AP Poll: Most Say Torture OK in Rare Cases

[ECH1969]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Most Americans and a majority of people in Britain and South Korea say torturing terrorism suspects is justified at least in rare instances, according to AP-Ipsos polling.

The United States has drawn criticism from human rights groups and many governments, especially in Europe, for its treatment of terror suspects. President Bush and other top officials have said the U.S. does not torture, but some suspects in American custody have alleged they were victims of severe mistreatment.

The polling, in the United States and eight of its closest allies, found that in Canada, Mexico and Germany people are divided on whether torture is ever justified. Most people opposed torture under any circumstances in Spain and Italy.

"I don't think we should go out and string everybody up by their thumbs until somebody talks. But if there is definitely a good reason to get an answer, we should do whatever it takes," said Billy Adams, a retiree from Tomball, Texas. In America, 61 percent of those surveyed agreed torture is justified at least on rare occasions.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TORTURE_AP_POLL?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
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Morons

[hlthe2b]

1. what were the choices?

Bush*
Cheney
Rumsfeld
Rove
Libby
Feith
Rice
Wolfowitz
Perle


I think I know why some voted "yes" to torture
:evilgrin:

[2Design]

2. I wonder how they would feel if they were being torture - then do the

poll

sounds like a real religous thing to do - yeah, right (sarcasm)
I don't care what your faith is - torture is not part of it

this is so ridiculous

[bigbrother05]

3. This is very misleading

If you follow the links and look at the poll it reads completely different. Countries are opposed to torture.

http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf.cfm?name=mr051206-4topline.pdf&id=2891

[neweurope]

6. Not really true... the majority is opposed. Majority as in "largest group"

But count those groups together who want to allow torture "sometimes", "rarely" or "often" you'll see that those who want to allow torture per se are the majority.

I find it very scary. There are doors that should never be opened.

---------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Poet Lariat]

4. There's that slippery slope..."in rare cases".

Imagine that you're an Iraqi citizen who has always done the right thing to the best of your ability and tried to abide by the law. Imagine that one day you get picked up at the market along with several other neighbors and are then shuttled away to a prison. Then imagine that one of your neighbors (the guy you've had problems with since your were in grade school) tells one of your American captors that he knows for a fact that you are deeply involved in the insurgent movement against the occupiers. Imagine that you are then put on a plane and flown several hours away. You fall asleep and the next thing you know, you are choking. You are drowning. You open your eyes and there are several people in the room whom you have never seen before. They are all looking at you. A man steps up to you and punches you hard in the chest. You gasp and begin to struggle to remain conscious. Another person from your left begins screaming directly in your left ear that you will be killed if you don't answer their questions. Imagine then that you tell them that you do not know anything and that this has all been a big mistake. Another punch to the chest and the water starts filling your mouth and nose again. You lose consciosness and...

Do the ends justify the means? Does the death penalty deter crime? Do we have the right to do this to another human being?

I don't have the answers...just asking.:sarcasm:

[neweurope]

7. The answer has already been given. Torture is called uncivilized

and banned all over the world. Those countries that still do torture are frowned upon. Congratulations, you've joined the side of barbars.

----------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Poet Lariat]

8. Apparently my point was not taken as intended

I already have the answer...and my description of torture above should have given you a clue to what it is.

My statement that "I don't have the answer, just asking" was apparently a poorly veiled attempt at sarcasm about the question that the poll in the original post is referring too. I should have added a sarcasm tag to make my point more clear. Please excuse.

[neweurope]

11. Sorry, and no, please don't add sarcasm tags :)

I'm a little slow in the head to-day, having a bad cold - but I really didn't think you didn't know the answer :hi:

---------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Poet Lariat]

13. No problem neweurope

This was my first flame experience!!! Or actually, shit...since you've said sorry now, this can''t be considered a "flame". Guess I'll have to try harder.

Hope your cold get's better. I spent a few years in Berlin back in the late 70's. :toast:

[neweurope]

20. The beer's still good :)

:toast:


------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Inland]

9. It is a slippery slope

I myself agree that there are real life situtations were torture might possibly help, but when that decision is left to the secret masters of the prisons, it doesn't happen in just that rare case.

The biggest reason why people are tortured is because the torturers enjoy it. No because something useful comes of it. It's just a little industry where the sickos and the failures of the national security state gravitate and pretend to be productive and draw their pay. That's the reality.

[Poet Lariat]

10. I can understand your point but personally can't agree with it

The thing about slippery slopes is that once you get on them, at some point you are sure to slip and fall off.

How can anyone of us judge whether the person being tortured is innocent or guilty at the stage when the information needed is being gathered? This should answer those who could justify torture in those "rare circumstances"

How can anyone of us take it upon themselves to cruelly torture another human being...under any circumstances? I don't think it can ever be justified.

As a species, we have to learn ways to get past this ugly side of human nature that apparently is still with us to some degree. I don't think torture will ever do anything but take us backward.

As to your point about torturers enjoying their work, you may be right.

[Inland]

22. Well, it's the difficulty in identifying that rare case

that causes the question to be left to the judgment of the people in the prison or on the ground. In reality, they never get it right. The people who gravitate to that sort of position are either sickos who enjoy it or incompetents trying to look like they are earning their money by doing something. Throw in a desire for revenge, and the whole torture and imprisonment industry becomes a self justifying instituition. I think that was the situation in the USSR Gulag.

