Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump wrote an Op-Ed in support of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques. It’s not the first time he’s spoken in favor of torture. While some fellow candidates agree with him, others do not.
Waterboarding was an “enhanced interrogation technique” employed in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But the practice was eventually banned by the George W. Bush administration ‒ after it simulated drowning for its prisoners for years ‒ because waterboarding was deemed to be torture.
Most Republican candidates believe in some version of enhanced interrogation technique, while both Democratic candidates disagree.
On Monday, USA Today published an Op-Ed written by Trump about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, which include practices such as electric shocks, dogs, nudity, hypothermia, mock executions and more. All of those techniques are specifically banned by the US Army Field Manual.
“Though the effectiveness of many of these methods may be in dispute, nothing should be taken off the table when American lives are at stake,” Trump wrote. “The enemy is cutting off the heads of Christians and drowning them in cages, and yet we are too politically correct to respond in kind.”
Trump said that the Op-Ed was designed so that his position on torture was clear to American voters, but it is just one in a line of such declarations, including his comment on doing “a hell of a lot worse” than waterboarding during a February 6 debate.
“I would absolutely authorize something beyond waterboarding,” Trump told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s ‘This Week’ the next day. “And believe me, it will be effective. If we need information, George, you have our enemy cutting heads off of Christians and plenty of others, by the hundreds, by the thousands.”
Despite his adamant stance against torture, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas not only called for the re-institution of waterboarding during the February 6 presidential debate, but actually justified the practice by saying it didn’t meet the definition of torture.
“Well, under the definition of torture, no, it’s not,” he said. “Under the law, torture is excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems, so under the definition of torture, it is not. It is enhanced interrogation, it is vigorous interrogation, but it does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.”
He did promise, however, that he would “not bring it back in any sort of widespread use.”
Under Cruz’s definition, the Intercept’s Alex Emmons noted, the treatment his father endured in a Cuban prison would not qualify as torture. The elder Cruz was imprisoned before the Cuban Revolution, where he was beaten, kicked and had his teeth bashed in, among other horrors, the Texas senator said in his 2015 book.
Former neurosurgeon Ben Carson believes that steps to ban torture amount to caving to the pressure of political correctness, and is a dangerous precedent when dealing with an enemy that doesn’t follow the Geneva Convention.
“I’m not one who is real big on telling the enemy what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do,” Carson said on ‘This Week’ in November. “I don’t see where that accomplishes anything for us.”
Florida Senator Marco Rubio believes that terrorism cases do not require the same legal standards of traditional law enforcement.
“Well, when people talk about interrogating terrorists, they’re acting like this is some sort of law enforcement function,” he said during the New Hampshire debate. “Law enforcement is about gathering evidence to take someone to trial, and convict them. Anti-terrorism is about finding out information to prevent a future attack so the same tactics do not apply.”
He also believes that the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center should not only remain open indefinitely, but should receive new prisoners.
“If we capture terrorists, they’re going to Guantanamo, and we will find out everything they know,” Rubio said in a January GOP presidential debate.
Ohio Governor John Kasich was pressed about his position on torture by a New Hampshire resident after the February debate in that state. He spoke of the TV show ‘24’, noting that “there could be a Jack Bauer moment [where] I gotta find out what the heck is going on.”
Yet Kasich also said that, since his 18-year stint on the House Armed Services Committee, he has been advised that torture often doesn’t work.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has long sought to distance himself from many of his older brother’s presidential policies. When it comes to enhanced interrogation techniques, however, he has never quite been able to separate himself.
“I don’t want to make a definitive, blanket kind of statement,” Bush said in August 2015, when asked about repealing an executive order banning torture.
Yet in the February 6 debate, Bush was the only Republican candidate to speak out against the practice.
Days later, on February 9, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), who ran for against now-President Barack Obama in 2008, condemned the torture rhetoric of the current crop of GOP hopefuls. The 79-year-old former Navy pilot was captured and tortured by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.
“These statements must not go unanswered because they mislead the American people about the realities of interrogation, how to gather intelligence, what it takes to defend our security and at the most fundamental level, what we are fighting for as a nation and what kind of nation we are,” McCain said on the Senate floor.
The topic of torture has not been a factor in the Democratic race, in part because the two candidates stand firmly against the practice, and those stances have solidified over time.
When the Senate Intelligence Committee released its investigation on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation in December 2014, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) spoke out strongly against the practice.
“A great nation must be prepared to acknowledge its errors. This report details an ugly chapter in American history during which our leaders and the intelligence community dishonored our nation’s proud traditions,” he said in a statement. “Of course we must aggressively pursue international terrorists who would do us harm, but we must do so in a way that is consistent with the basic respect for human rights which makes us proud to be Americans.”
The self-described democratic socialist followed up that statement in June, when he voted in favor of a Senate amendment that sought to “reaffirm the prohibition on torture.”
In December 2014, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out against waterboarding during a speech accepting an award from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
“America is at our best when our actions match our values,” she said, adding that she was “proud” to be a part of the Obama administration when the current president banned such tactics in a 2009 executive order.
