Waterboarding

Is Donald Trump On Road To Being International War Criminal By His Stated Views On Torture, Oil, And Punishment Of Terrorist Families?

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It looks, at least by Donald Trump rhetoric that the 45th President of the United States is on the road to being an international war criminal, if he were to follow through on his stated views on torture, the oil of Iraq, and punishment of terrorist families.

It is clear that waterboarding and similar tortures utilized by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld a decade ago in the Iraq War was criminal activity against the Geneva Convention and international standards of proper behavior toward detainees in war.

The top people around Donald Trump–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, have all stated their opposition to revival of this tactic, along with CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

But that does not mean that Trump would not order it be done, but if so, all of these people should make clear to him that if he does so, that they will resign. Otherwise, they would also be war criminals.

Trump’s statement that America might invade Iraq again, and seize their oil, is also an international war crime, no different than the tactics of Adolf Hitler.

And his idea that the families of suspected or actual terrorists should be subject to punishment, including bombing their homes, and imprisonment and execution, is also, definitely, a war crime.

We have a megalomaniac, a dangerous, mentally unhinged President, who is disgracing us before the world community, and he needs to be arrested and sent to the Hague to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, the Netherlands, IF he follows through on any of these threats.

And being an international war criminal is enough grounds for his immediate removal by impeachment, and if the Republican Congress refused to do so, they would be accessories to war crimes.

The Trump Record: Who Is He To Talk About Hillary Clinton’s Negatives?

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Donald Trump has stated that Hillary Clinton has no attributes and is unqualified, except that she uses the “woman card”!

Donald Trump has made clear that he plans to user Monica Lewinsky against Hillary Clinton, as if a wife is responsible for her husband’s moral transgressions!

Donald Trump has claimed that Hillary Clinton is corrupt, and plans to use the issue of the Clinton Foundation against her in the campaign!

Donald Trump is excellent at mud slinging, but if one looks at his own record, these are some of the facts, with many more to be revealed and exposed by the Hillary Clinton campaign, along with diligent media investigation.

Trump Airlines failed, as did Trump Casinos, Trump University, Trump Vodka, and Trump Steaks!

Trump has had three marriages and two divorces, and engaged in adultery and inappropriate sexual behavior innumerable times!

Trump has had four bankruptcies, and had no problem causing the loss of assets and incomes of those affected!

Trump has outsourced to Mexico and China, while complaining about other capitalists and corporations doing the same!

Trump has hired foreign workers on visas to avoid paying decent wages to American workers at his properties!

Trump wants to use waterboarding, which leaders of the CIA and NSA say will no longer be utilized against terrorists!

Trump wants to pass legislation and promote court cases to silence criticism by the news media, the establishment of censorship!

Trump wants to build a wall separating Mexico from the United States, something that cannot be built in any practical form!

Trump wants to ban all Muslims, a blanket ban, from entering America, so is encouraging nativism and Islamophobia!

Trump has gained the backing of the Ku Klux Klan and other right wing racist groups, and has not condemned them and rejected such endorsements!

There will much more to reveal about Donald Trump, plus his own statements, past, present and future, so to compare Trump to Hillary Clinton will not be productive for Trump!

Sure, Hillary has faults and shortcomings, but nowhere near the number and severity of those of Donald Trump!

Lawless Donald Trump Challenged On Plans, If Elected, To Use Waterboarding, By Director Of CIA And Former Director Of CIA And NSA!

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A very alarming development is Donald Trump’s announced plans, if elected President, to utilize waterboarding and other torture techniques which were used in the Iraq War against terrorists, but have been banned since then.

Senator John McCain, who suffered from torture while a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and many others. have made it clear that torture does not work in gaining intelligence that helps win a war or to fight terrorism, but Trump is claiming that he will revive it.

But now, CIA Director John Brennan and former CIA Director and former NSA director Michael Hayden have come out strongly against such revival of waterboarding or other such torture techniques, with both making it clear that they would resist a President’s orders to implement such directives!

That is startling, but comforting, and it shows just how dangerous Donald Trump is, that he would become a truly lawless President, far worse than Richard Nixon!

And it would be great to hear other Republicans agree with the intelligence agency leaders, but do not count on it.

More reason to repudiate Donald Trump and the party which is against him, but seems unwilling to condemn his threat of an abuse of Presidential power!

Donald Trump And Foreign Policy Knowledge: An “Empty Suit”!

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Donald Trump has now demonstrated that he is totally lacking in foreign policy knowledge and expertise, and still has no announced foreign policy advisers of repute!  This comes out of his interviews with the New York Times and Washington Post Editorial Boards!

His suggestion that NATO is out of date is preposterous, and his willingness to create unnecessary tensions with China, Japan, Mexico, and the Islamic world is terrifying.

His willingness to use torture and waterboarding, and to consider nuclear attack against ISIL (ISIS), is reprehensible.

