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Jacob Boesel

Mr. Buescher

U.S. History, Period 1

18 November 2016

Current Event

Waterboarding is a torture method by the government to gain information. This is a very

serious issue that needs to be addressed. Waterboarding was made illegal by congress in 2009 for

obvious reasons. With Donald Trump being the president he needs to choose his members of

staff. Donald Trump has not nominated a CIA director yet but there is reason to believe that he

might choose former U.S. Rep Pete Hoekstra. This important because his stance on

waterboarding is that he is ok with it. When asked about his stance on waterboarding he said,

“Congress has spoken on that”, and he later added, “If there was a decision to move in another

direction and to perhaps do that, that would be a process that you would have to work through

with Congress”. He also said that if he was asked he wouldn’t turn the job down. If he is

nominated as the director of the CIA then that could affect the country in a certain way. If he is

brought on as the director of the CIA then that could lead to waterboarding and other torture

techniques being used again, our country being perfectly fine, or revising laws to make them

more clear.

It is clear that U.S. Rep Pete Hoekstra does not have a problem with the idea of

waterboarding and other methods of torture. There were laws passed in 2009 that prevent the use

of waterboarding in the use of interrogations. If he is made the CIA director he could possibly be

able to bypass congress or work with congress to make waterboarding legal again. With the

process of waterboarding legal again it could be used when the time for it was needed. Although
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people might disagree with the method of waterboarding it could effectively get the job done.

This method being brought back could also lead to more people behind bars which leads to a

safer world.

There is also the possibility of everything being business as usual if he's made the

director. Just because he is in favor of the method of waterboarding doesn’t mean he would try

and bring it back. He could just possibly work on trying to achieve goals that were already set in

place by the old director, if there were any. It would probably take too much time and money to

try and bypass or work with congress and get waterboarding and other methods of torture legal

again. It wouldn’t be in his best interests to waste so much government time on something that

probably won’t be changed. He would be better off focusing on the matters at hand and helping

the American people.

The final thing that could happen is that he could be made the director of the CIA and

someone would notice that he is in favor of torture methods such as waterboarding and they

would try and revise the laws already put in place so that he may prevented even further from

bypassing congress. With the edited laws in place Pete Hoekstra would not be able to use

waterboarding in any interrogations. These laws would also spread out to all forms of

government whether they be on land or on sea. With the laws in place he could land in jail and

there would be a new director of the CIA.

Waterboarding is something that is necessary to get the job done. Waterboarding isn’t

something that should be used in everyday police interrogations, but they should at least be used

when the time is right. That is a very flawed way of using the method of waterboarding and other

torture methods because of the differing thoughts about what the right circumstances are, but if
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there are certain guidelines that say when the right times are and when they are not then there

should be no problem with using waterboarding as a way interrogation.