Scarborough: ‘Rational fear’ a reason for ‘torture’

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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough thinks it’s a mistake to abandon President Bush’s harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding that many consider to be torture. Scarborough points to a Washington Post poll that says about half of Americans support the use of torture in some cases.

Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski notes that Obama administration officials say that intelligence can be gathered without using torture. “What Robert Gibbs is saying on ‘Meet the Press’ yesterday, was that they don’t know whether other means may be able to get the same information,” she said.

“I’m not. Go ahead. Take that chance,” scoffed Scarborough. “Sometimes you have a reason to be fearful,” he said. “There is irrational fear and then rational fear. If you live in a neighborhood where people’s homes get broken into and people get shot and killed at night and their items get stolen, and you’re fearful that may happen to you, that’s not irrational. That is fear and you will support a stronger police presence in your home. If this country got attacked the way it did on September 11th, 2001, it is not irrational for Americans to fear it might happen again when you have al Qaeda wanting to do nothing but kill all of us, destroy our cities.”

This video is from MSNBC’s Morning Joe, broadcast Apr. 27, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com