture.

Contacted by Election Central, Romney spokesman Kevin Madden declined to comment on Marks’ assertions or say whether Governor Romney agreed with them. Madden did, however, say that Romney opposes torture, though he also confirmed that Romney supports the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Madden declined to specify what techniques in particular Romney was referring to.

At the GOP debate in May, Romney surprised a lot of people — and drew applause from his audience — when he said: “Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo.”

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has hired a man who would use al-Qaeda-like torture methods “in a heartbeat.”

On May 24, 2007 the Smoking Gun reported the U.S. military discovered metal tools and drawings of torture methods in an al-Qaeda safe house. Disturbing even if it was a false flag setup. While sticking a knife in someone’s thigh wasn’t specifically mentioned, some of the methods include drilling hands, eye removal, blowtorch to skin, and binding and beating.

Is this what we want from an American President? Aren’t we better than this? Isn’t humanity better than this? Mitt Romney must be crazy along with anyone seriously considering voting for him.

Fear is powerful, powerful, powerful, and Republicans have worked tirelessly over the last decade to instill fear in the American electorate. Those who believe even for a second that our country should torture people have been indoctrinated into a craven nationalism.

Procuring intelligence should be extremely difficult, partially due to the ethical methods we should employ. Sadly we must be more vulnerable to outside attacks to be the best society we can be. It is the price we pay for our humanity. At the same time the forbiddance of torture (instead of just saying we do) would also make us less despised in the world, curbing potential violence.

America’s greatest trait is our potential for greatness. America’s greatest weakness is the belief we can use any method available to get there.

As Marks said, “The kinds of enemies we’re fighting have no sense of right or wrong. They will go to any depths to achieve their ends.” Apparently so will Marks and Romney.

By stating that “we ought to double Guantanamo” Romney seeks to expand a dishonorable symbol of American depravity. Hiring James Marks doesn’t help either.

The combined wisdom of Wikipedia writes that “President Bush signed memorandum stating that no Taleban or al-Qa’ida detainee will qualify as a prisoner of war and that Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions will not apply to them either. Common Article 3 requires fair trial standards and prohibits torture, cruelty, and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”

That means that Romney thinks torture, cruelty, and outrages upon personal dignity are okay. But wait, Romney spokesperson Kevin Madden said the Republican doesn’t condone torture. If that is true why would Romney want twice as many Americans interrogating twice as many people who are not protected by Article 3?

No matter how many times government officials say it, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ are gobbledegook semantics and what any reasonable person would consider torture, especially if it these ‘techniques’ were performed on you. Even the word ‘technique’ has a sterile, disarming quality to it. Wordplay and euphemism are the government’s forte.

In an American era of global disapproval and Republican-sanctioned torture, Mitt Romney displays a shallow depth of thought along with faulty, questionable judgment.

In one fell swoop Romney has plunged to the bottom of the list of those would could restore America’s standing in the world.