Thinking of Americans, generally - how do you think most of them feel about the torture report?

[Algernon Moncrieff]

I realize DUers are appalled. I'm not asking how you think DUers feel. How do you think Americans, generally, will react?

22 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	I think most Americans are appalled that we did this.
	0 (0%)
	I think most Americans are uncomfortable with this, but concede the actions were done with the intention of protecting Americans
	1 (5%)
	I think most Americans feel that the actions of ISIS/Al Quaida are equally reprehensible, and the torture and the terror essentially cancel each other out.
	2 (9%)
	I think most Americans approve of the torture as vengance for 9-11 and other acts of terror
	1 (5%)
	I think most Americans are more concerned with holiday shopping, the visit of the royals, the college playoff, etc.
	18 (82%)
	My answer is not described above, so I'll post it below.
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[BillZBubb]

1. I think if Obama had been president when this started the majority would be angry.

Since the republicans were in the White House, few care. They are either indifferent or rationalize it.

[merrily]

26. Maybe the next Congress will put out a report about torture before and after Bush.

Extraordinary rendition for the purposes of having our prisoners tortured began under Clinton.

At least, as far as we know. I suspect earlier, but that's pure speculation.

[Sweeney]

2. Americans are for the most part good people.

While they can justify much depending upon party affiliation, this is not always the case. People can know torture stinks and is morally wrong and yet what government we elect cannot be wrong short of condemning the whole people, and they are not doing it, and they do not even have to listen to the tapes.

America doesn't have to listen to grown men cry, and they don't have to listen to them beg for mercy, or sell out their mothers for a moment of peace. If they did, I am certain most people would find a soul, and stop it. So for them it is not simply a banality of evil question, but is a delegation of responsibility question. Just as you can bureaucratize responsibility so widely that no one is to blame, in that same fashion, the people are let off the hook. Ignorance may be no defense, but it is still ignorance.

Look at what trouble the government had taking a peek at its own butt. How would we ever get the same picture at the same price. I knew torture happened. Hands on who didn't know torture was happening in our territory? Why do you think they offer no guided tours? And naturally, they are happy to make us guess what is going on in our names in our own country. Figure that. But we know the bad people who don't like us very much are guessing too. What happened to old whatzizname and why haven't we seen him since, and what does he know, and whom? This torture cannot possibly be for the benefit of the people tortured because they are so few. It is the wider audience for the show of life that is being served. And I am happy to see it happen before my eyes, so there is no doubt. I'm a people, they're a people, we're a people too. What your government will do to them, it will do to you.

These Muslims scarecrows are not to warn other scarecrows. These scarecrows are to scare you. If the government will shoot them. If the government will drone them; If you get my point.
Don't tick your government off. Don't think you can push it over with a feather. Don't get all cocky and mad. Use your head and drag your feet. Think of how many would have been saved from the gas chambers if everyone had just dragged their feet. Remember who you are dealing with. Think of all the official people who might shoot you where you stand if they cared to drag your body away.

All I am saying is a lot of people on the other side of this issue, as in the delivery of pain and mortification have not got one part of respect for life. Like so many in the Bureaucracy of Death, in Russia, and Nazi Europe, it was just a job. And a good job would eat them up too as it went along because the world will always have enough sociopaths to lose a few. Look at how some good people justify death for some dumm kid in Missouri, and how would they feel if he was theirs? Would they feel ashamed, hurt, numb, outraged. How far is the government from turning these guns on us?

That kid isn't a cause, and he isn't a comedy. That kid was a human being, and these scarecrows we crucify are human beings too. It is not a matter of numbers. It is not a question of information. It was a chance to prove our morality and instead we witnessed our inhumanity. If it was me doing it, I'd never admit to nothing but being a drunk, and say all I did was put in my eight chatting the guy up, and if he was screaming it was only to exercise his larynx. It's a bureaucracy. Everyone shares the responsibility and no one gets the blame.

Sweeney

[Algernon Moncrieff]

3. Sweeney, that's a helluva post. Thank you for that.

[Sweeney]

4. Thank you for that back atcha

[KingCharlemagne]

12. You really should turn this into an OP of its own. You link Michael Brown domestically

and the torture program as well as anyone I have ever read. Sincerest compliments.

[Sweeney]

15. Sincerity

is always currency in my shop. Thanks you.

