“You have to play the game the way they’re playing the game”, Trump asserted.
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At most, he suggested that some terrorists’ families, or at least the wives of terrorists, know that their husbands are involved in terrorism. They’re chopping off the heads of Christians and anybody else that happens to be in the way. Former CIA director Michael Hayden went further this past week when he said that the U.S. military would flat out refuse to torture suspects or kill their family members, as Trump at one point warned he would do as President.
Trump appeared to back away from that position Friday. Ted Cruz, R.-Texas, whom he accused of weakening on the issue in a February debate.
“They left two days early, with respect to the World Trade Center, and they went back to where they went, and they watched their husband on television flying into the World Trade Center, flying into the Pentagon, and probably trying to fly into the White House”, he added.
During the past week, in a series of interviews and events, Trump has articulated a loose, but expansive set of principles that, if enacted, would mark a fundamental shift in the way the USA fights violent extremism put in place by the Obama administration. “I do, however, understand that the United States is bound by laws and treaties and I will not order our military or other officials to violate those laws and will seek their advice on such matters”.
Trump has said he would approve the use of waterboarding to obtain information and indicated he’d be open to torture.
But, at the end of the day, Cohen is a Democrat and therefore his criticism is not what’s worrying Trump.
This week, a group of leading Republican figures on national security said they would not follow orders from a President Trump who followed policies he has advocated on the campaign trail, such as waterboarding and the targeting of the families of terror suspects, that contravened worldwide law. “That would be in violation of all the worldwide laws of armed conflict”.
Pressed Sunday on why he believed waterboarding had been banned, Trump said the US was being “weak” by not employing the militants’ tactics.
And Hayden did not merely speak about “international law” in some theoretical way.
“I didn’t flip-flop on torture, I’m saying I’m going to live by the laws”, the candidate said in an interview with Fox News.
When asked whether he’d vote for Trump, Webb said he wasn’t closed to the idea.
“You weren’t talking about violating laws”, he said. Observers noted several instances this week where Trump shifted his tone to come off as less bombastic and, ultimately, more presidential.
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But there is an older body of law, often referred to as “the law of nations” or the “law of civilized nations” which was coined in 1758 and which has antecedents in medieval and ancient times, and relates to the principle of not attacking women, children or surrendered enemy fighters. He said it has been “universally agreed that it is unlawful”. That, and the specter of potential mutiny within the military, is what brought Trump to a dizzying and unusual about-face on Friday.
