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  1. #1
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    Trump urges waterboarding and more after Brussels attacks

    By John Whitesides
    Reuters
    March 22, 2016

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the United States should use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques when questioning terror suspects, and renewed his call for tougher U.S. border security after the attacks in Brussels.

    The billionaire businessman, in an interview on NBC's "Today" program, said authorities "should be able to do whatever they have to do" to gain information in an effort to thwart future attacks.

    "Waterboarding would be fine. If they can expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding," Trump said, adding he believed torture could spark useful leads for officials. "You have to get the information from these people."

    Waterboarding, the practice of pouring water over someone’s face to simulate drowning as an interrogation tactic, was banned by President Barack Obama days after he took office in 2009. Critics call it torture.

    "I am in the camp where you have to get the information, and you have to get it rapidly," Trump said, adding "liberal" laws in Europe had made it hard to counter potential attacks.

    Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, also reiterated the need for tougher measures to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, particularly Syrian refugees, across the border.

    "As president ... I would be very, very tough on the borders, and I would be not allowing certain people to come into this country without absolute perfect documentation," said Trump, campaigning to become the Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election that will decide on Obama's successor.

    The Brussels attacks brought national security back to the top of the 2016 presidential election agenda, possibly sharpening division between Trump’s isolationist approach to foreign policy and his Republican rivals’ more traditional interventionist outlook.

    On Monday, Trump expressed skepticism about the U.S. role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and said the United States should significantly cut spending on the defense alliance.

    Islamic State claimed responsibility for Tuesday's suicide bomb attacks on Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train in the Belgian capital which killed at least 30 people.

    Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton acknowledged Americans have a right to be frightened after a spate of recent attacks but said military leaders have found techniques like waterboarding are not effective.

    "We've got to work this through consistent with our values," she said on NBC, adding officials "do not need to resort to torture, but they are going to need more help."

    SYRIAN REFUGEES

    Trump's top Republican rival, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, renewed his call for an immediate halt to Obama's plan to admit thousands of Syrian refugees to the United States and suggested heightened police scrutiny of neighborhoods with large Muslim populations.

    "We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized," he said in a statement.

    Cruz also criticized Trump's call for cutting the U.S. spending on NATO, which he said should join the United States in "utterly destroying ISIS," an acronym for Islamic State.

    Republican rival John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, struck a more diplomatic tone after the attacks, pledging to "redouble our efforts with our allies" and saying the United States "must strengthen our alliances" in the face of acts of terror.

    Earlier attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, have shocked Americans and pushed security issues to the forefront of the White House campaign debate.

    When 130 people were killed in Paris in November, the threat of terrorism jumped from fifth to first on a Reuters/Ipsos poll list of the country's most important problems and remained there until the economy moved back to the top of the list in mid-January.

    Walid Phares, named by Trump this week as one of his foreign policy experts, told Reuters the Brussels attacks would force Europe and the United States to "reassess" counter-terrorism strategies in "identifying the radicalized elements and also the type of protection soft targets need."

    Trump looks to take another step toward winning the Republican presidential nomination in contests in Arizona and Utah on Tuesday, aiming to deal another setback to the party establishment's flagging stop-Trump movement.

    He has a big lead in convention delegates who will pick the Republican nominee, defying weeks of attacks from members of the party establishment worried he will lead the Republicans to defeat in November.

    In Arizona, one of the U.S. states that borders Mexico, Trump's hardline immigration message is popular and he leads in polls, while in Utah Trump lags in polls behind Cruz.

    In addition to the temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, Trump has called for the building of a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border to halt illegal immigration.

    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/trump-look...100403800.html
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  2. #2
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    I support having more tools available for interrogation, whether it's waterboarding or other means with limits of course. I believe there are some advantages to this, to at least having it, whether we ultimately use these enhanced interrogation methods or not, I believe it helps to have them available. One thing for sure, what we're doing now isn't working, so we need a new tactic, a whole new way of dealing with this problem. I believe Donald Trump will come up with it and knock it on its ass.
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    Junior Member jam123's Avatar
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    No, torture is wrong.

  4. #4
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    Oh yes, Jam123, I totally agree that torture is wrong. But I don't think waterboarding and some other types of enhanced interrogation methods are wrong in certain situations. There is a lot of wrong that goes on in the world and every once in awhile the good guys might need to do a little wrong to make it right.

    For example, lying is wrong, but I support lying in war to deceive and infiltrate enemy operations. Killing is wrong, but I support killing enemies who kill or threaten us. Stealing is wrong, but I support stealing enemy equipment, technology and secrets to win a war. The United States won WWII in 3 years and 8 months, fighting 2 wars on 2 fronts. We didn't even have the equipment and machinery when that war started to fight a war let alone win it, yet we still won that war in less than 4 years. The WWII Veterans who came home, never wanted to talk about the War. It was almost like a pact that they would never talk about it. My Dad and 3 Uncles were in WWII. Not a one of 'em would talk about any part of it.

    It's taken me until recent years to understand why. They did things to win that they wanted to forget and never talk about. Finally, 1 uncle shortly before he died told my Mom a story about Iwo Jima. He was a Marine in that Battle. They threw flame-throwers into the tunnels and burned those men alive. Was that wrong? Dropping the nuclear bombs on Japan was wrong, but it ended the war and brought peace in 3 days instead of Marines having to fight the Japanese for months and possibly years on the Japanese mainland.

    War is a nasty business, but if you're going to be in one, you better be prepared to do what you have to do to win it, or it was a complete waste of time, money and lives to begin with and we should just surrender at the outset to save all the mess.

    Some grizzly things to think about, but to me, almost drowning someone to get the information that would avert another 9/11 is a wrong I'm willing to accept to make it right. Some say it doesn't work, others say it does. If it doesn't work, then forget it, but keep the option, while you try something else. I don't understand why our military wants to tie its own hands and wouldn't prefer to keep everything on the table. The Geneva Convention has signatories, so of course you abide that with others who have signed the same agreement. But with enemies who haven't signed such agreements, why hold to a standard of POW care that they aren't abiding themselves? That really doesn't make sense to me.

    Anyway, we've got big problems and we need to start solving them by all means necessary, whatever it takes.
    Last edited by Judy; 03-22-2016 at 05:10 PM.
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