Sweeney

[Whiskeytide]

14. This post should be required reading...

... for every American. Very well said.

[Sweeney]

17. No no no.

When people are required to look at something they more easily see its flaws. I write, and some times very quickly. Electric typewriters were high tech when I was young, and I may have passed typing with a D-.. With word processing computers my speed has increased greatly, and with practice, my spelling as well. But even with your spell checker, I make mistakes, and I want people to hear what I say without looking too closely at how I say it. But Thank you. You are all decent and kind.

Try to understand it as the Greeks did, of the two forces which bind humanity. One is Ethos, that like Ethnic, binds a person to his own, his family, his tribe, his phratry, his city. And the other force is Pathos, which binds all people as human beings, that we feel in some real sense the suffering (or the joy) of others, and act in sympathy with them.

There is in the heart of every child the shock of seeing Jesus represented on the cross with his skin bloody and torn, and with a crown of thorns upon his head. And the child revolted asks: Who did this to this man? They never believe that it was you and I, and only later do they realize it is true. While some celebrate that fact, others see it with the deepest shame and pain. This is our crime. This is a stain upon our souls and a weight against our hearts.

Where is the man suffering pain and death who can complain: This is not my fate, and I do not deserve this. I have done enough in one life to deserve every rotten thing that will ever happen to me, but at least my guilt is my own. I do not have to share that guilt with anyone, and so my suffering, such as it is, is my justice. But that is enough, and no one should have to bear the guilt of others because they were allowed, organizationally, because the machine, -the relentless, heartless, automaton of bureaucracy worked its way through a moral loophole like a rat into a house of harvest.

Thanks...Sweeney

[RobertEarl]

5. Generally?

We have enough nuclear missiles to blow this planet away 100 times.

How many are complaining about that?

Most Americans feel the rest of the world should just be happy we don't nuke 'em all.

[merrily]

27. Plenty of people complained and demonstrated about nukes for decades.

Senator Obama did sponsor a very limited bill. But, we still have too many nukes. It's not the fault of the people that we ever acquired nukes or that we didn't limit them more or rid ourselves of them.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. I can give you the honest answer, but I don't think people will like it much.

I think most Americans are philosophically opposed to torture in general, in principle.

But when talking specifically about it, for instance, in the context of the guy who planned to kill thousands of innocent people by flying jetliners into skyscrapers, I suspect more than a good number of them develop a more morally relativistic attitude of "meh"


I'm not endorsing that attitude or judging it, for that matter- merely pointing out that it's there.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

7. I don't know that it's a majority viewpoint, but it's a sizable group

There is a group of Americans, principally upwards of 45 (and I'm not saying here on DU) who simply equate the word "Muslim" with the word "terrorist." It's not just 9-11, but events going back to 70's hijackings, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Lebanese barracks bombing, the Achille Lauro, the Kohl, as well as post-9-11 events. This group doesn't want to hear/won't listen to talk that these acts represent isolated extremists. Instead, they believe that Islam is a religion fixated on destroying America, and that any action used against them is justified. Like you, I'm not endorsing that attitude or judging it, for that matter- merely pointing out that it's there.

I think there's another larger group that, to a great extent, intersects with the above group, but has a larger age spread. This group is what I like to think of as the "everything I know about international relations I learned from The Godfather" group. This group believes that the report shows nothing new, and that like Nixon in Watergate, Bush's only issue with torture is that he got caught. "We've always done this," members of this group will argue, " because the only way you can deal with these people is to be more violent, more brutal, and to make offers that they can't refuse." Members of this group will point to the actions of ISIS, and assert that anyone who doesn't get behind killing and torture to combat this is weak and naïve. Again, I'm not endorsing that attitude or judging it, for that matter- merely pointing out that it's there.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. I think you're right.

It's what used to colloquially be known as realpolitik.

[okaawhatever]

24. I think you have to consider the generation that was aware of the torture during the

Vietnam and Korean wars. Torture back then was much worse, and quite frankly some of what i've read pales in comparison.

For those of us familiar with the torture the Vietnamese POWs went through this level of torture doesn't seem as evil. It's not an excuse for the current torture just a frame of reference.

[merrily]

28. The lesser of the evil tortures?

[Warren DeMontague]

30. It is, of course, some of those who had direct experience with that, who put forth the most cogent

Arguments against the US participating in anything like that. McCain, to his credit, I believe, for obvious reasons given his history.

