The Washington Post and Greg Djerejian weigh in on the Republican party's shift toward withdrawal from the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. -AS
So, we're all pundits here, how would you have advised your favorite Democratic candidate to answer Brit Hume's question?
I think that one way is to zero in on Hume's premise, that "intelligence" believes that there is another attack. (Romney got started on an unspoken premise, but not this one, before he nose dived).
Given how poorly Bush-Cheney used intelligence, I think Democratic candidates could build confidence by showing that they know how to actually use intelligence product, how to weigh, question and interpret it.
This highlights the fallacy of the Bush Administration's rhetoric, which apparently still is not dead yet, namely, the assumption that everyone at Gitmo is 'guilty' 'terrorist' and that we only listen to international calls from al-qaeda. (I mean seriously, if it is so easy to tell who is a terrorist just by looking or listening, then why isn't the struggle over yet?)
Personally, I continue to like the view of torture adopted by the Israeli supreme court (who knows more about terror in the last 40 years than the Israelis, maybe? Certainly NOT Senator Lindsey Graham. Probably not even Charles Krauthammer.). It's not the decision of the President or the commander, but the decision of how far to go is in the hands of highly skilled interrogators, who face serious jeopardy if they get it wrong. This has all the right balances in the right places, so far as I can tell. There is no "list" of "enhanced" or "normal" anythings and torture remains an illegal and punishable offense, notwithstanding.
