Trump: Torture Could Have Prevented Brussels Attacks

Says US Should Close Borders in Response to Bombings

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer today, Republican front-runner Donald Trump said it was possible that today’s terror attacks in Belgium could’ve been prevented with a sufficient amount of torture, saying he believes they could’ve made captured ISIS suspect Saleh Abdesalam “talk a lot faster” by torturing him.

If he would’ve talked you might not have had the blow up,” Trump insisted, saying the US needs to “change our laws” to a “almost equal basis” with what ISIS does to its own detainees, saying he wants waterboarding as a “minimum form of torture” and also advocates “far worse.”

Trump went on to urge a full closing of all US borders in the wake of the attack in Europe, saying the border should stay closed “until we figure out what’s going on,” and lamenting that Brussels used to be “an absolutely crime-free city.”

He also demanded the Belgian government immediately turn Abdesalam over to the military, insisting the country has to “get its act together” on interrogating the detainee, accused of being involved in November’s Paris attacks. US officials suspect today’s attackers are from the same cell.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.