Courtesy of Raw Story:President Trump tells ABC News he believes waterboarding works – but will "rely" on his Cabinet to determine if the policy is resurrected. pic.twitter.com/0nCFAfhlK1— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) January 25, 2017
In an exclusive interview with ABC, President Trump said he believes that torture works and would employ it if he got a sign-off from his close advisors.
Citing terrorists “cutting off the head of victims,” Trump said he feels he must respond with harsh measures.
“I want to keep our country safe,” Trump explained. “When they’re chopping off the heads of our people, when they’re chopping off the heads of people because they happen to be a Christian in the Middle East.. would I feel strongly about waterboarding? As far as I’m concerned, we have to fight fire with fire.”
Of course Trump is either lying about those intelligence folks telling him that torture works, or he is talking to some agents who are telling him what he wants to hear in order to garner his favor.
We have already tried this in the past and we found that not only did it not work but that it seriously damaged our reputation around the world and negatively impacted the very psyche of our country.
There is some hope in Trump's statement that he will take direction from General Mattis who said to Trump:
"I've never found it to be useful,"' Mr. Trump said, describing the general's view of torturing terrorism suspects. He added that Mr. Mattis found more value in building trust and rewarding cooperation with terror suspects: '"Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I'll do better."'
That seems pretty definitive.
However new CIA Chief Mike Pompeo seems a little wishy washy on the topic:
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Pompeo had pledged that as CIA director he would not allow the use of torture in interrogations. But in subsequent written questions he appeared to backtrack on that commitment and others, alarming Senate civil rights advocates.
Pompeo also suggested that the Army Field Manua, which currently forbids torture, may be due for a rewrite.
Well on thing for sure if Trump wants to bring back torture he will have to go through John McCain to do it.
I imagine that McCain will not be alone in his opposition either..@POTUS can sign whatever executive orders he likes, but the law is the law - we're not bringing back torture https://t.co/m9YjDtNYBQ— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) January 25, 2017
I swear that everyday this nightmare just keeps getting more and more frightening.
Is old man McGrumpy man enough to impeach Trump if waterboarding or other forms of torture occur?
ReplyDeleteNope.
DeleteFirst, it has to start in the House and they'll never get enough votes to start impeachment.
Second, he'd be tried in the Senate. You'd have to get ALL of the Democrats to vote as a block (good luck with that) and then get at least 3 Republicans to vote to impeach.
Not gonna happen.
That is why it is imperative the Democrats take back the House and Senate. While they're at it they need to take back as many states as possible. If the Republicans are going to bump everything back to the states, then the Democrats need to control as many states as possible. Both Governor and Legislature.
Waterboarding is also a war crime. It won't take too long for Trump himself to be a war criminal.
ReplyDeleteThat won't happen. Bush is a free man and so are all the people who were involved.
DeleteAs long as Bush never leaves the country.
DeleteIf he does, he may end up on trial in The Hague.
Someone should water torture the president (in name only)! He'd cry like a baby. The bully is a weak, weak, miserable soul!
ReplyDeleteYes. He is a miserable soul. A monstrous child.
DeleteHe honestly thinks he is popular. Wait until the truth hits him in his large, ugly orange face.
Delete"I swear that everyday this nightmare just keeps getting more and more frightening."
ReplyDeleteYou wake up from an nightmare. This is real ... unbelievable as it may be.
Then get out of bed and into the street. Make anti-torture fliers and staple them around your neighborhood at night instead of having nightmares.
DeleteTrump is doing whatever he's told to do. His comprehension is nil without Ivanka around to interpret adultspeak for him. Bannon has always known that.
ReplyDeleteIvanka must have "upped his meds" before that interview. He started out speaking softly, then the meds wore off. He is a disgrace. Crude, rude low class ass.
DeleteThe behavior you're describing, Anon at 2:34 am, is how he's acted in any interview situation since the beginning of the campaign. I suspect such behavior is typical of despots throughout history. They can only maintain their thin veneer of good manners for a short period of time.
DeleteBeaglemom
The Chief draft dodger wants someone else to torture people?
ReplyDeleteMSNBC media critic slams Trump: He is living in a ‘fantasy land that is genuinely terrifying’
ReplyDelete...... Garfield noted “government policy is being forged” by Trump, “mainly through executive order, or what the GOP until a week ago called ‘tyranny.’”...
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/msnbc-media-critic-slams-trump-he-is-living-in-a-fantasy-land-that-is-genuinely-terrifying/
It is only "tyranny" when a Democratic president does it. IF one would, that is. tRump should resign, this job is way over his head.