So the rare case may just be a mirage. If it exists, real people aren't going to find it. Therefore a complete ban is best.

I am also wondering if we shouldn't just leave that rare case to a criminal prosecution with a justification defense, that is, "Yes I broke the law, but it was for a greater good." That works for a man speeding to the hospital with his delivering wife in the car, and is codified in some criminal code. Therefore a person who really feels that torture will save lives can risk his own freedom in the process.

[davekriss]

18. Under no circumstances, ever

Absolutely not, under no circumstances should torture be permitted.

You are incorrect when you say "the biggest reason why people are tortured is because the torturers enjoy it". That's not it at all. You haven't been learning the lessons taught by the USG to countless numbers of dictators and henchmen at School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia. You were asleep when watching how those practices unfolded during the American Holocaust in Central America in the Reagan-Bush eighties. The reason States engage in torture is to instill fear and intimidation in a local population. It is meant to break the will of that population to resist or support any resistance to the will of the State. It is pure, blood-dripping, evil exercise of State PSYOP on civilian populations. Disagree? Then explain how this doesn't fit the situation in Iraq.

That's why the tortured are let back into the population, to be walking testaments of the awful power of the State. That's why, when killed, their chopped up bodies are easily found by the side of a road, in a ditch, on a garbage heap, without hands, feet, or head. "Tolerate the Sandinistas amongst you and this horror can happen to you too!" As such the State uses it to achieve its objectives over the will of any resistance.

John Negroponte was Ambassador to Honduras in the early eighties when this task of intimidation flourished. Battalion 3-16 surfaced as the most viscious of Death Squads. Not just in Honduras, but with operations in Nicaragua and El Salvador. It's no cooincidence that Negroponte replaces Bremer and then all this torture emerges in Iraq. The scary thing is GWB has put Negroponte in charge of all intelligence, domestic and foriegn -- does this mean this unacceptable form of State Terror will be unleashed on American citizens too? (Perhaps someone should get to Hamdi and Padilla and see if it has already begun?)

I couldn't believe, soon after 9-11, that the major news media would begin sponsoring a dialogue on the question of permissible torture. It is never permissible. I am shocked further that, in this day and age where we have no excuse not to be moral, that a large number of American people would even consider the question. It should have been instantly ridiculed into non-existence. Instead, we tolerate the USG dropping even the pretense of proxy. We've become our enemy; we are now the world's most violent terrorist state.

[BJW]

5. stupid hypothetical question

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. The rest of the story

Now that we're doing it, there are a bunch of radical Muslim fundamentalists, Iraqi troops and Iraqi insurgents who agree. Torture may not elicit good intelligence, but it sure is fun.:sarcasm:

It's too late to unring this bell.

[enki23]

14. and, by god, we'll torture a hundred thousand to find that case

.

[Poet Lariat]

17. Hell yeah, a hundred thousand or more if that's what it takes...

Apparently, the * Administration believes that the ends justify any means necessary. Problem is, that pre-supposes that their misguided original “cause” for going to war is worth torturing for. "Hundreds of thousands"...maybe, let's hope not enki23. "Hundreds or thousands" very likely.

The “cause” or the " justifiable end" in this case is a trumped up war that has brought terrorists to the conflict who were not there before. How can this administration take their original crime and, by committing another crime, justify the torturing of anyone (some guilty of crimes and some who are not)? Not condoning here what the “insurgents” are doing just making the point that three consecutive wrongs don’t make a right.

Our troops wouldn't be in harms way if we hadn't put them there in the first place. Everyone has lot's of blood on their hands in this fiasco. Some by choice, some by default of their profession and some because they feel justified in their actions.

lumberjack_jeff…you are correct I think. It is too late to un-ring this bell. Our troops in future conflicts will pay a heavy price for this pandora’s box that has now been opened.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. Even though torturing someone is theoretically sometimes justifiable,

It should still always be illegal, I think.

Wherever you draw the line, people will cross it sometimes. If you make torture illegal, then the most drastic cases - the hypothetical "ticking bombs" and so on - will be tortured anyhow, and so will some others.

Every loosening of the law to make more cases legal will result in ever less justifiable cases being illegally tortured.

If you are sufficiently convinced that someone has information that can save enough lives to justify torturing it out of them, that information is also worth risking suffering the penalty of breaking the law yourself for.

[DemonFighterLives]

16. I heard this on AARnews and had to wonder

How far have some fallen?

Then stupid condi said that we follow all laws and rules with our handling of prisoners. I said to myself- "that is a bald faced lie."
I guess Geneva Conventions no longer count to these criminals.
Oh that's right- they are quaint.
:argh:

[GRLMGC]

19. How about no?

Like, what if a country we were at war with considered our troops as terrorists and used torture? That's no okay and its not okay for this country to use torture.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Welcome to the Axis of Torture

Your Top Ten Torturers tonight (OK, 9 of them):

Percentage thinking torture is justified, at least on rare occasions:

South Korea 86%
USA 61%
France 57%
UK 51%
Germany 50%
Mexico 49%
Canada 49%
Spain 37%
Italy 37%

http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf.cfm?name=mr051206-4topline.pdf&id=2891

Unfortunately, with results like these, the investigations into CIA torture are going nowhere. If about half of the people support the occasional bit of torturing, then all Rice has to say is "we only tortured a few - and I promise they were all bad people - after all, they said so themselves after we made them think they were drowning".