Trump on Waterboarding: ‘Torture Works’

During a campaign event at the Sun City retirement community, Donald Trump said that he supports waterboarding and similar interrogation techniques because “torture works” in the questioning of terrorists.

Trump was responding to a question from South Carolina state Rep. Bill Herbkersman (R), who asked the candidate a series of questions in a fireside-chat-style event that lasted 33 minutes.

“On that whole thing of politically correct, would you allow U.S. interrogators to waterboard terrorist prisoners in order to extract information?” Herbkersman asked Trump.

“Absolutely,” Trump said to strong applause from the audience of about 500 retirees, who often laughed as Trump discussed enhanced interrogation techniques.  Trump emphasized his intention to reinstate waterboarding and techniques that are “so much worse” and “much stronger.”

“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?”

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

Torture is illegal, unethical, and simply does not work. When a subject is in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. That means the information provided during the time of torture is useless. It is irresponsible to forget the lessons we learned during the war against terror for Donald Trump to suggest a war crime.

Media

 

Trump on North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un: ‘You Gotta Give Him Credit’

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump appeared to praise North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, saying at a rally Saturday that “it’s incredible” how he was able to dispatch his political opponents.

Trump called Jong-Un a “maniac” during remarks about North Korea’s nuclear program during a rally at Ottumwa, Iowa, but conceded, “You gotta give him credit.”

“How many young guys — he was like 26 or 25 when his father died — take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden … he goes in, he takes over, and he’s the boss,” Trump said. “It’s incredible. He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one. I mean this guy doesn’t play games. And we can’t play games with him.”

Last week North Korea announced it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb after an earthquake was detected near previous test sites, though the White House quickly disputed the claim. North Korea released an image of Jong-un personally authorizing the test.

The next morning Trump said that North Korea was under the “total control” of China.

Yesterday’s remarks were not the first time Trump has been complimentary of an antagonist of the U.S. The real estate mogul has previously drawn criticism for accepting praise from Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling it a “great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”

(h/t ABC News)

Reality

This isn’t the first time Donald Trump praised authoritarian leaders while calling the democratically elected officials in Congress and the White House “weak.”

  • After receiving praise from Vladimir Putin, Trump showed lots of love for the authoritarian Russian President in return saying he’ll get along fine with him.
  • In the midst of a brutal civil war where authoritarian Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people, Trump was kind enough to give Bashar a grade of ‘A’ for leadership.
  • During the CNN-Telemundo Republican candidates’ debate in February that while Gaddafi was “really bad,” his tactics were effective and we would be so much better off if Gaddafi were in charge.
  • And Trump has a history of praising Saddam Hussein in interviews and at rallies.

Gadhafi, Hussein, Bashar, Un, and Putin all have committed atrocities against their own people and were among the world’s worst human rights abusers.

Media

Trump Proposes Killing Terrorist Families

In an interview on Fox & Friends the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that he’d like to “take out” the families of terrorists.

“I would knock the hell out of ISIS… [and] when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. I say ISIS is our number one threat, we have a president who doesn’t know what he is doing and all he’s worried about is climate change, he thinks climate change is something that’s going to go kill us.”

Reality

All four Geneva Conventions from 1949 contain “Common Article 3,” which applies to “armed conflict not of an international character.” What does that mean? The U.S. Supreme Court, in the 2006 case Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld, ruled that “armed conflict not of an international character” means a war that is not fought against a sovereign state. (A sovereign state simply means a country with a recognized government.) Since groups like ISIS are not considered sovereign states, that means that Common Article 3 applies to the current war on terrorism.

According to Common Article 3, people who are taking no active part in the hostilities “shall in all circumstances be treated humanely… To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever … violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture.”

Experts said this language would make Trump’s approach a violation of the Geneva Conventions, assuming that the family members were not taking part in terrorist activities.

Media

Links

http://time.com/4132368/donald-trump-isis-bombing/

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/17/rand-paul/rand-pauls-right-geneva-conventions-bar-donald-tru/

Trump Would Approve Waterboarding in a Heartbeat

Trump approves waterboarding in Columbus, OH

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said he not only would bring back waterboarding, the controversial interrogation technique discontinued by the Obama administration, but also would “approve more than that,” even if such tactics prove ineffective.

“Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would — in a heartbeat.”

Trump said to loud cheers during a rally at a convention center here Monday night that attracted thousands.

“And I would approve more than that. Don’t kid yourself, folks. It works, okay? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn’t work.”

Trump said such techniques are needed to confront terrorists who “chop off our young people’s heads” and “build these iron cages, and they’ll put 20 people in them and they drop them in the ocean for 15 minutes and pull them up 15 minutes later.”

“It works,” Trump said over and over again. “Believe me, it works. And you know what? If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing. It works.”

Reality

Torture is illegal, unethical, and simply does not work. When a subject is in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. That means the information provided during the time of torture is useless. It is irresponsible to forget the lessons we learned during the war against terror for Donald Trump to suggest a war crime.

