NO WAY CAN I SUPPORT A PRESIDENT THAT CONDONES TORTURE

…This type of punishment is condoned by Donald Trump

 

According to Trump, “The terrorists must think we're weak and stupid.”

 

I hope that Donald Trump continues to talk as he did after the latest terrorism attack in the Istanbul, Turkey Airport.

 

Not being an expert on American laws and our commitment to not torturing our enemies, what is the first thing that comes out of Trump’s mouth.

 

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee immediately said, “We must fight fire with fire."

 

Then he proceeded to say at a campaign event in St. Clairsville, Ohio after the deadly Istanbul terror attack.  “The terrorists must think we're weak and stupid.”

 

Trump complained that the terrorists are allowed to get away with "chopping off heads, drowning people in steel cages," without the US responding, even with waterboarding.

Trump went on saying, "We can't do waterboarding -- which may not be the nicest thing, but it's peanuts compared to many alternatives. So we can't do waterboarding but they can do chopping off heads.  They can do whatever they want to do.”

Trump said of the terrorists overseas. "Can you imagine them sitting around the table or wherever they're eating their dinner, talking about the Americans don't do waterboarding and yet we chop off heads?"

"They probably think we're weak, we're stupid, we don't know what we're doing, we have no leadership. You know, you have to fight fire with fire."

 

Trump said this to audience applause from the Ohio rally attendees.

 

Donald Trump has been a long-time supporter of waterboarding and similar interrogation techniques because to him, "torture works" in the questioning of terrorists.

 

Now, how Trump knows that torture works, as usual he always leaves that explanation out of his discussions.

 

Proponents of waterboarding are usually careful not to label the technique as torture, and waterboarding is forbidden as torture by various international laws and treaties.

 

President Obama's administration outlawed the use of waterboarding because they also deemed the technique to be torture. During a previous campaign event at a Sun City retirement community, Trump emphasized his intention to reinstate waterboarding and techniques that are "so much worse" and "much stronger" than waterboarding.

 

"Don't tell me it doesn't work -- torture works," Trump said. "Okay, folks? Torture -- you know, half these guys [say]: 'Torture doesn't work.' Believe me, it works. Okay?"

 

The war hero and Arizona Senator, John McCain, has long been an outspoken opponent of using waterborading.  Having spent 5 years of being tortured in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp, McCain had spearheaded the fight to prohibit certain so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” originally greenlighted by the Bush administration.

 

McCain has noted that waterboarding is considered a war crime according to the Geneva conventions, "But perhaps more important than that, if you're not into academics, the history is it [torture] doesn't work ... Because if you inflict enough pain on someone they will tell you whatever they think you want to hear."

 

"It's not the United States of America. It's not what we are all about. It's not what we are," the Arizona lawmaker said to applause at the Bipartisan Policy Center last week in Washington.

 

The Arizona senator has frequently sparred with the real estate mogul over his remarks about prisoners of war.  McCain has stated that he will vote for whomever the eventual Republican nominee will be.  However, he will not indorse Trump, nor will he attend next month's Republican National Convention.

 

But Trump has long called for the return of waterboarding, and he has seemed to embrace the idea of using torture in the past without using the term himself.  During a previous interview on ABC's "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos asked Trump whether he "would authorize torture." Trump responded: "I would absolutely authorize something beyond waterboarding."

 

Just last week in an op-ed Trump piece on the issue for USA TODAY, the piece was called "I will do whatever it takes."

 

At the rally in Ohio, Trump continued to reiterated his praise for using waterboarding, which was eventually banned by the Bush administration.  But Trump said he felt it was an effective tool to fight terror just hours after the attack that left dozens of people dead at the airport in Turkey.  "I like it a lot. I don't think it's tough enough," said Trump, adding again that the tactic was "peanuts compared to many other more drastic alternatives."

 

And this man wants to be my American President……no way.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016