It looks like Donald Trump does not appreciate CIA Director John Brennan's stance on waterboarding and other similar forms of interrogation techniques.
After the CIA chief announced that he would not allow the controversial practice to be resumed by the agency even if it were to be decreed by the president, the GOP front-runner stated his objections.
"I think his comments are ridiculous. I mean, they chop off heads and they drown people in cages with 50 in a cage, in big, steel heavy cages, drop them right into the water drown people, and we can't waterboard and we can't do anything," he said.
For Trump, bringing back waterboarding is simply a matter of making the playing field between terrorists and the U.S. government even. Simply put, in order to effectively counter terrorism, the U.S. government must not be afraid to get its hands dirty.
"And you know we're playing on different fields. And we have a huge problem with ISIS, which we can't beat, and the reason we can't beat them is we won't use strong tactics, whether it's this or other things," Trump said.
Waterboarding, together with a number of a number of controversial forms of interrogation, has been deemed torture by many groups. In fact, the nature of the techniques, especially waterboarding, which simulates drowning, has been branded as a form of torture by international law.
Utilized primarily after the 9/11 attacks, the aggressive interrogation tactics were utilized in order to gain intelligence from suspected terror suspects. Due to the technique's nature, however, the practice has become extremely controversial, to the point where it was one of the first things that U.S. President Barack Obama demanded to be stopped right after he won the presidency.
GOP candidate Trump and his main rival Ted Cruz, however, have both stated that the interrogation tactics would be used again under their rule. Trump, for one, declared that waterboarding, as well as other worse forms of torture, would be enacted, while Cruz stated that he believes waterboarding is not torture at all.
The CIA chief's statements on Sunday, however, seemed to have put a damper on the GOP candidates' plans. For Brennan, the tactics would not be revived as long as he is in charge.
"I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I've heard bandied about because this institution needs to endure," Brennan said.
The CIA chief's stance, of course, has hit a raw nerve on Trump.
"Can you imagine these ISIS people sitting around eating, and talking about how this country won't allow waterboarding and they just chopped off 50 heads?" Trump said.