Terrorist attacks “not only break hearts but should steel our resolve and underscore that our values are what set us apart from our adversaries,” Clinton said.
https://www.rt.com/usa/332693-candidate-positions-torture-waterboarding/
Oh, Trump supports torture, does he?
After the revolution we’ll make sure we find out everything he knows. We’ll need to do that to make sure you’re safe from Zionist terrorists.
Tramp in the WH would be another mistake of the people. In fact all of the people, DINO & RINO, are calling for war.
FOAD, Trump. Same to the rest of those demagogues.
Anyone who supports legalizing torture is a POS, and a country that sanctions torture doesn’t deserve to survive. (This includes any country that outsources torture to foreign countries.) The “Jack Bauer scenario” is a far-fetched myth. And if these jokers were concerned about “saving American lives,” they would spend a lot less on wars and a lot more on medical research or feeding hungry children.
Those who try to redefine torture as “inflicting pain equivalent to organ failure” or other such contrived BS need to STFU. They would be the first to howl with outrage if captured US prisoners were starved, beaten, waterboarded, or otherwise subjected to “enhanced interrogation” (an idiotic euphemism that insults the intelligence of anyone with a brain).
Fortunately for Killery, her bedroom, is not considered of this world.
They ALL want it and approve of it regardless of what their lie-hole is saying.
It’s not for the fictional bogeyman created to suck the wealth from American’s pockets to fuel the zio-commie corporatocric war machine, it’s for US. The real enemy.
Ah, the American Scream for bloodlust but it is for their own in the hands of these traitors.
Well they tied that yellow ribbon round the oak tree.
They’ve worn out all the prayer in their hearts.
All along thought they were routing for the home team,
As they’re sent to the game and torn apart.
We twist this tourniquet upon the pipeline,
That he carries all the pain in the world.
As we blindly clap and cheer from the sidelines
It’s clear, on a losing streak from the very start.
And that’s where they found me,
In the cemetary.
A smoking gun in my hand,
Now I’m damned for the land of the free.
Sing with me,
The american scream.
They took that faded ribbon off the oak tree.
They’ve worn out all the hope in their hearts.
All along thought I was doing the right thing,
Now I’m lying in a pool of my blood.
I agree that elites who control governments in opposition to the citizens should be tortured. But, not for information or to elicit a false confession, but for the simple entertainment value that it could provide everyone who suffers from injustices caused by the elite.
I don’t know exactly where it is in the Bible, but I am pretty sure neither God not Christ would support “torture”, “enhanced” or not. (And I watched the entire S21 Cambodian Khmer Rouge prison movie and went to the link someone provided saying Pol Pot was a great man who torutured evil folks, and it was frightening to know that Pol Pot or Duch or whoever still had nothing on what the US govt. thugs have done a thousand times over worldwide with torture…from Eisenhower torturing German POWs to Johnson/Nixon and even Kennedy torturing Vietnamese to various CIA Latin American ops to the Clintons in Haiti, etc., HW Bush with Iraq, Bush with most of the middle east and now Obama—and let’s not forget genocide of Native Americans–so Pol Pot kills 2-3 million while the US kills several hundred million….but I guess most Americans think like Stalin, who said “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” Or the whole Asians/Africans/Arabs/Latin Americans are all animals so who cares?)
Folks, if we act toward the elites like they act toward us then we stoop to their psychopathic level and become the oppressors we replaced…I say put the elites on Antarctica, cordon off the penguins so they can’t eat the penguins or any other wild life, and let them eat each other. God will take care of the rest of them…
I don’t subscribe to a God. I subscribe to, if you want something done right, do it yourself. As for becoming the oppressor, fine by me as long as I am oppressing those that believe they are magically privileged by birth or otherwise above their fellow man. We all are born into this world by the same mechanism. No one has a right to rule over others. We do have a right to self defense and self preservation. Proactively taking out the trash would fall under self preservation.
Well put.
DL., The gig’s gotta be at the local level, and no leaders to “decapitate”, but a groundswell of folk tired of the slavery and thievery and want to do something about it. May Day would be a good day, my flag will be hanging upsidedown proper, and we need a May Day response.
Any attempt to organize anything will draw snakes out of the grass. Mindful eye, and watch your 6, you’ll feel it when the time is right to make your stand. If they knock on your door, well, it’s settled already then, ain’t it.
“I would absolutely authorize something beyond waterboarding,” Trump told George Stephanopoulos…”
I actually agree with that.
But only in the case of politicians & NWO puppets.
Glad you’re with me on that one #1 🙂
It does have it’s place, Samuel. 😉
You are incorrect, sir. The correct answer was “There’s no place for that.” No torture, we just kill ’em.
Do I want to approve years of CIA torture to justify continuing to do it?
It’s the ONLY way we’d ever find out where everything is stashed.
That would include all the NON-GMO seeds the bast@rds have hidden.
I’m putting in my application next week.
George Gobbleobboulos, 5’5″ POS wears 3″ “elevator shoes”. I can’t figure it out. Between him and that Martha bitch, I just keep a bucket chairside! 😆