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59% Of Americans Support Post-9/11 Torture – Propaganda, Cultural Sickness, Or Both?
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Ever since the torture report was released last week, U.S. television outlets have endlessly featured American torturers and torture proponents. But there was one group that was almost never heard from: the victims of their torture, not even the ones recognized by the U.S. Government itself as innocent, not even the family members of the ones they tortured to death. Whether by design (most likely) or effect, this inexcusable omission radically distorts coverage.
Whenever America is forced to confront its heinous acts, the central strategy is to disappear the victims, render them invisible. That’s what robs them of their humanity: it’s the process of dehumanization. That, in turns, is what enables American elites first to support atrocities, and then, when forced to reckon with them, tell themselves that – despite some isolated and well-intentioned bad acts – they are still really good, elevated, noble, admirable people. It’s hardly surprising, then, that a Washington Post/ABC News poll released this morning found that a large majority of Americans believe torture is justified even when you call it “torture.” Not having to think about actual human victims makes it easy to justify any sort of crime.
– From Glenn Greenwald’s latest piece: U.S. TV Provides Ample Platform for American Torturers, but None to Their Victims
After reading about a new poll that shows 59% of Americans support post 9/11 torture, I’ve spent the entire morning thinking about what it means. Does this confirm the total degeneration of American culture into a collective of chicken-hawk, unthinking, statist war-mongering automatons? Alternatively, does it merely reflect the effectiveness of corporate-government propaganda? Is it a combination of both? How does the poll spilt by age group?
These are all important questions to which I do not have definitive answers, but I have some thoughts I’d like to share. First, here are some of the observations from the Washington Post:
A majority of Americans believe that the harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were justified, even as about half the public says the treatment amounted to torture, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
By an almost 2-1 margin, or 59-to-31 percent, those interviewed support the CIA’s brutal methods, with the vast majority of supporters saying they produced valuable intelligence.
In general, 58 percent say the torture of suspected terrorists can be justified “often” or “sometimes.”
The new poll comes on the heels of a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, which President Obama ended in 2009. The report concluded that controversial interrogation techniques — including waterboarding detainees, placing them in stress positions and keeping them inside confinement boxes — were not an effective means of acquiring intelligence.
This is important, because despite the Senate Report showing torture was not effective in acquiring intelligence (see: Revelations from the Torture Report – CIA Lies, Nazi Methods and the $81 Million No-Bid Torture Contract), the American public thinks it was. This is the power of mainstream media spin and propaganda.
Fifty-three percent of Americans say the CIA’s harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists produced important information that could not have been obtained any other way, while 31 percent say it did not.
In a CBS poll released Monday, nearly seven in 10 considered waterboarding torture, but about half said the technique and others are, at times, justified. Fifty-seven percent said harsh interrogation techniques can provide information that can prevent terrorist attacks.
While the above is disturbing, if I felt that the culture is lost beyond hope and that my fellow American is akin to a zombified sociopath with no hope of awakening, I wouldn’t be writing on this website. I would have renounced my citizenship long ago and moved somewhere else. In contrast, I think there’s a lot to fight for in these United States and I think the war for freedom, civil rights and the rule of law can and will prevail. After all, I was admittedly more or less a zombie during the years immediately following 9/11 and for most of my time on Wall Street. If I was able to make such a profound transition (and countless of my friends have as well ), then there is always hope.
I continue to think that the vast majority of human beings are not particularly ethical or unethical. They are basically somewhere in the middle and thus very easily molded by propaganda. History pretty much proves this to be the case. My sentiments on the subject can be best summarized by something I wrote back in 2012 in the post: Humanity is Rising.
I have always felt that human disposition lies on a bell curve. So let’s say for the sake of argument that 1% is just extraordinarily wicked, selfish, mentally deranged so along the lines of a Stalin like character. Then let’s say the 1% on the other side is gentle, enlightened, and moral almost to a fault so a Gandhi like character. Then the masses in the middle are not of any extreme disposition in either way, but are easily malleable and generally just “go along to get along.” Well as far as recorded human history is concerned, the 1% of nasty, immoral parasites have dominated humanity through the various playbooks strategies that I and many others have outlined. The 1% on the other side have generally been silenced or ostracized systematically by the control freak “leaders” and if that fails to work, they are simply murdered. I mean even up until the 20th Century think about the kinds of guys that have been murdered. Gandhi. Martin Luther King Jr. John Lennon. Oh and if we want to go back a couple thousand years there was Jesus. The list is endless. Guys that talk about a higher level of consciousness and love and actually make inroads in society are murdered. Yet no one ever seems to take a shot at the genocidal, sociopaths that run our lives through politics and banking (nor would I ever want that as I do not condone violence as a solution to a violent system). Interesting isn’t it? I think it is pretty obvious why this is the case. The 1% on the decent side of the bell curve aren’t murderers. The guys on the other side of it are.