Media

Links

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/23/donald-trump-on-waterboarding-if-it-doesnt-work-they-deserve-it-anyway/

Trump Says He Would Bring Back Waterboarding

Donald Trump would “absolutely” bring back waterboarding as an accepted form of interrogation, he said today on ABC’s “This Week.”

Trump characterized waterboarding as a form of “strong interrogation” that is “peanuts” when compared to tactics used by ISIS against its hostages.

“I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they do to us,” the Republican presidential candidate said. “What they’re doing to us, what they did to James Foley when they chopped off his head, that’s a whole different level and I would absolutely bring back interrogation and strong interrogation.”

Trump also said he does not want to close any mosques in the United States but he does want to put them under surveillance. He previously said it may be necessary to close some mosques if it is determined “bad things are happening” in them.

When asked if he wants blanket surveillance across all the nation’s mosques, Trump said “strong measures” are necessary.

“The people that are involved in those mosques, they know who the bad ones are and they know who the good ones are, but they don’t talk,” he said. “We have to surveil the mosques.”

Trump also said those on terror watch lists should be restricted from purchasing guns if they are a known “enemy of state.” Currently, someone one a terror watch list can legally purchase a gun in the U.S.

“If somebody is on a watch list and an enemy of state and we know it’s an enemy of state, I would keep them away, absolutely,” Trump said, while emphasizing that he is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

“If we have an enemy of state, I don’t want to give him anything,” Trump said. “I want to have him in jail — that’s what I want. I want to have him in jail.”

Reality

Torture is illegal, unethical, and simply does not work. When a subject is in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. That means the information provided during the time of torture is useless. It is irresponsible to forget the lessons we learned during the war against terror for Donald Trump to suggest a war crime.

Media

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/donald-trump-bring-back-waterboarding-35357550

Links

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-bring-back-waterboarding/story?id=35354443

Trump Claims US Taking in 250,000 Refugees

Trump again pounded the fear drum and lied about the number of refugees the United States is accepting from war-torn Syria.

Our president wants to take in 250,000 from Syria. I mean, think of it. 250,000 people. And we all have heart. And we all want people taken care of and all of that. But with the problems our country has, to take in 250,000 people — some of whom are going to have problems, big problems.

Reality

Taking in refugees escaping war is one of the single best things a humanitarian or Christian can do.

A 200,000 figure is an announcement in September by Secretary of State John Kerry that the United States was prepared to boost the number of total refugees accepted from around the world in fiscal 2016, from 70,000 to 85,000. Then, in 2017, Kerry said that 100,000 would be accepted.

That adds up to 185,000 over two years. But this would be the total number of refugees, not the number of refugees from Syria. As for Syria, Obama has only directed the United States to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next year.

Links

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/11/18/repeat-after-me-obama-is-not-admitting-100000-200000-or-250000-syrian-refugees/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/10/president-obama-directs-administration-to-accept-at-least-10000-syrian-refugees-in-the-next-fiscal-year/

Trump Promises to Bomb the Shit Out of ISIS

During a speech at Decker Auditorium in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Trump said he would go after ISIS-controlled oil fields and “bomb the shit out of ’em,” to loud applause.

ISIS is making a tremendous amount of money because they have certain oil camps, certain areas of oil that they took away. They have some in Syria, some in Iraq. I would bomb the shit out of ’em. I would just bomb those suckers. That’s right. I’d blow up the pipes. … I’d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left. And you know what, you’ll get Exxon to come in there and in two months, you ever see these guys, how good they are, the great oil companies? They’ll rebuild that sucker, brand new — it’ll be beautiful.

Reality

To think that Presidents do not swear you would be [expletive deleted]-ing crazy, but they have a good sense to not do it in public.

Dumbing a complex situation like ISIS down into a simple catchphrase may play well to a riled up crowd, but we will never know how effective it will be until Trump becomes President and can take action. Except the military already analyzed his plan and found it to be [expletive deleted]. Whoops!

Media

Links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWejiXvd-P8

Trump Praises Vladimir Putin

Two days after Vladimir Putin told the United Nations on Monday that it was an “enormous mistake” not to cooperate with the Syrian government in its fight against the Islamic State, Russian warplanes began hitting targets in the country — and not necessarily targets that were the location of Islamic State fighters.

The day after Putin’s speech, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly asked Donald Trump what Putin was up to. “We spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over, and Putin is now taking over what we started. He’s going into Syria. He frankly wants to fight ISIS, and I think that’s a wonderful thing.”

As for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Trump said that “maybe he’s better than the kind of people we’re supposed to be backing.”

Prior to that, Trump compared President Obama unfavorably to the Russian president.

“I will tell you, in terms of leadership, he’s getting an ‘A,’ and our president is not doing so well. They did not look good together.”

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

This began a bromance between Trump and Putin, once saying Putin was was world leader he would “get along very well with.”