Thise guys understand that in addition to the moral reprehensibility of the act AND the fact that it is demonstrably counterproductive in terms of intelligence, it sets an extremely bad precedence internationally and sacrifices any moral authority we might ever claim to have on the topic.

If such things as human rights and international law are to have any objective meaning whatsoever, we need to adhere to them, not just when it is convenient.

[el_bryanto]

8. While probably most are focused elsewhere

another answer is that they feel appalled but they don't feel personally responsible. The Government doesn't represent the will of the people so when it does bad things it's not their fault.

Bryant

[alarimer]

9. Americans by and large simply don't care.

"If it keeps us safe" etc., etc.

I got into an argument (sort of) on Twitter with one person when I said I was ashamed of this country. This was before the details were released. He was completely silent after that.

I think Americans have been so indoctrinated in the culture of fear that they accept almost everything our leaders do in our name.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

21. And there is a deep hatred of Middle Eastern Muslims

Never mind that a Saudi Arabian is one of the largest shareholders in FAUX Noise, and never mind that we fought to defend Kuwaiti monarchs, liberate Iraquis, and prevent the slaughter of the Kosovar Albanians.

I will take a moment and plug a documentary called Besa: The Promise. http://besathepromise.com/thefilm.html

It is a film about how Albanian Muslims hid Jews from the Nazi's.

[B Calm]

10. If it was just the Americans voters only, I would pick

I think most Americans approve of the torture as vengeance for 9-11 and other acts of terror.

That said, the MAJORITY of Americans are more concerned about being swallowed by a giant snake.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

20. I thought the majority of Americans were more concerened with Kim & Kanye

...and the impending Duggar nuptials.

[B Calm]

22. That was last week. Huge snakes swallowing people has them terrified

and spellbound.

[99Forever]

11. Yup.

[KingCharlemagne]

13. Torture? What torture? - nt

[The2ndWheel]

16. I don't think anyone knows what to do with the information

Whether they care about it or not. As a citizen, what are you supposed to do knowing the CIA does various bad things around the world? Who are you supposed to vote out every few years? What are you supposed to do in the meantime? Protest the CIA? What, and who, are you protesting? Should you go to these secret bases around the world and save the prisoners?

I would think people fall all across the spectrum on feelings about torture. But after that, what is anyone supposed to do with the knowledge and feelings? Is it enough to just think about it or feel something? Is there concrete action you can take? What can you stop the CIA from doing?

[Algernon Moncrieff]

19. You're right, they don't know what to do, and they can't see it from their house

They don't know the prisoners. They don't personally know anyone who was hauled off and harmed.

The irony is that most Americans love America. They love the flag; they love the Pledge; they love soldiers and veterans and bald eagles. And, they say they love freedom, although we all seem to have our favorite amendments and our own interpretation of what those amendments mean.

The eighth amendment is not some post-FDR hippie/liberal vision. It's a part of the bill of rights, and it's brought to us by the original founding fathers as a result of the excesses of the British. It reads:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

[Recursion]

23. A majority believe it is "often" or "sometimes" justifiable, according to Nate Silver

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-torture-report-public-opinion/

[stranger81]

25. Americans have apparently grown more supportive of torture over the last decade.

"By November 2009, a slight majority of Americans said for the first time that torture could sometimes be justified.

In Pew’s 2011 report — its most recent — 53 percent said the U.S. government’s use of torture against suspected terrorists to gain important information can often (19 percent) or sometimes (34 percent) be justified, marking a turnaround from 2004."

********************

"A more recent poll, conducted by the Associated Press in 2013, confirmed Pew’s findings. AP found that a little more than half of Americans said they favor the U.S. government’s use of harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists to seek information about terrorist activities: 28 percent said they strongly favor them, and 23 percent moderately favored them. The same survey found that 22 percent of Americans strongly opposed harsh interrogation techniques and 16 percent moderately opposed them, with 11 percent reporting that they are either neutral or undecided."


http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-torture-report-public-opinion/

[merrily]

29. Yup. They timed the release of the report as well as they possibly could.

So much for leadership of America.

(Jon Stewart jokingly said about Obama's appearance on Colbert--not coincidental.)

We are easily manipulated magpies in the hands of professional manipulators of language, of our attention span, etc. And anyone who supports that or provides cover for it, is, IMO, not a master manipulator or a master of anything but crap.