I seriously wonder what the Republican Party and its operatives hope to gain by trying to defend and normalize torture as a policy tool. There are a number of possibilities, none of which are particularly heartening. The first is that torture was so widespread and so widely accepted by the Party during its time in power that investigation would result in considerable damage to the reputation of the Party and all of its leadership. This does seems likely, especially given the degree to which even Democrats gave their approval to such techniques (I’m looking at you, Pelosi). But I doubt it’s the main reason: too many facts are in public sphere already. The second is that they perceive defense of torture to be a political winner. This seems like something they are unlikely to believe, and less likely to be true. But it’d hardly be the first major political miscalculation by the Republican Party in recent years.
The most likely option seems to be a genuine conviction that torture ought to be a legitimate tool of public policy. Needless to say, I seriously doubt Peggy Noonan or Dick Cheney would view waterboarding or physical abuse as acceptable detainee treatment if the Iranians or Cubans did it to US citizens. So the real opinion being advanced here is that America, and America alone, is entitled to do anything in pursuit of its mission. It should go without saying that this is a horribly dangerous idea, but just to make it clear: that’s the sort of thinking that drives crusades, from the actual Crusades up to the Global Proletariat Revolution, and all the associated horrors. If you give up all pretense to moral behavior in the defense of your morality, it becomes pretty unclear what you actually claim to be defending.