Would Mitt Romney revoke Obama’s executive order banning torture?

[ProSense]

Would Mitt Romney revoke Obama’s executive order banning torture?

By Greg Sargent

Torture is back in the news again. The battle between the campaigns over the one-year anniversary of Bin Laden’s death has revived the debate over whether torture led to his killing, and Senate Dems are prepared to release an investigation asserting that it didn’t.

So the Romney campaign should be asked: As president, would he revoke the executive order that Obama signed on his first day in office, restricting interrogation techniques to those in the Army Field Manual?

Here’s why this is an important question.

Yes, it’s true that Romney has expressed support for enhanced interrogation techniques, and doesn’t believe waterboarding is torture, so it would seem that Romney is implicitly saying he would overturn the executive order. But an actual answer from Romney on whether he would revoke it would be something else entirely.

This question goes to the heart of how serious Romney is about reviving enhanced interrogation techniques, and whether he’d be able to.

If Romney really means to revive these techniques as an instrument of U.S. policy, an important first step — symbolically and substantively — would be to revoke that executive order. Theoretically, if there is a terror attack or threat that prompts Romney to greenlight the revival of these techniques, he could do so without first formally revoking the order. But any agency ordered to use these techniques might feel they need a legal rationale for doing so — something that, at a minimum, would require the order to be revoked or at least amended.

In short, pledging to overturn the executive order is a clear way for Romney to signal he’s serious about restoring enhanced interrogation techniques. If he doesn’t pledge to overturn it, his attacks on Obama as weak — in part because he ended torture — will sound hollow, and he will be leaving a ban on techniques he says are necessary in place.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/would-mitt-romney-revoke-obamas-executive-order-banning-torture/2012/05/03/gIQARTfGzT_blog.html

[TheWraith]

1. Of course he would.

Romney is nothing if not a rubber stamp for the radical right. Look at how spinelessly he folded in order to pander on every single issue during the primary. We're supposed to believe he's going to get tough with them after he gets elected?

[hifiguy]

2. In a heartbeat. But secretly.

Count on it.

[KathyS]

3. Jerk

He's a jerk. A pushover. Ofcourse he'll do it.

[11 Bravo]

4. If he were instructed to do so, then you're damned straight he would!

In the unlikely event that this spineless non-entity were to ever inhabit the Oval Office, he would prove to be the weakest and most malleable Chief Executive in our history.

[gratuitous]

5. Not much point to it

Since Obama's Executive Order doesn't seem to be cutting much ice as it is. But why quibble over some obscure passages of quaint old documents that don't mean anything? Everyone's feeling so good about the summary execution of a sick old man by a team of trained assassins.

[ProSense]

6. What

"Everyone's feeling so good about the summary execution of a sick old man by a team of trained assassins."

...Cheney is still alive!

[just1voice]

7. Would he leave Gitmo open too?

Would he sign a NDAA that would give him the power to arrest and kill any American?
Would he go after whistle blowers?
Would he be against legalizing medical pot?
Would he stack his cabinet with Goldman Sachs people?
Would he pledge to stay in Afghanistan until 2024?
Would he constantly try to "work with republicans"?
Would he let torture camp creators and other war criminals go free?
Would he bail out "too big to fail" banks?
Would he take universal heath care "off the table"?
Would he entertain cutting Medicare and Soc. Sec.?

Sounds horrific if a repuke is doing it.

[Hubert Flottz]

8. On day one!

He'd want to help. "Put 'em on the roof Tag!"