While certainly not giving the middle of the bell curve a pass for its unquestioned apathy and ignorance, I am convinced that the key variable here is information, which is why it is so imperative to conduct alternative narratives, and is why I spend most of my time working on this site. Glenn Greenwald’s recent piece in the Intercept helped to reinforce the impact of media propaganda in shaping public perceptions. Here are some excerpts:
Ever since the torture report was released last week, U.S. television outlets have endlessly featured American torturers and torture proponents. But there was one group that was almost never heard from: the victims of their torture, not even the ones recognized by the U.S. Government itself as innocent, not even the family members of the ones they tortured to death. Whether by design (most likely) or effect, this inexcusable omission radically distorts coverage.
Whenever America is forced to confront its heinous acts, the central strategy is to disappear the victims, render them invisible. That’s what robs them of their humanity: it’s the process of dehumanization. That, in turns, is what enables American elites first to support atrocities, and then, when forced to reckon with them, tell themselves that – despite some isolated and well-intentioned bad acts – they are still really good, elevated, noble, admirable people. It’s hardly surprising, then, that a Washington Post/ABC News poll released this morning found that a large majority of Americans believe torture is justified even when you call it “torture.” Not having to think about actual human victims makes it easy to justify any sort of crime.
This self-glorifying ritual can be sustained only by completely suppressing America’s victims. If you don’t hear from the human beings who are tortured, it’s easy to pretend nothing truly terrible happened. That’s how the War on Terror generally has been “reported” for 13 years and counting: by completely silencing those whose lives are destroyed or ended by U.S. crimes. That’s how the illusion gets sustained.
Thus, we sometimes hear about drones (usually to celebrate the Great Kills) but almost never hear from their victims: the surviving family members of innocents whom the U.S. kills or those forced to live under the traumatizing regime of permanently circling death robots. We periodically hear about the vile regimes the U.S. props up for decades, but almost never from the dissidents and activists imprisoned, tortured and killed by those allied tyrants. Most Americans have heard the words “rendition” and “Guantanamo” but could not name a single person victimized by them, let alone recount what happened to them, because they almost never appear on American television.
It would be incredibly easy, and incredibly effective, for U.S. television outlets to interview America’s torture victims. There is certainly no shortage of them. Groups such as the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, Reprieve, and CAGE UK represent many of them. Many are incredibly smart and eloquent, and have spent years contemplating what happened to them and navigating the aftermath on their lives.
I’ve written previously about the transformative experience of meeting and hearing directly from the victims of the abuses by your own government. That human interaction converts an injustice from an abstraction into a deeply felt rage and disgust. That’s precisely why the U.S. media doesn’t air those stories directly from the victims themselves: because it would make it impossible to maintain the pleasing fairy tales about “who we really are.”
When I was in Canada in October, I met Maher Arar (pictured above) for the second time, went to his home, had breakfast with his wife (also pictured above) and two children. In 2002, Maher, a Canadian citizen of Syrian descent who worked as an engineer, was traveling back home to Ottawa when he was abducted by the U.S. Government at JFK Airport, heldincommunicado and interrogated for weeks, then “rendered” to Syria where the U.S. arranged to have him brutally tortured by Assad’s regime. He was kept in a coffin-like cell for 10 months and savagely tortured until even his Syrian captors were convinced that he was completely innocent. He was then uncermoniously released back to his life in Canada as though nothing had happened.
When he sued the U.S. government, subservient U.S. courts refused even to hear his case, accepting the Obama DOJ’s claim that it was too secret to safely adjudicate.
There are hundreds if not thousands of Maher Arars the U.S. media could easily and powerfully interview. McClatchy this week detailed the story of Khalid al Masri, a German citizen whom the U.S. Government abducted in Macedonia, tortured, and then dumped on a road when they decided he wasn’t guilty of anything (US courts also refused to hear his case on secrecy grounds). The detainees held without charges, tortured, and then unceremoniously released from Guantanamo and Bagram are rarely if ever heard from on U.S. television, even when the U.S. Government is forced to admit that they were guilty of nothing.
