03-04-2016, 08:52 PM
No sally, Trump explicitly said, in all seriousness, that the U.S. (military, presumably) should target the family members of suspected terrorists, and he's also said we should use waterboarding or worse to get information. I've heard him say it more than once, including at the Las Vegas debate.
When he made those statements, he was in fact advocating a policy which would violate international law. That's why he needed to issue a statement today saying that he wouldn't REALLY break the international laws or order others to break them. He backtracked, wisely.
I found a link to one of the exchanges I remember:
"The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families," Trump said on Fox and Friends on Dec. 2, 2015. "They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families."
Trump got a challenge on this at the CNN presidential debate in Las Vegas. CNN aired a pre-recorded question from Josh Jacob, a student at Georgia Tech: "Recently Donald Trump mentioned we must kill the families of ISIS members. However, this violates the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants in international law."
Trump doubled down on his position: "I would be very, very firm with families" and repeating his sentiment that even though people think "they may not care much about their lives … they do care, believe it or not, about their families' lives."
Later in the debate, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul took Trump to task for that approach.
"If you are going to kill the families of terrorists," Paul said, "Realize that there's something called the Geneva Convention we're going to have to pull out of. It would defy every norm that is America."
Link: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/...onald-tru/
Trump doesn't speak like any real person I know and I don't think advocating policies to kill presumed innocent people in order to get information from presumed or proven guilty people has anything to do with 'PC'.
Anyway, if Trump is elected President, I expect he would have advisers schooling him about international laws and treaties to avoid making such statements in the future, assuming he made his previous statements out of ignorance. If he instead made them just to excite and get the votes of disgruntled suckers, it might well work. But, they'll be disappointed when he doesn't carry through -- he wouldn't have the sole power to order those actions as President and he would be roundly contested if he tried.
When he made those statements, he was in fact advocating a policy which would violate international law. That's why he needed to issue a statement today saying that he wouldn't REALLY break the international laws or order others to break them. He backtracked, wisely.
I found a link to one of the exchanges I remember:
"The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families," Trump said on Fox and Friends on Dec. 2, 2015. "They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families."
Trump got a challenge on this at the CNN presidential debate in Las Vegas. CNN aired a pre-recorded question from Josh Jacob, a student at Georgia Tech: "Recently Donald Trump mentioned we must kill the families of ISIS members. However, this violates the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants in international law."
Trump doubled down on his position: "I would be very, very firm with families" and repeating his sentiment that even though people think "they may not care much about their lives … they do care, believe it or not, about their families' lives."
Later in the debate, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul took Trump to task for that approach.
"If you are going to kill the families of terrorists," Paul said, "Realize that there's something called the Geneva Convention we're going to have to pull out of. It would defy every norm that is America."
Link: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/...onald-tru/
Trump doesn't speak like any real person I know and I don't think advocating policies to kill presumed innocent people in order to get information from presumed or proven guilty people has anything to do with 'PC'.
Anyway, if Trump is elected President, I expect he would have advisers schooling him about international laws and treaties to avoid making such statements in the future, assuming he made his previous statements out of ignorance. If he instead made them just to excite and get the votes of disgruntled suckers, it might well work. But, they'll be disappointed when he doesn't carry through -- he wouldn't have the sole power to order those actions as President and he would be roundly contested if he tried.