Opinion: Waterboarding is terrorism

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made some outrageous statements this past week. Sorry if that caught anyone off guard, but by now this should be expected of Trump.Trump told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that he would “absolutely” bring back waterboarding when he sat down to discuss ISIS. Personally, I find this statement to be sickening. As a society, we should not stand for the same torture that is being place on individuals across the globe by the Islamic State group.  For individuals who are not familiar with waterboarding, it is simply the simulation of drowning. Techniques of the act vary, but one method is essentially laying an individual on his/her back, putting a cloth over the head and pouring water onto the cloth to inflict gaging.Different militaries and terrorist groups have used waterboarding for centuries as a form of interrogation. However, let’s get this straight: waterboarding is torture. And American soldiers have endured this form of torture before. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, was taken as a prisoner of the Vietnam War, and he endured torture of his own. According to a CBS News article, McCain was quoted saying that waterboarding is "no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank." That imagery should attest to how terrifying an experience waterboarding is for prisoners of war.   Yes, the Islamic State group is full of pathological individuals. But at the same time, a society that condones these acts of torture is on the same level as the terrorism groups committing the violent acts. Two wrongs do not make a right, and torture is terrorism.Merriam-Webster defines terrorism as “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal.” Waterboarding implements terrorism because it is used to achieve the political goal of information through interrogation.For Trump to say his comments as nonchalantly as he did should appall the public and say something about his abilities as a leader. Many individuals often forget that foreign policy is also about how the world perceives a nation. Using waterboarding for information just adds to the chaos that is occurring in the Middle East. We cannot give terrorist groups more of a reason to hate America. Implementing torture will not help alleviate the problem of terrorism; it simply will be fighting terrorism with terrorism. If Trump makes it to the White House … (hold your laughter) America will have a bigger target on its back than ever before.