This is not to say that merely putting these victims on television would fundamentally change how these issues are perceived. Many Americans would look at the largely non-white and foreign faces recounting their abuses, or take note of their demonized religion and ethnicity, and react for that reason with indifference or even support for what was done to them.
I’m not so sure this is the case, and in any event, we can’t know unless we try.
Keeping those victims silenced and invisible is the biggest favor the U.S. television media could do for the government over which they claim to act as watchdogs. So that’s what they do: dutifully, eagerly and with very rare exception.
Watching television is easy and addicting, particularly if you came of age before the internet. Television news is simply horrifying. On those rare instances when I catch a glimpse of it at the gym, I feel as if I have entered a bizarro world of idiocy and shamelessness.
Nevertheless, it remains true that a lot of the pre-internet generation still receives intellectual marching orders from the idiot-box. This is why I’m so curious to see how the Washington Post poll splits by age bracket. Either way, hope is never lost and the torch of liberty must remain lit and carried forward by those who care. That’s precisely what I try to do here at Liberty Blitzkrieg, and I ask you to do the same in whatever capacity you can.
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Thats not torture. Public education is torture.
They put you in cells with other detainees and feed you obvious bullshit. If you protest or correct them, they induce the other detainees to ridicule, ostracize and physically assault you, then they send you to another cell with other detainees that do not respond to the conditioning. Over the extended period detainees adapt into terrified, violent, mindless, obedient yuppies. The most cooperative and useful of these brutes are recruited and rewarded to help manage the rest. Some get black uniforms, others suits. The least cooperative are sent away to be used for additional ceremonial abuse and target practice.
The baby elephant is restrained with a rope tied to a wood spike. The mature broken elephant continues to be restrained with the same device, even though it can easilly free itself. The indoctrinated serf is similarly restrained with periodic reminders of their conditioning through media and social agencies.
So you can see why "59% of Americans support torture". Because the poll numbers are absolute bullshit. You've all been conditioned to accept them prima facie. And you do.
Have you ever considered why all the cops (judges, bankers, authority figures) wear black uniforms?
A new poll shows that by doing slanted polls we can sway public thinking and change the way people think of a situation.
History shows that torture and absence of due process once accepted in a few cases eventually become mainstream and return to the population which enabled it.
"Nevertheless, it remains true that a lot of the pre-internet generation still receives intellectual marching orders from the idiot-box"
Many of those pre-internet children was involed in making the internet where 'we' could escape the idiot-box and enjoy a free medium to speak the truth and store information for humanity.
Instead it's turned into a large bill board selling and advertising foreign junk. With government and corporate controls truth has been squashed into politicol correctness, censorship and BS that now rivals the idiot-box.
Many of those pre-internet children was involed in making the internet where 'we' could escape the idiot-box and enjoy a free medium to speak the truth and store information for humanity. (sic - grammar and spelling errors are not my doing!)
Um, no. The internet was the child of DARPA-net, which was created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to facilitate the rapid exchange of information back in the days of snail mail and faxes. Although there was a brief period where the intertubes were a free medium to speak the truth, they quickly became overwhelmed by shills, trolls, and scams, and the majority of content moved to (it seems, anyway) porn.
you dumbasses keep thinking convoluted sophistry will repair this union to its former state as the beacon of freedom for the world(never happened) bathed in the glory of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, land of the free, home of the brave, all nonsense to keep you going to the mill every day while the .1% know the bottom half of the class rule the world. dumb people are good people. stupid people are strong people, ignorance is strength.......and so it is, isn't it?
war is peace
and
freedom is slavery
What's the difference between America and ISIS when it come to torture, beheading, bombing, raiding, killing peoples ?
One is supposed to be the good guy while the other is supposed to be the bad one...
Can't tell the difference now. Guess I will side with the "good" one since the media and the "society" tell me to do so.
Fascism is based on populism. Sad but true.
Bogeymen and Heretics are confortable targets; people different to mainstream and thus "forgettable".
Sons of Geronimo.
We never learn if those in power are capable of shutting down the knowledge meme.
You know why this is? Because Americans are just like all other people...they aren't 'exceptional' or special. When you strip away the tri-corner hats and waving flags, Americans are every bit as nasty and brutish as the rest of humanity.
No one tortures to get information. No one. People torture because they WANT to, they seek to degrade and punish, not to interrogate. The torturer KNOWS the 'info' his victim gives is useless, but doesn't care because the torture will be applied whatever he says. The torture itself is the aim, the information is just the excuse used to justify it.
