What Are The Dem Candidates' Positions On Torture?
October 11, 2007 -- 12:15 PM EST // //
Yesterday we brought you the full transcript of Hillary's torture remarks to The Washington Post. The paper quoted Hillary being vague about the question of how she would treat specific harsh interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, but it left out her assertion that we need to "abide by the Geneva Conventions."
The additional context, however, is doing little to mollify Hillary's critics. Several of them continued to chastise Hillary, saying that the core issue is whether Hillary would explicitly rule out the use of specific techniques such as waterboarding and whether she viewed such techniques as torture.
I think that the additional quotes from Hillary that were left out of the WaPo article are relevant, because they show that she wasn't being evasive in the way WaPo made her appear. But the question of whether candidates will rule out the use of the specific techniques is a legit one. So where are Barack Obama and Edwards on this?
This discussion was largely set in motion by that recent New York Times piece saying that the Justice Department had secretly authorized harsh CIA interrogation techniques. The article went into the specific techniques. Here's a statement that Barack Obama's campaign says it put out in response to the piece:
"We have a legal definition of torture -- it is the Federal Anti-Torture Statute. The techniques outlined in the New York Times article are inhumane and unlawful. This is the finding of the Judge Advocates General of the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines. When I am President, we will reject torture without exception or equivocation. It is illegal, immoral, and it does not protect America."Here's Edwards' statement the same day:
Chapel Hill, North Carolina -- Today, Senator John Edwards made the following statement regarding President Bush’s claim that his administration has not tortured terrorism suspects, despite the revelation of secret Justice Department memos authorizing the CIA’s harshest interrogation techniques including waterboarding and the use of frigid temperatures:In other words, they both appear to be directly criticizing these techniques, Edwards directly and Obama by saying that he rejects torture "without exception." Hillary didn't release a statement in response to the Times piece.“George Bush has a long record of trampling on the Constitution and failing to be straight with the American people. Yesterday we learned that -- even after the Justice Department abandoned its defense of torture -- it continued to write memos endorsing the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA. Today, the president asserted that ‘we don’t torture.’ Pardon me, but I have my doubts that George Bush is finally being straight with us.
“As president, I will work to restore America’s moral authority in the world by upholding the rule of law and safeguarding our civil liberties. I reject the Bush Administration’s twisted logic justifying torture. I will release the legal opinions justifying it, and end the abuse of classification and legal privilege to hide un-American legal judgments. Saying no to torture will protect our troops and our values by upholding the Geneva Conventions anywhere American security forces, military or civilian, are engaged.”
Separately, I see that Andrew Sullivan is now acknowledging that his criticism of Hillary yesterday over the torture comments is "unfair" in light of the transcript we posted. He says he now thinks that "she was unfairly misquoted" by the paper.
More on this in a bit.
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