Would you support torture if you knew it saved American lives and prevented acts of terrorism? Would you support torture if you were serving in combat duty in Iraq and you knew it would save the lives of your fellow soldiers? If you answered "yes" to either of these questions, you might be surprised to learn that you are in a minority, and have been for the past eight years.
We have assembled the first comprehensive archive of public opinion on the use of torture taken since September 11, 2001. Despite unending orange alerts, two wars, and the specter of leading political figures arguing for the efficacy of "enhanced interrogation," a majority of Americans continue to reject government use of torture, even when confronted with the "ticking time bomb" scenario.
In 30 polls taken since September 11, 2001, the average public approval for American use of torture is 44 percent, ranging as low as 15% and as high as 49%, depending on the vagaries of the question.
When asked most directly if they think it is "acceptable to torture people suspected of terrorism", only 35% of Americans express approval. Apparently the basic moral sensibilities of the public exceeds that of Vice President Cheney.
We are told that torture is efficacious--it works. It results in "actionable intelligence." Apparently, Americans moral compasses are resistant to such moral complexities. A number of surveys asked respondents if they supported torture "(I)f you knew torture would save American lives..." or "(I) f you knew that torture could prevent terrorist attacks..." Even given that absolute certainty and a "ticking time bomb," time and again, a majority of Americans rejected the use of torture by our government.
We are told that this is not your grandfather's war. The Geneva Convention and the U.N. Convention Against Torture are quaint luxuries that we can't accommodate in this new war against an elusive enemy. Yet, even members of the military, presumably those who are most knowledgeable about the ugliness of modern warfare, oppose torture. A poll conducted by the US military of soldiers serving in Iraq found that 56 percent of Marines and 59 percent of Army personnel opposed the use of torture even if they knew it would save the life of a fellow solider! A larger majority (61 and 64% respectively) opposed torture as a way to gather intelligence.
Why have so many in the political and media elite so badly misread the strong majorities opposed to torture? A recent survey we commissioned helps shine a light on the psychological process of misperception--also called "false consensus"--whereby an individual mistakenly believes that their viewpoints represent the public majority. False consensus has a long legacy in social psychological research, but our survey is unique in that it examines for the first time how false consensus may have shaped the public debate over torture.
A national opinion poll taken among 1000 respondents just before the 2008 election-- shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans overestimated the level of national support for torture. Surprisingly, however, false consensus did not operate evenly across the population. The stronger an individual supports torture, the larger the gap in his or her perception. In fact, those who believe that torture is often justified--a mere 15% of the public--think that more than a third of the public agrees with them. Another 30% say that torture can "sometime" be justified, but say that 62% of Americans do as well. On the other hand, those most opposed to torture--29% of the public--are the most accurate in how they perceive public attitudes on the topic.
Government claims of torture's success have always been highly exaggerated in the past. In 1972, the British Parker Commission claimed that the torture of 14 prisoners in Northern Ireland resulted in preventing 85 terrorist attacks, the arrest of 700 IRA soldiers, and the capture of hundreds of weapons. None of these claims were ever substantiated. The French have yet to release all the documents on torture squads in the Battle of Algiers. Now there are calls from the previous administration for the release of the memos that will show America's use of torture worked, and therefore, the logic must follow, is justified.
The American public has spoken in 30 polls since September 11, 2001 that it does not believe that the use of torture is justified, even if it works. What is reflected in the polling data is that the majority of Americans support the principles of fairness and decency, even when there are more expedient means at our disposal. They understand that the war on terror isn't about getting more land or wealth; it is a war about superior values. Al Qaeda's winning argument is that our values are just fake, and that when it comes down to it, we don't believe those values and defend them with torture. But the majority of Americans, as well our soldiers in the field, never have believed the ends justified the means when it comes to torture. They understand that to lose the high ground is to have lost the war to Al Qaeda.
In 1942, the Gestapo tortured or killed 7,442 innocent Czechs and Jews to catch 103 of its enemies. They called that campaign a success. What is the acceptable ratio of torturing innocents-to-terrorists for America to call our campaign a success, 50-to-1, 10-to-1? We are not sure what American value the previous administration hopes to support with the release of the "torture success memos."
Darius Rejali is the author of the award winning book, Torture and Democracy. Paul Gronke studies public opinion and American politics. Both are professors of Political Science at Reed College.
Google Alyssa Peterson
Alyssa Peterson from Arizona shot herself with her service rifle at Tal-Afar air base in northern Iraq on September 15, 2003.
Peterson had protested to her superiors about the torture tactics were very different from the ones she had known in training and had asked to be reassigned *before* the incident.
The cause of her death was kept secret for *two years*, and the mystery of what Peterson witnessed, and the content of the notes she made, still goes on.