When you agree to torture someone, you have already determined that they are guilty. So you are really just punishing them in a way you'd never get away with otherwise.
Proud of that, America?
Americans think that the stupidest things are the smartest things. They dream of being paid to do evil. It would satisfy their greed and confirm their smarts. Hollywood and Washington are mostly to blame.
Patrons of ZH & similar publications are the only hope for the US as they see the show behind the vale. 9/11 was an inside job, yet American's think it was Al-Qaeda (CIA black ops) a foreign terrorist group. The control of the media is so effective 90+% are dumb as sheep.
Were these the same 59% buying their new sneakers?
Maybe "torture" needs simpler definition?
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exceptional sickos.
what goes around comes around
Is it any surprise that those who elected the BushBama twins would condone torture? America is dead, long live Amerika.
They are part of Gruber's voting bloc (includes the core Obama/Bush cultists).
Muslim terrorists kill 120+ CHILDREN, set bombs to thwart their protection
AND WE THINK WATERBOARDING IS BAD?
If it were me, I would wrap piano wire around the genitals of the lowest potential informant and raise him up on a pulley and ask a few questions. No answer, raise him a little higher. No answer castrate the son of a bitch and then take the next highest target and start with him next to the guy laying on the ground next to his genitals.
That may or may not have happened. But if it did it happened it was in somebody else country. In the U. S of A Jewish terrorist killed children at Columbine, Sandy hook, Aurora and even a Congresswoman was attacked in Arizona. And Israelis murder children everyday in Israel.
We don't really know if the stories being reported in other countries are real or false but we do know that American children are being killed by Jewish terrorist.
Controlled media radiated at the populace results in a plague of unrelenting stupidity...
Lonely compass-less poll shmoes. Anybody with half a brain hangs up on the pricks, only those that still drink the KoolAid linger on the phone long enough hear the pitch.
Like everything else media reported, no credibility..........
And those with no land line are excluded. Which introduces a huge bias.
This looks like scientific polling but its built in biases make it a "push-poll"
What would be the result if they asked the question
"Do you support the CIA's use of torture to extract false confessions and make captives say what they want to hear from them?"
corrolary: One can't conclude anything about the American people from such a dishonestly framed poll.
By the way, would You support the use of torture to prevent the imminent blowing up of an orphanage for homeless young girls using a giant nail-bomb? With White Phosphorus nails? Would you? Huh???
And if the torture didn't prevent the blowing up of the orphanage and, in addition to the giant nail bomb and the torture, the special forces were sent to the wrong location and raided a Jewish synagogue and killed a wedding party of 91 Orthodox Jews, the men having curly sideburns, the women in wigs, and which included 2 certified lamed vov-niks?
What about that? Would you still use torture?
Huh?
If you defend "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" you need to be reminded that what we do to 5 terror suspects today we will do to millions of marijuana and jay-walking suspects tomorrow. That's how government rolls.
Pretty much correct, but the gov't will likely legalize marijuana to make room in the prisons for the increasing % of the population fed up with the acts of the elites.
Waterboarding should start with and be confined to bankers and arms merchants, then and only then, may things settle down. Don't blame the little guy....
Great! Since 59 % of americans agree torture is OK. Let's begin torturing americans!
The poll did not ask the right question.
"Americans" STRONGLY condemn the use of torture
by anyone except "Americans"
(or, of course, their "allied partners")
nazis ...
Why USSA aggression, torture and abuse is equated with Fascism I will never know. "Mericans are a people that, for example, prefer to adopt African Negro's to having their own children orhelping their own - that's not "Nazi" that Marxist, USSA is a Marxist state - like the old Soviet Union, where terrible torture occurred (check out the NKVD torture chamber in the Russian embassy in Paris when the Germans took France.)
I would have renounced my citizenship long ago and moved somewhere else.
Face it folks:
That is becoming an entirely valid path, as it can't be much worse in most other parts of the world.
You obviously have not traveled.
The shithole you believe America to be is heaven compared to 99% of the world.
well, just for starters,
the CIA, UN, and World Bank all separately list
a dozen nations with a higher GDP per capita than the US
(to say nothing about the top heavy US wealth distribution).
hmmm ... Detroit or that "shithole" Oslo ??
Your hubris is astounding.
Lived in 2 different European countries for 10+ years each, had long-term GFs from 3 continents... but yeah, if in doubt: "I know it all and the other person has no idea what s/he is talking about!"