DeleteNone of President Obama's executive orders messed with established law. He did what he could within the bounds of the Constitution only because Congress refused to do anything. And the purpose of his orders was to make life for everyone better, including the planet.
DeleteThe 45th president should be preparing legislation to go before Congress. I think he's convinced himself that he is all three branches of government rolled into one. Like any other absolutist monarch, except that is the antithesis of what the Constitution allows. And the weak-kneed GOP Congress will let it all happen because they can reap some of the "reward" (undoing established law they don't like, milking the system for personal profit, enriching the already very rich, and getting back at democracy which none of them seems to like) while the rest of us foot the bill and learn to live the life of "losers" which is what this president is forcing us into.
Beaglemom
If we torture, we are OKing torture to be used on us.
ReplyDeleteI am starting to believe the rumors that he has end-stage syphilis! He just cannot discern any truth from fiction, and needs to see himself as the biggest and baddest.
ReplyDeleteSMHID
My long-posited theory is syphilic dementia...which may or may not be the same thing. As it is, it is a moot point; he is doing what *many*
DeleteR's have long wanted him to do, and remember the outrage from these same politicians when President Obama signed his *own* executive orders? Oh, I forgot, IOKIYAR.
For Goodness sake, someone who cannot be bought must get him to a specialist who also can't be bought and will publish the results if true.
DeleteWell, then he has something in common with Al Capone, who died of syphylis. How can anyone SANE relate to this arsehole?
DeleteI think it's decades of sleep deprivation on top of an already defective personality. He's displayed some of these character traits since he was a child. That's why his parents shipped him off to military school.
DeleteOne of the reasons that the USA condemns torture and follows the Geneva Convention is to keep our soldier’s “safe” if they are captured by the enemy.
ReplyDeleteIs he planning opting out of the Geneva Convention?
Who is he planning on torturing, members of ISIS? I thought he was going to blast them from the face of the earth, so theoretically there is no one to torture.
More protests in the making?
ReplyDeleteBy the way check out the bags under the dictator’s eye in photo
===================
Read leaked drafts of 4 White House executive orders on Muslim ban, end to DREAMer program, and more
Apparent Trump administration drafts suggest a harsh crackdown on immigrants.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/25/14390106/leaked-drafts-trump-immigrants-executive-order
Yeah, he looks like hell. I guess no one ever told him that the Presidency takes a toll on a person. He's - what - four days in and looks haggard *already*? I guess he doesn't have the 'STA-MIN-A' that he *thinks* he had.
DeleteDoes Viagra do that to him?
DeleteHe looked like HELL long before this election! I personally think he was born looking like HELL, and he is taking it out on the rest of us. Poor baby, even plastic surgery could not make him handsome, or even good looking. Ugly as sin, inside and out.
DeleteAnon at 6:27 pm. The 45th president deserves "to look like hell." He's made many of the citizens of this country have trouble sleeping since November 8, 2016.
DeleteBeaglemom
Voice of America will now be run by 2 males in their 20's - with an 800 million dollar budget. It seems it will be Drumpf's propaganda machine that allows him to spew his fascist hate and lies throughout the world and NO ONE will stop it - for now.
ReplyDeleteListen to Rachel M because she had this info. Get educated - listen to Rachel, the journalist. Chris Hayes, Steve Kornacki and Lawrence O'Donnell provide some truth as well. We may become more and more limited for factual news sources as this is just the first week and already there is an investigation underway to prove that black is white and up is down and pictures lie - scary!
He's on the road to choking off the internet as well.
Deletehttp://finance.yahoo.com/news/report-net-neutrality-foe-ajit-220635106.html
"President Donald Trump has reportedly picked a fierce critic of the Obama-era "net neutrality" rules to be chief regulator of the nation's airwaves and internet connections.
Citing unidentified people, Bloomberg and Politico both reported Friday that the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission will be Ajit Pai, an old hand at the agency. Pai's chief of staff, Matthew Berry, declined to comment. Neither Trump administration spokesman Bryan Lanza nor FCC spokesmen immediately replied to requests for comment.
Pai is one of the two Republican commissioners on a 5-member panel that regulates the country's communications infrastructure, including TV, phone and internet service."
Once he chokes the internet and controls the TV, where are you going to find your factual news?
More concerning.
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO ORGANIZE?
Good god. I saw a story about this and how the CIA director was "blindsided" by the memo allowing torture. I really hope that means that even if it's legalized again, the director won't allow it to be used by his agents.