Leaves one to wonder, with the spike of suicides in the Military, how many are because of the deplorable lack of morals by those above them? But then, watch Olberman's, Countdown, where they are showing an actual film of Waterboarding. Could any one of you do that to another human being? I can't even watch it anymore, and when it comes on, turn my head away. I was going to complain to Olberman, but realized, everyone should see it. Especially anyone who thinks torture is OK.
Only 25 percent of the respondents felt torture is "never" justified. Four percent had no input.
Those who feel that torture is justified "rarely," "sometimes," or "often" make up nearly 3/4 of the U.S. population, according to the Pew poll.
I find this distressing and disgusting. I also have serious issues with the spins put on the data by both Pew and the press, wherein (in one version) "never" and "rarely" were combined, answer-wise, and (in the other, more popular version) torture support is reported in terms of churchgoing rate.
Obviously, religion is not the issue when nearly 3/4 of the body politic approves of torture. Neither can "rarely" be categorized with "never." One either supports the use of torture or one does not. Limited support for torture is still support for torture.
Pro=71 percent. Con=25 percent. Dead to the world=4 percent.
It would appear that most people support the use of torture. That's as sad a statistic as one could imagine, but I'm frankly not surprised by it.
This is a far cry from those who would simply agree that they "support torture of suspected terrorists",
I'll quit squawking about torture when those who ordered it, authorized it and did it are brought to justice.
Woe be us if we don't follow the Constitution and the laws of the US!
Pehaps because most Americans, like myself, do not consider the use of coercive interrogation methods - up to and including waterboarding under a physician's supervision - to be torture. And I'd guess that a majority of Americans would also reject the Geneva Conventions assertion that torture includes, and I quote ...
Geneva Convention III, Article 3 (1)(c): " ... outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment". http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/0/e160550475c4b133c12563cd0051aa66?OpenDocument
Strictly following this broad definition would result in such blind idiocy that we could not even take an ID photograph a female Muslim terrorist caught planting an IED in Iraq!
Torture only gets the answers the torturer wants. But torture is not now, nor has it ever been used to stop an evil act such as the ticking time bomb scenario BS... And it never will be, except in the movies.
Torture is only about fear, control, power, abuse and sadly,for the pleasure of the torturers.
If you do not consider torture to be torture you are as depraved as any other zealot..
Then the question would be are you immoral enough to be a torturer? If you are capable of such actions you are a danger to your family and society in general. And a fool to boot.
Torture is immoral, illegal, and ineffective. Waterboarding,is torture. Continnual exposure to loud music is torture (can result in permanent hearing loss), sleep deprivation is torture (causes hallucination and thus unreliable results). You support this program because you do not think it will ever happen to you or those you know. The Bush administration also jailed American citizens arrested in the US without access to legal representiation. I would not trust them not to extend the whole program to the political world.
Tenet or Panetta? Yoo or Holder? Cheney or Biden? National Review or the Huffington Post? Me or you?
You forget to mention:
TORTURE DOESN'T SAVE LIVES.... DOESN'T PREVENT TERRORISM.... AND KILLS SOLDIERS.
Guaranteed.
This is well known and established... but you two run all the way through your article with the tacit assumption -- bubbling just below the surface -- that "torture works." It doesn't.
Even when you purport to address the issue of efficacy head-on, you dismiss the entire realm of well known, well-established fact as "moral complexities" instead of telling the truth: torture doesn't work.
There is a concept in morality that isn't 'complex' at all: "the ends attained never justify the means used." You could look that one up and familiarize yourselves with it.
You even bring in that movie-fiction fantasy canard of the "ticking time bomb" -- with "absolute certainty" attached to it yet! -- without mentioning all of the obvious and well-understood reasoning flaws in that fallacious scenario: there is no certainty... no 'knowledge' that a suspect has any such information, there is only mere supposition on the interrogator's part; there is no reliability to coerced information, it is by definition tainted. Therefore, torture guarantees bad information, misdeployed assets, certain failure and dead citizens... if that scenario were to ever even happen in the real world, which it never will.
There is a robust professional literature on torture available, and you would do well to introduce yourselves to it.
In an often defensive interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" aired Sunday, Tenet said the intelligence gained from suspected terrorists in the CIA's covert detention program and its "enhanced interrogation techniques" was more valuable than all the other terrorism-related intelligence gathered by the FBI, the National Security Agency and his own agency.
Is he lying? Was the Director of the CIA less informed than yourself? Why won't Obama release the documents that Cheney claims proves Tenet correct? Do you even care?
Remember these guys blew 911, blew WMD intelligence and can't seem to find Osama BIn Ladin. Why would you believe anything coming out of Langley?
According to the head of the FBI during the Bush administration no actionable intelligence was gathered through the use of torture.
The "intelligence community" has hypnotic and psychotropic drugs that will have you telling your life story before the liquid is even out of the syringe so, in a modern world, physical torture just ends up in humiliating prisoners and degrading our countries international reputation.