Brutal Methods, Heinous Acts? ... Lets see, Waterboarding vs Decapitation ... I'll take the former
"Robs them of their humanity" vs Robs them of their life ... I'll take the former
Bear
'Do it to others or have it done to yourself'
You'll take the former, right?
This article is itself nothing more than propaganda. If everyone else in the US supports torture then if your one of us you will also.
I dont beleive that 59% of americans support torture. Maybe 59% of the cherry picked noecons selected for the "survey"do. But is that 100 people carefully selected for our "poll". BS disguised as information is still BS.
Bunch of grubers
I guess we should have asked them if they had anything to share, and when they said "no", we just let them go again.
And I hope the people who are in tears about the people who were 'tortured' are also infuriated about every. last. person. who has ever been killed in any war by any country ever? Death is worse than what we're calling "torture" here. Bullets in kneecaps, ripping off toenails and teeth, cutting off eyelids....ok, that is what I define as "torture", and that's my personal line. Other people think just being in 'jail' is torture. I'm pretty sure we have a grey area, and what we're calling 'torture' here is in my grey area, and thus I am not shedding crocodile tears for it.
Can I waterboard you ? Your wife ? Your children ? It's the USSA way !
Can I put you, your wife and your children in jail for no reason? Can I punch your wife and children in the arm? Having something be 'torture' has nothing to do with if I just willy-nilly want something done to myself, my wife or children. I don't want people to shoot a spit-ball at my wife or kid either, but I also wouldn't blink if a spitball was shot at a prisoner. ....your comment has no logic to it at all.
In the USSA the answers are : 1. Yes (just claim they are terrorist) 2. If the thugs want to punch you in the arm they will Willy Nilly ?? Look who's talking about logic ? Spitballs at prisoners ? Really ?
The 14 Characteristics of Fascism by Lawrence Britt
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/BRI411A.html
You might get something out of this link.
USA seems to have added a page to the book through $1 Trillion Dollar Budget for Black Budget Intelligence Programs, VA Benefits, Military Retirement, DoD Budget, USAID Budget, Secretary of State Budget, International Assistance Program, Grants & Construction in Foreign Countries for Dictator or Government... and other transactions from hidden Funding sources.
But mainly you have to see Trillions of Taxpayer money transferred to AT&T, Communications, Computer, Logistics, and military Corporations.
- US spent like $10 trillion in 12 years of war for MIC
- US Total Debt is $57 Trillion after being adjusted down this last quarter
- US GDP is fake since it includes financial transactions that don't add value to the Economy, Figure real GDP of $10 Trillion is 180% of Federal Debt, but with only 12 Million working in Manufacturing, and 92 Million people of working age not working
- 151 Million people receive some kind of assistance
All Employees: Manufacturing
2014-11: 12.2 Million down from 19 Million in 1980, so should be like 20 Million by 2014??
Given that all you need to know can be had
with common truth serums, in a matter of
hours, the point ( and cost ) of "torture",
rendition, etc... is what exactly???
Sounds like a dangerous make work project
for some of societies dereanged types... at
the cost of our citizens encountering "their"
deranged types...
People don't believe me when I tell them the end is near
Of course Americans approve. Having watched numerous documentaries that demonstrate, repeatedly, the efficacy of torture (think 24, or Homeland, as just two examples), how could they feel otherwise? Seven years of watching crypto-American Keifer sutherland torture and maim people to get information - and getting it! - have shown how well torture works. Same thing with illegal wiretaps, intercepting email, and recording cellphone conversations - the average American figures it works, so why not let the NSA/CIA/FBI/ABC/DEF/GHI/ETC use it as they want?
Don't tase me, bro!
ACTUALLY in 24 even Bauer's kid was tortured - I think this was meant to show how insane torture is and useless.
But like 1984 NOT being a how-to manual... it's easy for the Stupids to misunderstand it completely & for the overlords to twist every hidden message of sarcasm / irony / dark future into a real future.
even Bauer's kid was tortured
that fig leaf is too tiny
No it really isn't. No sane interpretation says let's go torture the son to find out what he knows even though his father is like their top agent.
The entire setup is to actually shove absurdity in your face.
The fact you can't actually see that is a testament to your own stupidity.
If I remember the season years ago... the person missing was his sister, Bauer's daughter.
The very purpose of the scene is to drive home the stupidity of the sheeple accepting torture as a thing that actually works or actually protects family, nation, etc.