Republicans love Russian President Vladimir Putin. No surprises here because in the past, conservatives have heaped massive praise on Putin. Here are just a few examples.

Never-mind that he is a human-rights-abusing, political-enemy-killing, tyrant. Putin became the strong authoritarian model they have long desired in a president after 2 terms of “weak” Obama.

Media

Trump Tells Ukraine Conference Their Nation Was Invaded Because ‘There is No Respect for The United States’

Plunging into a burning geopolitical conflict, Republican front-runner Donald Trump said Friday that Russia had pursued an aggressive policy in Ukraine because “there is no respect for the United States.”

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin does not respect our president whatsoever,” said Trump.

But he held back from promising more U.S. support for a nation where almost 8,000 people have been killed since April 2014, saying that it was Europe’s responsibility.

Trump’s comments, delivered via videolink, represented a slight tonal shift for the billionaire, though his policy prescriptions remained essentially unchanged. Trump has said in the past that he “would not care that much” whether or not Ukraine was allowed to join NATO. (“Whether it goes in or doesn’t go in, I wouldn’t care,” he told NBC’s Chuck Todd last month. “If it goes in, great. If it doesn’t go in, great.”)

But on Friday, he was addressing an international conference whose official purpose is to “develop strategies for Ukraine and Wider Europe and promote Ukraine’s European integration” — a gathering that was itself a refugee from Crimea, where it was held for a decade before being displaced by Russia’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula. His language reflected the audience.

“With respect to the Ukraine, people here have to band together from other parts of Europe to help,” Trump said. “Whether it’s Germany or other of the countries, I don’t think you’re getting the support you need.”

The remarks were consistent with his previous comments that the crisis in Ukraine is a European problem, and that the United States should avoid becoming involved in addressing the situation. “I don’t like what’s happening with Ukraine,” he said on Meet the Press in August. “But that’s really a problem that affects Europe a lot more than it affects us. And they should be leading some of this charge.”

His NATO support has long been colored by his view that it gives European countries a pathway to place the burden of international responsibility on the United States. In his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” Trump wrote that “their conflicts are not worth American lives. Pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually.”

(h/t The Washington Post)

Reality

First we require a little context.

Ukraine gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has since veered between seeking closer integration with Western Europe and being drawn into the orbit of Russia, which sees its interests as threatened by a Western-leaning Ukraine.

During this time however, Russians never thought of Ukrainians as a separate entity from them, but considered them as fellow Russians. And Moscow loved having a pro-Russian country acting as a buffer between Russia and western NATO countries.

However inside Ukraine massive corruption was the status quo, from the bottom of the government to the very top.

Then Ukraine became gripped by unrest when President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an association agreement with the European Union in 2013. An organized political movement known as ‘Euromaidan‘ demanded closer ties with the European Union, and the ousting of Yanukovych. This movement was ultimately successful, culminating in the February 2014 revolution, which removed Yanukovych and his government. However, some people in largely Russophone eastern and southern Ukraine, the traditional bases of support for Yanukovych and his Party of the Regions, did not approve of the revolution, and began to protest in favor of closer ties with Russia. Various demonstrations were held in Crimea in favor of leaving Ukraine and accession to the Russian Federation, leading to the 2014 Crimean crisis and the continued Russian military intervention in Ukraine.

Several times Ukraine has attempted to join NATO membership, and has either been voted down from NATO members or from pro-Russian opposition in Ukraine.

One of the key foreign policy positions on both Republican and Democratic platforms was a stronger and pro-western Ukraine. That is until Donald Trump.

Make no mistake, Donald Trump has taken a very pro-Russian stance on Ukraine.

Trump Bombs on Foreign Policy Question

Donald Trump stumbled when asked about the heads of major terrorist organizations on Thursday and then lashed out at what he called a “gotcha question.”

Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, blasted conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview and said it is “ridiculous” to be questioned about who leads Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Nusra and ISIS.

“I think it’s ridiculous. I’ll have, I’m a delegator. I find great people. I find absolutely great people, and I’ll find them in our armed services, and I find absolutely great people,” Trump said.

Trump sought to downplay the importance of knowing who controls the terror groups. He suggested that those leaders — some of whom have led their groups for years — would likely no longer be in power by the time he would reach the White House.

“As far as the individual players, of course I don’t know them. I’ve never met them. I haven’t been, you know, in a position to meet them. If, if they’re still there, which is unlikely in many cases, but if they’re still there, I will know them better than I know you,” Trump told Hewitt.

During the interview, Hewitt said he didn’t mean to be asking Trump “gotcha questions” – but the front-running Republican candidate was having none of it.

“Well, that is a gotcha question, you know, when you’re asking me whose running this, this, this,” Trump said.

Reality

Clearly not knowing simple details about the middle east shows how unprepared and inexperienced Donald Trump is for the Presidency.

Media

Links

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/03/politics/donald-trump-gotcha-question-terrorist-leaders-hugh-hewitt/

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