Trump, Waterboarding and Torture

On Secure Freedom Radio last Friday, Jim Hanson sat in for Frank Gaffney. Hanson is the Executive VP for the Center for Security Policy and his guest was Tom Nichols, a professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.

They began their discussion by focusing on Donald Trump’s suggestion that he would go beyond waterboarding when it came to interrogating enemy combatants. Neither Hanson nor Nichols are big fans of Donald Trump but on this subject in particular, Nichols said that Trump’s comments were troubling:

“I think it corrodes the American public debate and worst of all, it convinces ordinary Americans that the president is like a god who can do things that he just can’t do.”

Nichols goes so far to say that if a president were to give orders to go beyond waterboarding, he would be putting the military in a position to have to refuse the president’s orders for being illegal.

Hanson, who has undergone waterboarding himself, then asked Nichols to take Trump out of the equation and asked if there was ever a scenario in which waterboarding or any other form of torture would be effective. He suggested that the next president might benefit from claiming that the United States will never use torture but then look into the camera with a knowing stare.

Nichols resonded:

“I don’t think the president should talk about any of this at all because I think that’s actually more terrifying than saying anything and part of my problem with Donald Trump is that he never knows when to shut up, he cannot stop himself from talking.”

Nichols then reiterated his point that the less the president says about these things, the better.

Hanson then pressed Nichols on the question of whether or not enhanced interrogation of any kind is ever justified. Nichols conceded that in “remarkably bizarre moments” where stressful interrogation may be justified but again expressed his dislike of any president talking about the subject.

“What Trump’s really talking about is revenge and that’s what really bothers me.”

Hanson summed up by saying he agreed with Nichols whether it’s Obama on one end of the argument or Trump on the other.

When it comes to any president and this subject, silence is most effective.