Although Donald Trump promised during the presidential campaign to bring back waterboarding, a banned interrogation technique that simulates drowning, he will likely face roadblocks to doing so as president.
Dozens of prisoners subjected to waterboarding and other brutal interrogation tactics have developed persistent psychological problems; there’s strong resistance to the resumption of such tactics among politicians and government officials, both in the U.S. and abroad; and international treaties require humane treatment of prisoners.
In addition, international partners may be reluctant to host secret prisons where the U.S. military and the CIA can conduct interrogations, as they did in the past. In a November 28, 2016 New York Times article, Nathaniel Raymond, director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said of the CIA, “The location shell game they used before has collapsed.”
Read the New York Times article: Donald Trump Faces Obstacles to Resuming Waterboarding
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Report: Psychologists’ association worked with CIA to justify torture (Harvard Chan School news)