Bush and Cheney blew their chances to stop 9/11, even though all the intelligence was right there, and Cheney was supervising the comatose anti-terrorism initiative. They then blew their chances to capture bin Laden and dismantle al-Qa'eda. Torturing whoever they could get their hands on probably made them feel better, and made for some memorable photos, but let's not leave our security in the hands of posturing blunderers and their hapless enablers.
WHY TORTURE IS WRONG, AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM
Cheney and his goons will keep making the bogus claim that actionable intelligence was obtained because they know that we can never declassify the reports that detail the actual sources which provided the intel that was used to confirm or debunk whatever came out of waterboarding, in addition to knowing that the tapes and records which demonstrate both the misinformation and the attempt to connect Iraq to 9/11 were destroyed. They point to one or two tidbits from the interrogations, overstate their importance, omit the basic need to verify, and completely ignore that number, 183.
I am a veteran. My father was, his father before him, and the majority of the male members of my family for many generations. Remember that the oath you swear as a soldier is to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. That set of ideals is what all those valiant souls have fought, killed, and died for. Not people, not land, not wealth. Ideals.
cowâ‹…ard
 –noun
1. a person who lacks courage in facing danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc
For those of you willing to abandon your humanity, find some courage. Stand up for those things that do make us different. The rule of law, impartiality of our justice, and protections from the government granted to all citizens were once, and can once again be, a beacon to the world.
You argument is that one person could cause the death of 10,000 people...And? That doesn't make torture ok, or effective. You may feel justified, in your belief, but you feel that way out of fear and cowardice...not bravery.
Tell me, what would YOU do to prevent 9/11?
Torture advocates (I can't believe these exist) love the ticking time bomb scenario. Well, I'm embracing the ticking time bomb "what-if" rhetoric.
Suppose you have a terrorist in custody. Suppose you know he knows where there's a bomb hidden, waiting to go off. Suppose you've already tried torturing him with waterboarding, hitting, freezing, etc. You even tried beating the soles of his feet with rubber hoses and pulled out a couple toenails. But he still won't talk. And the timer on that bomb is ticking.
Now suppose that you also have the terrorist's wife and baby in custody. Well, the torture didn't work, and you've got 10,000 lives to save. Would you torture the terrorists's wife in front of him? Would you torture his baby? Would you rape his wife in front of him? Would you kill his baby? Remember, this is the ONLY way to save the lives of thousands of people.
And, if you would, would you then ask for legal immunity for murdering a baby or raping a woman? Would you argue that these things shouldn't be illegal, since their illegality hamstrings our intelligence agencies in the fight to ensure America's security?
Heartfelt thanks to you and your ancestors for your service to this nation. Thank you for upholding
American principles.
Your examples about Truman and Roosevelt are both examples from war. War against the official governments of nations officially responsible for their own atrocities, and, more than anything, responsible for starting those wars. We are not currently opposed by a nation state, we are not threatened for our national survival. As bad as that "mushroom cloud" scenario is, it pales in comparison to the threat of the Cold War, yet at no time during WWII or the Cold War, despite the much higher stakes, at no time did we officially, preemptively authorize torture of anyone. Never. Not until Bush.
In truth, the -real- intelligence community professionals never asked for these powers or this immunity, just as they have never asked for the US to change its laws to justify or indemnify their actions -politicians and administrators did that, and for their own sake. The operatives have always asked for secrecy, for their higher ups to trust them, not ask too many questions, and retain plausible deniability, and get them a pardon if everything went FUBAR. They risked danger much greater than the US court system. They have committed acts which are undoubtedly as heinous as anything in the current debate, as you say, and with stakes much higher than now, yet they never insisted that we should officially depart from the Geneva Conventions- and open our own military up to the consequences, much less national reputation and credibility.
I think this needs to be qualified. Are there any other solutions for saving those lives? To what extent is the "torturee" implicated in the terrorist act? To what degree is the torturee being tortured: Is he/she being waterboarded or are their eyeballs being removed?
Suppose you polled the following question:
"Would you support the waterboarding of an internationally-recognized terrorist who knew of the exact time and location of a scheduled nuclear attack on the country, and all other methods of interrogation had been exhausted?"
Who wouldn't support that tactic? If it was your decision and you didn't do it, how could you live with yourself when the bomb goes off?
I do NOT think the question needs to be qualified, especially with the ridiculous claim that you know what the torturee knows: "an internationally-recognized terrorist who knew of the exact time and location..."
That's ridiculous. Waterboarding is torture. It has been torture for over a century. No amount of talking about gouging out eyes, or cutting off heads changes anything. Creating ridiculous scenarios to try and goad people into supporting this despicable idea does nothing. If you would torture another human being you are simply a shallow, vengeful and unimaginative person. It's really that simple.
"Would you support the torture and rape of the young children of an internationally-recognized terrorist who knew of the exact time and location of a scheduled nuclear attack on the country, and all other methods of interrogation had been exhausted?"
If it was your decision and you didn't do it, how could you live with yourself when the bomb goes off?