It's always great to hear you know exactly how to interpret something,
plus expect everyone else to do in precisely the same way.
(I have never watched it, so it would be hard for me to see.)
But maybe someday you will understand that the Streisand effect is not the best way to prevent something from happening or an idea from getting into people's heads.
"Do NOT think about the yellow squirrel with the red backpack!"
Storywriters know that way too well, for you to try to explain it away after the fact.
1) that's not how the Streisand effect works. You literally must try to block a thing & observe it being spread further as a reaction to call it that. This doesn't apply to what was portrayed in 24 with Bauer's son being tortured by his own team aka friends.
2) I know precisely how to interpret things, which is why I'm a sane individual.
So just remember that when Americans are Tortured, Internation Courts decided that Torture was Wrong, Now The USA says it's Ok? So when war comes and Americans get Tortured remember it was You that Broke the rules. Why not now give out the Pain killers to the troops, cause they don't get treated good when they come back maimed.
Above the Law?
Yeah remember all those tortured Americans in Vietnam?
Vietnam's punishment is they don't get any Walmarts.
Remember all the tortured Americans by the Japanese in WWII?
Japans punishment is they get Walmarts.
... You haven't heard of the Milgram Experiment?
60% of the population will quite happily go along with anything that someone with "authority" tells them to do. Torture, murder. Whatever.
It truly SUCKS being in that 40% or 1%.
""If I give you a million dollars will you...""
Me: Fuck you.
Thinking for oneself at age 13: A blessing or A curse?
Well good, if I become president I'm gonna torture some folks. "OURS" Everyoone in Bush's and Obama's adminastration.
During WW2, the British would ensconse Nazi officers in nice environs, usually a secluded castle.
Unbeknownst to German officers, microphones were everywhere. The British knew that intelligence garnered from force was unreliable. Listening in, they got the real information as it was revealed in off-hand conversation.
Also, consider that in U.S. post Bill Clinton's communcication act, print media/radio/TV has consolidated into a few large privately held corporations. In turn, these corporations have cross directorates- so effectively they work as one voice.
Our media are presstitutes, and the public goes along because mostly they hear a single voice.
Our Republic is no longer a republic as the fourth estate (media) no longer functions as a bulwark of truth.
Post 16th, and 17'th ammendment, and Private Banker Credit money (FED), then IRS and Debt Hooks - the U.S. is a easily led democracy, which is led by money power. Private Oligarchy will preserve their status, even if it means war, and duping the easily duped Sheeple of America.
I can't cite my source on this, but in the late 1990s there was a study that showed that over 80% of Americans would eagerly kill a total stranger for $10,000 as long as they would be guaranteed no prosecution.
So, no surprise. We are truely a psychotic nation. And more than our share of cowards as well. I would say, roughly, 80%.
And fuck your little red arrows.
US gov: Eithers yer with us or yer with tha ter'rists!
US citizenisms: MOO
Mishun O-complished
Rectal feeding and the Murphy drip...so yesterday like 1999.
Rectal feeding is an emergency procedure people would do well to remember. Bear Grylls did it to himself on his survival show. US did this to keep the muslims alive, not as a torture, because they were trying to kill themselves on hunger strikes. That's how you administer feeding/drugs/etc when you can't/won't take something by mouth.
It's not torture, it's aggresive handling. I'm not joking, torture is thumb screws, the rack, burning people's eyes out with hot irons, fatal, destroying things.
What we did was work the fuck out of some deadly enemies, but not torture.
Sorry, it's a harsh world, the BEST you can hope for is aggresive questioning, the only alternative is true torture.
I don't have a problem with aggresive handling of people who would murder 3000 civilians for the crime of going to work one day.
Hadji didn't sign the Geneva conventions, so I fuck him, them, and anyone else who has a problem with it.
Boo fucking hoo... I got yelled at..... I didn't get enough sleep.... I want a special diet for my religion.....
You want to target civilians?
You want to die for your religion?
You can't be tough guys and pansie asses at the same time. Quit your bitching.
Well, all you pussies with the down votes might want to try some actual arguments! Come on, what ya got?!
You yanks are screwed, Wheres all your guns dipshits.
WHAT? 59% of Americans listen to or watch Fox News? :-)
America is now in national apostasy on a multitude of levels, the end of which is national ruin.
Hmmmmm
Water-boarding or drone strike????
Decisions, decisions...
Lets see, make my miserable for a little while of kill my family ... waterboard me
People really need to learn the difference between torture and discomfiture.
