Trump on Torture: “The problem is we have the Geneva Conventions, all sorts of rules and regulations, so the soldiers are afraid to fight. We can’t waterboard, but they can chop off heads. I think we’ve got to make some changes.” Donald Trump.
What Trump fails to grasp is that the purpose of waterboarding was to torture prisoners into giving up information. Experts have debunked the idea it was ever successful.
Waterboarding didn’t leave bloody fingertips where nails use to be, or burn scars on the genitals. It “merely” made you feel like you were going to die.
From what I gather, it didn’t even cause pain.
To survive being waterboarded, you would have to be convinced that Americans were no going to kill you. No matter how much you felt like you were going to drown, you’d quickly learn they would stop before you did. After all, although America was the great Satan, prisoners knew we weren’t going to kill them without a trial.
I have no doubt waterboarding was also used to satisfy the sadistic character traits of some of the guards, something I think Trump shares with them. Trump is often called a bully. I think a trait he shares with most bullies is that he’s also sadistic. I can image what he fantasizes about when thinking, or even dreaming, about his enemies; a pleasant dream for him, a nightmare for the rest of us.
I can see Trump as one of those movie torture-expert villains brought in with his, or often her, set of surgical tools. The scenario always depends on the victim knowing that their captors are willing to kill them. In fact, oftentimes, the way they get information is by being told simply “we can kill you slowly or we can kill you quickly.”
Trump has never been pressed to reveal what worse methods of torture he would authorize. His stock answer to similar questions has been to say essentially “revealing such information would aide the enemy.”
Beheading is used both for propaganda and as a terror tool. ISIS rarely beheads anyone who has information they could use, so the threat of it has no utility unless it’s to extract ransom. It is known that they do make a lot of money from kidnappings.
Of course beheading, while far more gruesome and infintestimally slower and more painful than a bullet in the back of the head, it is also a foolproof method of execution.
Beheading is actually more more humane than another ancient method of execution, crucifixion.
Now, there’s a new idea for Trump! Bring back crucifixion for everyone from terror suspects, to Mexican rapists, to families of ISIS members, to people who are rude to him at his speeches, to women who have abortions and the doctors who provide them. These would fill stadiums, and no doubt be highly rated when televised.