Romney doesn’t appear to know much about torturing suspects, nor does he appear to have read the reports from leading experts on the value of a confession from a tortured person.

I would like to see Romney under-go waterboarding, as well as other torture techniques. It would be interesting to see what the man would confess to, and how long it would take him to confess. Some interegators have undergone waterboarding because they wanted to know what it was like. These fools said: After a few minutes of the torture they couldn’t take it anymore. What they didn’t say was “Had the interegation not stopped, would they have confessed to crimes they hadn’t commited to end the torture?”

I personally decided Romney was a low life when during one of his little get togethers, a woman stood up and asked Romney, “How many of his five sons were either in Iraq or Afganastan.”  Romney repied, “My sons are doing their part for America by helping me to get elected President.

Warmongers should raise their own children to want to go off to war and fight for their country, instead of raising them to believe they are to good to fight for their country. Why die or be maimed for your country when those with less, can fight and die for your freedom.

Nothing but hypocrites running this country. I challenge Mr. Romney to be a man and take a torture test. Of course it should be taped and public so we can all see the truth of what would happen, not the later lies that would be told.

As Naomi Klein points out in “The Shock Doctrine,” torture is an extremely effective tool for suppressing political opposition. It is a terror tactic par excellence. You only have to torture one political opponent to silence a hundred, or even a thousand, political opponents.

Torture has become an exact science that can break the will to resist of the most determined adversary. Inducing psychosis through prolonged sensory deprivation and stress has become an art form, and the CIA employs it religiously. Bush ordered its widespread use in Iraq and in his Gulag; it formed an integral part of his “Shock and Awe” campaign against the Iraqi people.

Fascists like Romney and most other Republican candidates are not about to renounce such a powerful weapon of intimidation. HRC, always trying to out-hawk the hawks, has articulated a position close to Romney, although to her credit she voted against the MCA of 2007. (But didn’t filibuster the Act, even after she called it a threat to fundamental rights.)

Then it’s okay for the enemy, too.

Let’s say a modern-day John McCain is shot down over Iraq. The Iraqi Resistance (commonly misnamed “Terrorists”) captures McCain. They conclude, not unreasonably, that McCain probably has some knowledge of future plans for air-raids over territory held by the Resistance.

Now, if they can get McCain to talk, they might save—let us say—a thousand innocent lives! Isn’t it worth torturing McCain to save a thousand lives? Let’s have at it!

That is EXACTLY the argument made by the nitwits touting the “ticking time bomb” scenario.

Well, if it’s okay for us to torture, then it’s okay for the other guys to torture, too.

George Washington, during the Revolutionary War, took the high road. He gave orders never to torture the enemy.

CIA and other intelligence professionals (google “Ray McGovern if you doubt this) consistently say that intel garnered through torture is almost always useless.

So why torture?

Simple: torture is how you extract “confessions,” which are useless tactically, but priceless for purposes of propaganda!

Observe that our torture of Iraqi Resistance Fighters resulted in CONFESSIONS and fingering (conveniently) of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Again: useless tactically, but priceless for purposes of propaganda!

The Soviets knew this. They tortured, not for gaining useful intel, but for confessions that they trumpeted ceaselessly in their government-owned press.

Isn’t it funny of modern “conservatives” increasingly look and sound like old-guard Soviets?

Romney, by the way, as the ultimate corporatist (aka Fascist) candidate, is also the candidate who sees no limitations on presidential power WHATSOEVER. He’s even worse than Benito Giuliani. McCain, having experienced torture, at least seems to want to limit it in some vague ways. Romney wants to torture on his own whim, using “protection of the people” as a justification. No fascist in history could have said it better.

By the way, I’m not a “liberal” or a “socialist.” I’m a libertarian who wants to take the monstrous power to torture OUT of the hands of these sub-humans who run our government.

It is already well known that information that has been retrieved through torture is rarely of any benefit and usually useless as well as wrong. The person being tortured will say anything or agree to anything in the majority of these cases just to make the suffering stop.

Seems this country has already regressed back to the torture tactics and beyond which Salem Massassachutts was known for. Makes you proud to say your an American.

The more advanced we think we are, the more savage we treat our fellow humans.

I think we are long past making the statement democrat/republican as though it defines a meaningful difference.  Torture has long been defined by the Geneva Convention and Nuremburg.  So now we have joined the likes of Pol Pot, Dr. Mengeles, the Nazis, the Japanese of WW II, the Catholic Church and the Inquisition and many others throughout history.  We should be proud that our clean cut politicos are still denying evolution as an advancement of humanity.  We have despoiled ourselves and it remains to be seen if this batch of “candidates” has crawled out of the slime.

The leading Democratic contenders promise to continue the Iraq War.  Imperialist wars beget torture as the occupiers try to sort out the resistance fighters from the general population.  Democratic presidents have a long history of torture (for example, Southeast Asia, Latin America, etc.).

The “ticking bomb” scenario is a canard.

If such circumstances pertain (and they almost never do) where justice or safety is furthered by breaking the letter of the law, the correct response is to do so then plead mitigating circumstances in any subsequent hearing.

The rationale offered by Romney and others who would destroy this most basic human right is classic bait and switch - they invoke “ticking bomb” scenarios to justify torture performed at leisure, in circumstances utterly devoid of urgency.