What treasonous a-holes would blab to the press about our enhanced interrogation techniques?
This is the right way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clb6bFlgTuk
Why have any courts or trials for anyone then?
Let's just assume every suspect is guilty and be done with this justice nonsense.
----
http://neweggalternative.com
That's what ISIS and the Taliban are doing already, so where's your outrage against them? Why only selective outrage against fighting back with one hand tied behind our back? You go fight if you think you can do better, show us how it's done. This is not a police action, this is war.
Both...and more.
Historical momentum...
the "Injuns" were the first anti american "terrorists".
I remember when there was a long list of differences between us and the Nazis.
The U.S. will never again win a war against a serious foe.
Hey Europe! The next tyrant you produce and world war you start......FUCK YOU! We won't be able to help next time.
Yeah, because America itself wouldn't dare submit to tyranny... or start a war. And our military industrial complex just can't wait to sit out the next global conflagration. Our war profiteers surely wouldn't want to get caught up in that one!
When are the fucking hypocritical pussies going to demand that the headhunter assholes provide humane treatment for innocent victims in MENA like the children in those Pakistan schools that were behaded and the teacher burned in front of their little eyes?
The surest sign we were winning the war in MENA was when the pussies start crying that we were being to mean to the bad guys because we were doing medically supervised waterboarding.
Waterboarding was not even classified as 'torture' until the muslim lobby demanded it from the dems. We did it to our own guys as part of their training. Pelosi, Harmon, and Rockefellar all approved the waterboarding, and more, before they put anti-waterboarding on their agenda.
Amazing how differnt the reactions were during the 70s by the American populace before and after the Church Committe hearings and all starting with the Pentagon Papers. Americans could at least pretend to hold the moral high ground even if their gov't did something else in private. Now they support torture apparently.
Americans have willingly voted away their rights since 9-11 and the irony is that there isn't going to be 'FEMA camps' and gov't tyranny. It will be something that occurs gradually over time with American citizens voting for it and supporting it nearly every step of the way as long as it is couched under 'security' and 'national defense' interests.
Arrogant ignorant exceptionalism.
59% of americans are fucking morons. They should stop calling themselves the land of the free and the home of the brave because they are anything but. America was the beacon now its the searchlight.
This torture report was released to be able to make changes in CIA leaderhip etc.
Otherwise, torture is legitimate for sure to get good info.
"Torture is legitimate for sure to get good info." --ivars
I bet you'll be saying all sorts of useful stuff, ivars, when you're tied up, beaten, being drowned, getting your balls crushed, having a knife rammed up under your fingernails, and getting ass-raped in front of your friends. Nothing but the pure truth then!
59% of Americans aren't pussies.
That's a feature, not a bug.
OK, so you’re dumb on many levels:
1. You support torture (i.e. you’ve lost your humanity)
2. You think torture works (that you can get reliable and valid data from torturing people – this has been proven wrong again and again. The US ‘intelligence’ community (should be called propaganda-, PSY-op- or intimidation-community) themselves know this. They’ve used torture as a method for decades, but the goal is not intelligence but coercion – making the potential consequences of rebellious act against the empire so frightening that most people will abstain)
3. You think the stated purpose of your government is equal to its actual purpose (the actual purpose being maintaining status quo = a militaristic empire that protects the ‘rights’ of the affluent 0,01%)
Sad.
Define "torture" you pussy!
Sun Tzu said that tactical information can only be had from men on the ground who know the enemy situaion. What do you have to say to that oh modern one?
Exactly....
Deprivation of sleep and eating to include water boarding is not torture! Militaries do this stuff on their own for training purposes...
the entire premise is just wrong/false!
..
2/3 support torture (surely one type of "terrorism", if that term has any meaning at all). Okay. Then they must add the following question:
Q: Assuming someone (anyone) in "authority" (including anyone who works in any position for any government) decides you might [someday] be a "bad guy", or might have helped a "bad guy", or might be inclined to help a "bad guy"... should the government torture you?
Because... anyone who actually supports torture, has to answer that question "yes", or they are a disingenuous liar. Which most humans are in spades.
A very thoughtful piece Mr. Krieger. I, like the rest of the 98% in the middle of the two extremes of pure evil and sainthood, am conflicted on the subject of "enhanced interogation."
Personally, I'd like to see Dick Cheney get a dose of his own medicine and find out what really happened on 9/11.
