Sure he favors Waterboarding - says he likes it
This followed waterboarding, and he never broke
The heart of this post and entire issue of torture and whether waterboarding is torture is again addressed
in this fine article. Waterboarding in particular, as if I need to remind
anyone is torture – make no mistake about it, it is torture and it has been illegal, unlawful, and a war crime for decades.
1. Starting as far back as in the 1980's, James Mitchell (Ret. Air Force officer with zero interrogator training or experience) helped run a training program designed to give service members a taste of the harsh treatment they could expect as prisoners of war (program is called SERE). It included a form of “simulated drowning” used by the Chinese on Americans in the Korean War today referred to as “waterboarding”).
2. After the September 11 attacks, Mitchell and a colleague, also a Ret. Air Force officer, Bruce Jessen (also with zero interrogator training or experience), developed a theory call “waterboarding” along with other brutal interrogation techniques and proclaimed that they could produce a sense of “learned helplessness” that “would render detainees incapable of withholding information.”
3. Neither Mitchell nor Jessen had conducted any, not one real-world interrogation instead they simply relied on techniques designed by totalitarian states in the history books.
4. All those ancient methods
tended to elicit false confessions, as opposed to reliable military intelligence
for field/ground commanders — but that did not dissuade the CIA hiring those
two and in the end paying more than $80 million to their company: Mitchell
Jessen and Associates.
6. Since then, military and counter-terrorism officials have never forgotten where that awful detour into darkness has led us: (1) troves of unreliable intelligence, (2) many demoralized professional interrogators, (3) terrorists in custody who still cannot be tried in a court of law because they were tortured, and (4) an ugly stench that still clings to America’s counter-terrorism reputation these many years later and indeed on the entire country – possibly for decades to come.
6. Since then, military and counter-terrorism officials have never forgotten where that awful detour into darkness has led us: (1) troves of unreliable intelligence, (2) many demoralized professional interrogators, (3) terrorists in custody who still cannot be tried in a court of law because they were tortured, and (4) an ugly stench that still clings to America’s counter-terrorism reputation these many years later and indeed on the entire country – possibly for decades to come.
Now Donald J. Trump, CINC-in-Waiting wants to return to that
era or worse (stated in his own words).
Related:
1. This whole false attitude about torture must be in the Trump genes – in their DNA as it
were. Trump's son, Eric Trump, says waterboarding no worse than “college frat prank” that I posted about here. That
Trump gene: Totally corrupted in the mental medical sense I suspect.
2. And, under consideration for
the Trump national security team is this woman, K.T. McFarland – who BTW comes across as a complete and total
airhead as recently seen and heard addressing waterboarding in panel led by no other than the dumbest guy on TV and radio, Sean Hannity as seen in this short clip that I also
posted about earlier.
So, how far will the Trump
team take us back down that rabbit hole? Probably to the Gates of Hell itself.
Stay tuned stay out of their way since Trump would also expand Gitmo as seen here, here, and especially seen here.
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