QOTD: Trump wishing he could use “tough measures”

QOTD: Trump wishing he could use “tough measures”by digby

Ok, he didn’t say that exactly. But it was clear. Speaking to a woman’s group today he said this about illegal drug use:

“And it’s a worldwide problem. Some areas take care of it through very, very tough measures. We don’t. We’re not prepared to do that — I guess — they say –as a country.”

It was obvious that he didn’t agree with those who say that the US isn’t prepared to use “very, very tough measures” against drug users.

He has told his pal Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte that he thinks he’s doing it “the right way”

You remember what that is, right?

A few weeks ago the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography was awarded to a freelance photojournalist named Daniel Berehulak for a multimedia report that was published in The New York Times in December called “They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals.” It documented the deaths of 57 homicide victims in the Philippine government’s brutal campaign against drug users and dealers. The photographer had this comment upon winning the prize:

The story is indeed important. Those photographs document the grotesque campaign of terror in the Philippines, which experts believe has left more than 7,000 people dead in less than a year from extrajudicial killings at the hands of police and vigilantes.

The Philippines is currently run by President Rodrigo Duterte, who won the election last June after his final campaign speech, when he said, “Forget the laws on human rights; if I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor [of the coastal city of Davao]. You drug pushers, holdup men and do-nothings, you better go out because I’d kill you.” He kept to his word, telling his police forces the day after he was sworn in, “Do your duty, and in the process, [if] you kill 1,000 persons, I will protect you.” Last September Duterte proudly compared himself to Adolf Hitler:

Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. Now there is 3 million, what is it, 3 million drug addicts [in the Philippines], there are. I’d be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have [me]. You know, my victims, I would like to be all criminals, to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.

Duterte admitted to being a murderer, and not in the abstract sense of being a leader who orders killing by others. He says he has personally pulled the trigger. As the New York Times reported in December:

“I killed about three of them because there were three of them,” Mr. Duterte told reporters at a news conference in Manila, the capital. “I don’t really know how many bullets from my gun went inside their bodies.”

“It happened. I cannot lie about it,” he said in English.

The remarks followed comments he made on Monday, when he told business leaders that as mayor, he had patrolled the streets on a motorcycle and killed criminal suspects in order to set an example to his police officers.

None of that stopped President-elect Donald Trump from chatting up Duterte after the election, telling him that he was going about his war on drugs “the right way.” And last Saturday night the White House released a statement that the two men had had another “very friendly conversation,” in which they had talked about regional security and “discussed the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs.” (That’s one way of putting it.) It said that “President Trump enjoyed the conversation and looks forward to visiting the Philippines in November” for the East Asia Summit meeting.

Then the statement said that Trump had invited the admitted murderer and Hitler admirer, Rodrigo Duterte, to the White House.