Exclusive: Most Americans Support Torture Against Terror Suspects - Poll
Source: Reuters
Wed Mar 30, 2016 3:28pm EDT
Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe torture can be justified to extract information from suspected terrorists, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, a level of support similar to that seen in countries like Nigeria where militant attacks are common.
The poll reflects a U.S. public on edge after the massacre of 14 people in San Bernardino in December and large-scale attacks in Europe in recent months, including a bombing claimed by the militant group Islamic State last week that killed at least 32 people in Belgium.
Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has forcefully injected the issue of whether terrorism suspects should be tortured into the election campaign.
Trump has said he would seek to roll back President Barack Obama's ban on waterboarding - an interrogation technique that simulates drowning that human rights groups contend is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. Trump has also vowed to "bring back a hell of a lot worse" if elected.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-torture-exclusive-idUSKCN0WW0Y3
retrowire
(10,345 posts)expected of our military to do such things and that it's just the way it is.
cstanleytech
(26,273 posts)think its ok to do stuff like this if it will protect them from (insert ethnic, racial or religious group here).
retrowire
(10,345 posts)I was making a pretty vague broad generalization there. My bad.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)anything about WWII for a very long time. Let alone anything about the Geneva Conventions.
PatrynXX
(5,668 posts)with zero education
Jackie Wilson Said
(4,176 posts)The likes of Cheney and co. need to come out and admit the truth that is a known fact, it doesnt work.
Turbineguy
(37,312 posts)of making themselves appear likable. They should hire an ad agency.
rpannier
(24,329 posts)Every dictator short of Kim Jong-un has a PR and/or lobbying firm in DC extolling the virtues of their wondrousness to Congress
PatrickforO
(14,566 posts)no better than the enemy. Of course, we're the ones who destabilized the region and that destabilization has arguably added to, if not downright created, the present terror threat. So...that said, we'd better rethink our whole way of doing things.
Hey...
What if we could REORGANIZE our society around human need instead of human greed? How would that be?
And I don't think I have a unicorn tail sticking out of my butt either. This is real. Unless we begin thinking of ourselves as a species that shares this earth, we may not survive the century.
xocet
(3,871 posts)absolutely wrong, the USA runs the risk of accepting its use domestically - not that at least one police department apparently has already crossed that line in instances. (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site)
*extraordinary renditions (https://www.aclu.org/fact-sheet-extraordinary-rendition)
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Torturers act with impunity in the US.
We're already there.
PatrickforO
(14,566 posts)This isn't Rambo.
merrily
(45,251 posts)where a majority of Americans voting matters.
Duckhunter935
(16,974 posts)paleotn
(17,902 posts)Angel Martin
(942 posts)MisterP
(23,730 posts)indictments for the massive crimes that are seen as acceptable in the US
stupidicus
(2,570 posts)and all of the faux xtians in it.
mountain grammy
(26,608 posts)Here's another.
Zira
(1,054 posts)How could a Bernie supporter believe this? Of course if Dems are half the country then Bernie supporters are 25% of it...
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,988 posts)Algernon Moncrieff
(5,790 posts)However, a sizable portion of the American population clearly favors some form of Fascist-lite government.
Pastiche423
(15,406 posts)that DO NOT support torture.
dhill926
(16,333 posts)just stunning...
felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)Brought to you by the same people who announced 'Most Americans ready to sacrifice some civil rights to fight terrorism'.. right before the Patriot Act was unleashed.
Solly Mack
(90,762 posts)paleotn
(17,902 posts)There are far more effective and far more human methods of extracting ACCURATE information and in a timely manner. Anyone with the least bit of uncommon sense wouldn't trust a damn thing extracted through torture.
noretreatnosurrender
(1,890 posts)when you don't hold the people who created a torture regime and those who supported it accountable.
keithbvadu2
(36,724 posts)the same torture done to our own troops.
SusanLarson
(284 posts)It would violate our obligations under multiple treaties which are equal to the constitution as the law of the land.
Maeve
(42,279 posts)Torture doesn't work, it demeans the ones who use it and produces nothing of value.
Fuck that shit.
redixdoragon
(156 posts)...and I hope that's entirely wrong, there may be a reason it came to be.
During our times in WWI, WWII, and the following cold war against the Soviet Union, there were powers as great as we.
They had standing armies that we had to fight carefully in order to win against. They had trained soldiers, factories, supplies.
And so they had the means to take and hold prisoners of war. We didn't want our soldiers tortured, they didn't want their soldiers tortured. The formation of the rules of the Geneva Convention then was to help assure these sides that something was in place to hold them to a standard.
Now, we're fighting conflicts against "enemy combatants." As such we're not given the feeling that there's human beings that are being captured, imprisoned and tortured, whereas we got SOME sense back in say, WWII, that a cpatured german soldier was still a human being, and we gave ourselves the sense that we weren't the bad guys like they were.
Torture's being thought of as "okay" because we probably think "Well they always do it." But if we alwayd do it too, then how are we any different?
Turborama
(22,109 posts).... and "most" Americans thought Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11.
Does anyone else think there may be something iffy with these polls?
pat_k
(9,313 posts)That, along with the 2012 closure of the most egregious cases sent a clear message: torture is ok.
Had those responsible been held accountable, the positive feeling toward torture would have evaporated. It would have served to redeem this nation. Instead, we are the nation that condones torture; the nation that cannot be counted on to uphold the rule of law. A truly scary nation.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/obama-justice-department-immunity-bush-cia-torturer