As hard as it is to believe, the Republican candidates for president seem to have learned very little from the moral calamities of the administration of George W. Bush. Three of the contenders for the party's nomination have now come out in favor of the torture known as waterboarding. Only two have said it is illegal, and the rest don't seem to have the backbone to even voice an opinion on the subject.

At Saturday night's debate in South Carolina, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann said they would approve waterboarding of prisoners to extract information. They denied, of course, that waterboarding is torture, even though it's been classified as such since the Spanish Inquisition. "Very disappointed by statements at S.C. GOP debate supporting waterboarding," Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, wrote on Twitter. "Waterboarding is torture."

Only two candidates on the debate stage recognized the danger of the path being advocated by Mr. Cain and Mrs. Bachmann. Representative Ron Paul said waterboarding is not only torture, it is illegal, immoral, uncivilized and has no practical advantages. Former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. eloquently pointed out that waterboarding and other forms of torture diminish the nation's standing in the world.

"We lose that ability to project values that a lot of people in corners of this world are still relying on the United States to stand up for," he said.

That argument doesn't seem to faze the candidate with the clearest path to the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney. On Saturday night, Mr. Romney said nothing about waterboarding. If you thought that was because he might be against it, you'd be wrong. It was just pure cowardice.

On Monday, a campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said he, too, did not believe waterboarding is torture and that he would not specify the "enhanced interrogation techniques" he would use against terrorists. That means he will not rule out using it. It also means he either does not know or does not care that waterboarding is banned by the United States Army Field Manual, and it means he chooses to ignore the testimony of top military officers like Gen. David Petraeus (who now runs the C.I.A.) that such forms of torture are not only useless for gathering reliable intelligence but are detrimental to the security of American forces and the nation's reputation.

Perhaps that's not surprising, considering Mr. Romney's position on Iran. He claimed that, if he were elected, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, though he did not explain what he would do that President Obama has not already tried, beyond louder threats of military action. Mr. Obama prudently has not taken military action off the table - no president should - but war would be a disastrous option. It would only set back the program, not end it, and would fan anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment.

In advocating reckless warmongering, the candidates posturing on Iran refused to acknowledge that Mr. Obama has been far more successful than his predecessor at persuading the international community to enact tougher sanctions in the United Nations Security Council and the European Union. Nor did they mention that while getting alarmingly closer, Iran does not yet have an actual weapon - reportedly, a computer worm that appears to have been worked on by Israel and the United States is believed to have been a significant setback. There is still time for diplomacy, including tighter sanctions.

As empty as Mr. Romney's remarks were about Iran, his refusal to renounce waterboarding is disturbing. There are few issues that more clearly define a candidate's national security policy in the 21st century than a position on torture. A few candidates will fight terrorism using the rule of law, honoring the nation's moral standards to encourage other countries to do the same. Others will defend the United States by promising to extract information from captives using pain and simulating death, degrading the nation's reputation. That group now includes Mr. Cain, Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Romney.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/opinion/the-torture-candidates.html?_r=1&hpw