Exclusive: Most Americans Support Torture Against Terror Suspects - Poll

[Purveyor]

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]

1. All because the movies have desensitized them into thinking that it's

expected of our military to do such things and that it's just the way it is.

[cstanleytech]

12. If this was a recent issue I might agree but down through out history there have been people who

think its ok to do stuff like this if it will protect them from (insert ethnic, racial or religious group here).

[retrowire]

13. Well yeah.

I was making a pretty vague broad generalization there. My bad.

[Dont call me Shirley]

2. Don't be a Moran, don't endorse torture!

[jwirr]

3. You know our history teachers must not have been teaching

anything about WWII for a very long time. Let alone anything about the Geneva Conventions.

[PatrynXX]

4. even though it doesn't work and costs more American lives than it saves. I smell a push poll

with zero education

[Jackie Wilson Said]

8. I wont be surprised if that many of us are that brainwashed and dumb on this topic

The likes of Cheney and co. need to come out and admit the truth that is a known fact, it doesnt work.

[Turbineguy]

5. These terrorist have done a poor job

of making themselves appear likable. They should hire an ad agency.

[rpannier]

17. DC has a bunch of them

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]

6. No. Torture will never be OK. Once we go down that road, we have rendered ourselves

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]

19. Ironically, you could have stopped at "..., we have rendered* ourselves." If torture is not seen as

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]

31. Once we go down that road?

Torturers act with impunity in the US.

We're already there.

[PatrickforO]

33. I know. My point is we need to get OFF that road ASAP.

This isn't Rambo.

[merrily]

7. Gee, too bad it's immoral and illegal, and this is not American Idol,

where a majority of Americans voting matters.

[Duckhunter935]

9. I guess they support torturing our soldiers

[paleotn]

23. Bingo. n/t

[Angel Martin]

32. It already happens as part of their training

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/01/cancel_waterboarding_101.html

[MisterP]

10. shit--when we have a Democrat in the Oval Office after 16 years maybe we can lay some

indictments for the massive crimes that are seen as acceptable in the US

[stupidicus]

11. "GOD DAMN AMERICA"!!!!!

and all of the faux xtians in it.

[mountain grammy]

14. Every day I see less reason to stay

Here's another.

[Zira]

15. I don't believe this. Our people cannot be this violent up.

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]

16. Torture does not work (in addition to being immoral). People say anything to stop being tortured. nt

[Algernon Moncrieff]

18. Exactly - you get what the interrogator wants to hear -- not necessarily the facts

However, a sizable portion of the American population clearly favors some form of Fascist-lite government.

[Pastiche423]

20. I am proud that I am part of the 1/3

that DO NOT support torture.

[dhill926]

21. most Americans are stupid assholes....

just stunning...

[felix_numinous]

22. Who pays for these polls, Trump?

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]

24. Cowardly pieces of shit.

[paleotn]

25. Not too surprised, given the dumbing down of our populace....

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]

26. This is What Happens

when you don't hold the people who created a torture regime and those who supported it accountable.

[keithbvadu2]

27. Those who support torture done by America are also supporting

the same torture done to our own troops.

[SusanLarson]

28. treaty obligations

It would violate our obligations under multiple treaties which are equal to the constitution as the law of the land.

[Maeve]

29. Nearly two-thirds of Americans are fools

Torture doesn't work, it demeans the ones who use it and produces nothing of value.

Fuck that shit.

[redixdoragon]

30. IF 2/3 of the populace believes this...

...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]

34. Apparently, "most" Americans supported the illegal invasion of Iraq...

.... 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]

35. Obama's 2009 grant of immunity to war criminals in government positions didn't help.

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