Radio host and former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh suggested on Wednesday that anyone who participated in torture techniques like rectal forced feedings or chaining prisoners naked to the floor were "American heroes."
After Sen. Dianne Feinstein released the Senate Intelligence Committee's long-delayed report on the CIA's use of torture on Tuesday, Walsh had tweeted, "Good. Big deal. Now go focus on defeating the Islamic enemy."
"I'm glad they put the report out," he explained to CNN host Carol Costello on Wednesday. "I'm glad though because I don't think we should be ashamed of what we put out. Again, we're fighting an evil enemy. There are times when we need to get our hands dirty when we fight that enemy."
"Is an American hero someone who is instructed by our government to conduct rectal forced feedings on a prisoner?" Costello wondered. "Or chain someone naked to a concrete floor until he dies? Or nearly drown them two to three times a day? Is that the definition of an American hero?"
"It may, Carol, be part of the job description," Walsh insisted.
"Really?" Costello gasped.
"Absolutely!" the former Illinois congressman replied. "We forget as Americans who we are dealing with. Got to be frank, we're dealing with animals. We're dealing with groups of people who behead, blow up, exterminate people."
"So we should be animals?" the CNN host pressed.
"The way you defeat an animal, Carol, oftentimes is to act like one," Walsh opined.
Costello pointed out that the U.S. had acted like "animals" during Abu Ghraib and the incidents of torture, "and it didn't stop anything."
"We have to do what we have to do to defeat this evil enemy," Walsh concluded.
