You may recall that earlier today, Pope Francis suggested that Donald Trump’s numerous promises to build a wall at the Mexican border should make us question whether he has the moral fiber to be president. Well, what many of you missed is that a few days earlier, Trump himself gave ample proof that he has no moral fiber to speak of. In an op-ed for USA Today that ran in Monday’s edition, Trump all but announced that if he becomes president, any terrorists that fall into American custody will be tortured.
Trump used this op-ed to double down on a vow he made at last weekend’s Republican debate to not only “bring back waterboarding,” but “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” He spews the usual right-wing talking point about waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques”–they enabled us to learn “significant information about operations hostile to the United States.” He promises that if elected, he would not only work to overturn the ban on these practices–a ban that was written into law last summer–but would not hesitate to use them “if the use of these methods would enhance the protection and safety of this nation.”
If that wasn’t offensive enough, Trump abandons any pretense of decency with his rationale for the use of such methods. It is so patently outrageous that it must be reproduced in full to be believed.
“Though the effectiveness of many of these methods may be in dispute, nothing should be taken off the table when American lives are at stake. The enemy is cutting off the heads of Christians and drowning them in cages, and yet we are too politically correct to respond in kind.”
Um, Donald? Since when is basic decency “politically correct”? And since when is calling for this country to follow the Geneva Conventions “politically correct”? Let’s say it all together as a group–the reason we don’t “respond in kind” to ISIS and Taliban thugs is that to do so would lower ourselves to their level. You do not punish barbarism with barbarism. Period, full stop.
Trump also promises to do “whatever it takes” to protect the country. Well, by Trump’s logic, we owe an apology to Christi Howell and Casey Shackleford, a Dallas-area couple currently facing charges that they waterboarded a little boy. On January 29, when a boy who is one of Powell’s relatives put his finger up the butt of the family dog, Powell and Shackleford grabbed the little boy and waterboarded him. Howell was arrested on February 9, while Shackleford turned himself in on Wednesday night. They are both facing charges of felony injury to a child. But by Trump’s logic, they shouldn’t face charges. After all, they were doing “whatever it takes” to discipline him, right?
In its own editorial, USA Today cited overwhelming evidence that when someone is waterboarded, he will say or do just about anything to stop the agony. For that reason, Harry Soyster, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, says that waterboarding “produces bad intelligence” and renders a subject “useless for further interrogation.” But, as USA Today rightly points out, any questions of effectiveness should be trumped (the pun was intended) by the fact that it would make us “no better than radical jihadists.”
As I have mentioned on several occasions, Trump’s blatant disregard for accepted standards of behavior among civilized nations should have long since brought demands that he get out of the race. But this op-ed alone would be enough to disqualify him. Let’s not beat around the bush. Waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” are torture. Torture is unacceptable. And anyone who thinks they are acceptable is morally unfit to be president of the United States. Period.
