“Don’t tell me it doesn’t work — torture works. Half these guys [say]: ‘Torture doesn’t work.’ Believe me, it works.”
“Only a stupid person would say it doesn’t work. If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing.”
”It’s fine, and if we want to go stronger, I’d go stronger too.”
Now, under President Trump, our military, and our intelligence services, will be asked to do one more horrible task: torture people. You’ll notice that I’m not even approaching the question of torture from the perspective of those being tortured. What I want to address is the question of those who are asked to do such things. We would hope that under a putative Trump presidency that demanded such things, “at that point, the director is going to have to man up and simply say, for the protection of my officers, I’m afraid, Mr. President, I cannot direct that,” as former CIA director Michael Hayden said in a June 30 interview. He also said (great, great line) that Trump would have to bring his own bucket to the waterboardings he so admires. (Read the full article in Politico.) Trump’s response? “They won’t refuse. They’re not gonna refuse me. Believe me.” This is one of many statements by Trump in which he puts himself above the law and shows clearly that he thinks he can simply sashay into the White House the day after his inauguration and start issuing orders.
See if you can follow the tortured logic of Mr. Trump: Our enemies are cutting people’s heads off and drowning people in cages, so we should do the same. And even if we don’t get actionable intelligence from torture, we should do it anyway because our enemies deserve it. As many commentators have pointed out, the use of torture as a means of intimidation, as a show of power, is one of the defining marks of a dictator. Even more frightening and appalling to me than the comments themselves are the cheers that greet them.
Our military should never, ever be put under the leadership of this Commander in Chief.
Next up tomorrow: Trump”s admiration of Saddam Hussein, whose overthrow cost thousands of American soldiers’ lives.
And some additional information on John McCain’s war imprisonment can be found in this excellent article in Newsweek magazine. I didn’t realize that McCain’s father was an admiral and appointed commander-in-chief of all Pacific forces while his son was a POW. This rank of McCain’s father explains why he was offered early release. But he refused to take it, although he admits he was tempted. Saying “no” was very likely a death sentence for him. But he did it anyway.