Retired Generals Slam GOP Candidates for Promoting Torture

May 17 (EIRNS)--Two top-ranking retired generals -- former Central Command chief Joseph Hoar, and former Marine Corps commandant Charles C. Krulak -- take to task almost all of the Republican candidates who appeared in Tuesday's presidential debate in South Carolina, for their failure to condemn torture of prisoners, with the only exceptions being John McCain, who himself was tortured in North Vietnam, and Ron Paul.

At that debate, in response to a set-up question from Fox TV's Brit Hume, Rudy Giuliani said he would tell interrogators to use "every method they could think of" in questioning a prisoner who supposedly knew about pending attacks on the United States; Mitt Romney said he supports "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- a euphemism for torture -- and added that rather than closing Guantanamo, "we ought to double Guantanamo." Both answers were cheered and applauded by the audience, in a Nuremberg-rally atmosphere.

In their op-ed in today's Washington Post, Hoar and Krulak point out that "every other nation that has tried to engage in a little bit of torture -- only for the toughest cases, when nothing else works" has found that once started, "the abuse spread like wildfire." Hoar and Krulak point to the military's mental health assessment released earlier this month, which, they say, "shows a disturbing level of tolerance for abuse of prisoners." Speaking from the standpoint of competent military leaders, they stress that under the stress of combat, "rules must be firm and absolute; if torture is broached as a possibility, it will become a reality."

The failure to follow this standard in recent years "has had disastrous consequences," they point out. "If we forfeit our values," we only hurt ourselves and strengthen the enemy," Hoar and Krulak state, declaring that: "This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it."

An interview with Gen. Hoar was published in the April 27 issue of EIR; (see).