NO TORTURE. Extermination is justified, and most certainly for the most cruel predators like Cheney, but don't stoop to their level.
A bullet in the back of the head causes predators like Cheney no pain, but quite effectively stops him from harming others.
I understand the emotion, I really do, because some of these human predators really are almost evil beyond comprehension. And I even understand arguments like "he deserves it". But... don't join them, eliminate them.
I agree with your statement bu......
this is really stupid...just because some partisan hack cunt calls it torture does not make it torture.....
Waterboarding and deprivation of "things and senses" are not really torture and Americans do this stuff on their own Special Forces to train them for real torture....
Sheesh...
59% of americans should stop going to church.
Amen.
It's a poll. If you do not know by now that polls are utter bullshit, then you need to have your frontal lobes cleansed.
The vast majority of ordinary Americans DO NOT BELIEVE IN TORTURE.
"The vast majority of ordinary Americans DO NOT BELIEVE IN TORTURE." --Maltese Falcon
"Vast majority?" What percent would that be? Got any data to share? And what is an "ordinary American?" Care to clarify this? Pew has been polling torture attitudes since 2004, so what specific aspects of these surveys do you reject? Can you cite specific questions from these surveys that might use language to influence participants? Do you doubt the randomization?
If you reject the scientific validity of Pew's decade-long torture study, how did you come to contrary conclusions? Are your surveys more legitimate? Please detail the study you conducted in order to conclude that "the vast majority of ordinary Americans" are against torture.
Btw, my parents are classic neocon Christians, and when they tuned into Fox News to find out what their torture opinion should be, they quickly responded by ostentatiously displaying their disgust with any American who would dare criticize the use of torture. Our freedom is under attack, after all!
"Vast majority?" What percent would that be?
50.01%. It's a majority so we have a mandate.
Got any data to share?
You've got my educated guess.
And what is an "ordinary American?"
Go outside and get some fresh air once in a while. You'll find ordinary Americans doing the same.
Pew has been polling torture attitudes since 2004,
Pew has been supporting the liberal/social engineering agenda and ignoring ordinary Americans (see above) for a lot longer than that. Don't sell them short.
so what specific aspects of these surveys do you reject?
I reject anything that comes from "foundations" such as Pew. They have an agenda that runs counter to the interest of ordinary Americans (see above)
Do you doubt the randomization?
At least.
If you reject the scientific validity of Pew's decade-long torture study, how did you come to contrary conclusions?
I am unbiased without a pre-determined agenda and I know that people who believe in torture have been propagandized and are easily educated to reject it. Let's see Pew take up the mantle of education. Maybe they have and I've missed it. PBS, perhaps? Frontline? LOL.
Btw, my parents are classic neocon Christians, and when they tuned into Fox News to find out what their torture opinion should be, they quickly responded by ostentatiously displaying their disgust with any American who would dare criticize the use of torture.
Is Pew in favor of euthanasia? If so then you can feel good about applying it to your parents whenever you're ready.
Our freedom is under attack, after all!
Not by the people who got tortured, but by people like Pew and the agenda they support.
This report is all over the place wrong. There is absolutely no supporting evidence that any of this stuff is reality as it was thrown out from an extremely political stand point. The premise that techniques like "water boarding" is torture is a false premise. In addition, the other techniques that were used are hardly considered torture as most if not all of the discriptions are currently done to train American Special Forces... Do Americans torture their own military also?
The releasers say that nothing is to gain but they did not have any of the statements from people that did the techniques while many that have gone on television have said that mountains of information was gathered. In fact, Obama killed OBL through information garnered from his courier.
Bottom line is that Torture is bad but the premise of this subject is bullshit in that this stuff was and is not torture or the Americans would not do this to their own military through training exercises.
The brainwashing of so many citizens in Western countries is as a result of the direct influence of the cabal.
These days, people are more concerned with material wealth and status than they are with the welfare of their fellow citizens. Greed leads to a lack of compassion, and when government is run by psychopaths with no compassion whatsoever, the world is in trouble. The evil banksters have planned it this way, and a gullible public have lapped up the bread and circuses to such an extent that they happily go along with anything that their "leaders" propose. It is time for every individual to accept his responsibility in reversing this situation. This will require inner reflection, and a move away from selfish ego driven goals. If this can be achieved, the cabal can be defeated -they cannot succeed against a global consciousness raised to a level that cannot be challenged. We are getting nearer to this goal, as more and more people wake up.
One of those little runts just cheated me out of $20, right now I would personally torture him.