ReplyDeleteTorture is wrong, no matter who it is done to, or for reason it is done. And for people like Trump, who couldn't give less of a shit about human rights, it shouldn't be used because IT DOES NOT WORK.
I can't believe it, but Trump is turning about to be WORSE than I expected. He needs to be stopped.
Blindsided, yes.
DeleteBut he'll go along. He is Trump's man and if he doesn't play ball he'll be replaced with someone who will. One of Bannon's Nazis.
I'm watching the trump interview with David Muir and he is being so disrespectful to David. He continues to interrupt and talk over him and state how much more he knows that David. What a piece of shit!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe orange asswipe needs to be turned
over to the world court for disposal. CIA operatives could do it, or have they all turned into cowards?
In other areas:
https://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/824406617257086979
Perhaps time for a Tropic Thunder meme poster?
ReplyDelete"He went full Orwell.
Never go full Orwell."
You remember how Twittler called on Wikileaks to reveal "emails"? Can El Chapo (now in the US) pleaseeeeeeee fullfill his threat to cheeto?????? Or maybe we help
ReplyDeleteThe renegade park folks that are tweeting reality climate change information and do to cheeto what the Greek gods did to
(Forgot his name) and put him on the rock to
Do over and over and over and over and over and over and over (you get the idea)
The pecking of the birds. Certainly not Atlas holding the world; the other dude pecked daily.
Wow, another direct threat on the Presidents life from Closethedoor.
Delete908 don't worry, its just FAKE NEWS in yer alt reality.
DeleteAs long as Cheeto Bandito is in office, with his henchmen, ALL our lives are in danger. He is OBVIOSLY insane, something needs to be done. The Groping Old Pervert party will keep him in office until all their destructive policies are in place.
Delete9:08 PM - you're an ID-10-T.
DeleteClosethedoor blogger address for the feds:
Deletehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07186972990015206616
I think Trump will just have a full blown meltdown probably on live TV, if Sean Spicer doesn't have one first.
ReplyDeleteTrump is putting our troops in serious danger. As well as his own family, his real estate all over the world and ALL Americans.
ReplyDeleteIf his properties worldwide are targeted, WHO CARES? He owes billions of $$$ on them anyway. He is likely insured right up to his many, many chins.
DeleteThe 45th president doesn't care at all about US soldiers. He probably thinks they're "losers" because they're in uniform. By the way, when he decided to cut federal jobs the other day (by executive order), the group most affected would be veterans who had special (go to the head of the line) privilege in federal hiring under President Obama.
DeleteBeaglemom
To Closethedoor: Sisyphus, a Greek who was condemned to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill, then watching it roll back down gain. If the Gods are on our side, this would be a perfect end for Drumph.
ReplyDeleteTrump is already torturing every one of us!!!
ReplyDelete"The Secret Service said Tuesday it was taking “quick and appropriate action” against an agent who announced on Facebook that she wouldn’t take a bullet for Donald Trump, CNN reported.
ReplyDeleteBut in its statement to the news network, the agency declined to provide details on its handling of Kerry O’Grady’s posts because it was a “personnel matter.”
The Washington Examiner reported on her most controversial post on Tuesday, and it was rapidly shared on social media. O’Grady, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Denver district, wrote in October that while she was expected to take a bullet for both Trump and rival Hillary Clinton, “I would take jail time over a bullet or an endorsement for what I believe to be disaster to this country.”"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/secret-service-agent-says-she-wouldnt-take-a-bullet-for-trump_us_58887d4be4b0441a8f71e671?section=us_politics
I'll bet there are other agents that won't take a bullet for Trump either. They're just smart enough to keep their mouths shut.
No wonder he's keeping his private detail. He's bought them.
McCain just needs a large bulk of Exxon shares, and he changes his mind. He was against Tillerson because he was too friendly with utin. Then suddenly he is for him, urging his good buddy Lindsey to also vote FOR Tillerson. Either a large check cleared, or they will receive shares from the oil company.
ReplyDeleteBut mr trump has already caused torture around the world just by rigging elections. WTF why do you think everyone is marching and screaming?
ReplyDeleteI don't trust John McCain. Remember that a month ago he was all for really investigating the Russian connection and then he forgot that had been his position. He's forgotten that he is opposed to torture before too. All McCain wants to do is have the word out there that he opposes another Republican president's idea, then he'll vote in favor of it. It's only Democratic presidents that he'll genuinely oppose.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom