You may recall that on Sunday, I told you that CIA director John Brennan vowed that the CIA will never waterboard anyone again if the ban on this and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” is ever lifted–even if ordered to do so by the White House. That statement was an obvious dig at Donald Trump, who has let it be known that if he succeeds in buying the presidency, he will bring back waterboarding “and a hell of a lot worse.” Well, it took longer than expected, but Trump let it be known that he wasn’t at all pleased with Brennan’s declaration.
Knowing what we know about the Donald, I thought he would have blasted Brennan on Twitter within hours of NBC breaking the news of Brennan’s announcement. Well, we had to wait until Monday morning. On Monday’s edition of “Fox & Friends,” Brian Kilmeade asked Trump about Brennan’s comments. The exchange starts at around the 7:35 mark. Trump’s reaction was predictable–he thought Brennan was being “ridiculous” considering what we know about the Islamic State’s tactics.
“I mean, they chop off heads and they drown people in cages with 50 in cage in big steel, heavy cages, drop ‘em right into the water, drown people and we can’t waterboard and we can’t do anything.”
Trump thinks that ISIS and the U.S.-led coalition are “playing on different fields” because the current administration isn’t willing to use “strong tactics”–an obvious reference to waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques.” He believes ISIS is laughing at us as a result.
“Can you imagine these ISIS people sitting around, eating and talking about this country won’t allow waterboarding and they just chopped off 50 heads?”
If Trump’s idea of “strong tactics” is to order the use of tactics that any fair-minded person would consider to be torture, then he has declared that he is willing to sink this country to the same level as these thugs. Punishing barbarism with barbarism is unacceptable and un-American. Period.
And if he thinks Brennan is being “ridiculous” in saying that the CIA will never use such tactics, he must have fallen asleep in history class, or at the very least cheated. Anyone who doesn’t have his hair up his rear end knows that torture is a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions–and that there is no such thing as obeying what would be a blatantly unlawful order.
Waterboarding is torture. Torture is unacceptable. I know it’s been said a million times, but with a major-party presidential candidate having gone on record several times as saying he would bring back these outrageous practices, it bears repeating. This also bears repeating–anyone who thinks waterboarding is even remotely acceptable is not fit to be president of the United States.