The fact that Great Britain had a discussion about banning Trump, and that he is causing embarrassment with our European allies by his isolationist rhetoric, is shocking.

This man has no clue on foreign policy, and is truly an “empty suit”!

We cannot afford to make this narcissist Commander in Chief, and even those involved in our national security have stated that he would be dangerous, and might have to be disobeyed if he gave orders that made no sense!

So said Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and NSA, and such a warning should sober all of us as to the craziness of electing Donald Trump President of the United States!

March 4, 1789–227 Years Without A Tyrant–Not About To Allow It To Happen Now With Donald Trump!

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The American Constitution went into effect officially on March 4, 1789, even though the first President, George Washington, was inaugurated belatedly on April 30, 1789.

We so revere the Constitution without realizing that through domestic and foreign crises over the years, we have only come fairly close to danger just once–the lawlessness of Richard Nixon.

But even with Nixon, we were far from Fascism or dictatorship, and the Constitution did work well  in the 1970s.

Despite acts of illegality, and plans for more, Richard Nixon was stopped dead in his tracks, including Alexander Haig telling the Pentagon to ignore Richard Nixon if he ordered martial law!

So when we hear that Donald Trump would order the military to break international law and American law, and return to the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney system of torture through waterboarding that has been banned by Barack Obama; and when we hear that Trump would wish to kill the entire families of suspected terrorists, and have no limit on military engagement as the military would obey him–then we know we have a tyrant in the making.

And when we hear that Trump wishes his crazy followers to beat up anti Trump protesters at rallies, and would plan to curb freedom of speech, press and assembly, including against media critics including the New York Times and Washington Post when he gains power, then we know we have Fascism in our midst, much greater than Huey P. Long, Joseph McCarthy, George C. Wallace, Pat Buchanan, or other lesser demagogues!

We have not had a tyrant for 227 years of our Republic, and we are not about to allow it to happen now with Donald Trump and his ilk!

The Riches Of Embarrassment In The Republican Presidential Field: Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry!

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The Republican Party is in the midst of major riches of embarrassment about its Presidential field.

Herman Cain, already having displayed how inadequate a candidate he is in so many ways, adds to the riches of embarrassment when he cannot answer a simple question about Libya when asked, and seems totally confused and out of touch with reality. He is best at repeating his ill fated plan—9-9-9–when asked to explain himself on some issue. He also said he was for collective bargaining for workers one day, and then the next day says he considers collective bargaining to be collective hijacking! He also has the stupidity to ask Henry Kissinger to be his Secretary of State in his administration, as if Cain is about to become President tomorrow! And, of course, Cain forgets or does not know that Kissinger, as great as he might be considered to be by many diplomats, has been out of government for 34 years, and is going on 89 next year, and would be 90 years old in 2013, and therefore, a bit ridiculous to imagine him as a cabinet member at such an advanced age! Cain lives in his own reality, and he has demonstrated total incompetence to be President.

But then Michele Bachmann says the most inane things, and now has suggested that we should be socialist as China is, just the opposite of what she has always professed, and demonstrating no idea of what socialism is in the first place! Whatever she says makes one’s eyes roll, and she and Cain both endorsed waterboarding as not torture, despite so much testimony by people in the military who know it is torture, and produces no verifiable evidence helpful to national security.

And then Rick Perry, who cannot remember what agencies he wants to close, and now advocates a radical concept to “uproot, tear down, and rebuild” Washington, DC, when he cannot even run the state government of Texas adequately and competently, and has been a true disaster in debates and in his other public appearances!

These three candidate have no shame, no embarrassment gene, and seem to be running for the sake of their own warped egos, believing somehow that they are qualified to be sitting in the Oval Office!

They cannot leave the Presidential race soon enough, as they are making our past Presidents alive and dead look better all of the time, even those who were far from adequate in the office!

If this is the best we can do, America is doomed!

John McCain Vs The Bush Administration And Rick Santorum

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Senator John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 GOP Presidential nominee, spent five and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison, and suffered horrible torture.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and other figures in the Bush Administration NEVER suffered torture, and neither did former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who is one of the group of Republicans seeking the Presidency in 2012.

But the Bush loyalists and Senator Santorum continue to assert that waterboarding, a form of torture, helped to bring about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden two weeks ago, despite clearcut evidence from CIA head Leon Panetta that waterboarding had no role in bringing about the demise of Bin Laden.

Senator McCain had the courage last week to condemn those who think torture is an acceptable and useful method to gain information from detainees. McCain has always been against the breaking of international law which the Bush Administration was engaged in by using waterboarding as a method to try to force information from captives in the War on Terror.

If John McCain, who suffered for this country, and CIA head Leon Panetta, both claim that torture did not work, and undermines our values, that should be enough to stop the propaganda endorsing torture, and it is good that Barack Obama has repudiated such a policy in the future, as it diminished the image of the United States as a nation that exists under law and a sense of morality.