New polls [2] show that – even after the Senate torture report showed that torture is unnecessary and doesn’t work – Americans still think torture is necessary and works.
Why?
Because they still don’t know the truth [3] … because the mainstream media has hidden it from them [3]. Specifically, Americans still believe [4] that torture works to produce helpful intelligence that helps keep us safe.
Americans wouldn’t support torture if they knew the following facts, proven beyond any doubt:
- All of the top interrogation experts say that torture does NOT produce actionable intelligence [5] … even in a “ticking time bomb” scenario
- Torture doesn’t reduce terrorism. In fact, the opposite is true: it simply creates new terrorists and terrorist groups, including ISIS [6]
- Most of those tortured were completely innocent of any crime [7]. Children were tortured [7], too
- The specific type [8] of torture used by the U.S. is famous for producing FALSE evidence [8]
- People have known for thousands of years that torture – stripped of the torturer’s lies – is really just a way to create fear … i.e. a form of terrorism [9]. Indeed, America’s recently-leaked criteria [10] for putting people on the terror watchlist says torture is terror (page 47-48):
[11]
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[12]
- While the mainstream media gives overwhelming coverage to pro-torture guests [13], those people have a very strong incentive to lie. Specifically, virtually all of them are war criminals under international and U.S. law [7] who are afraid of being prosecuted for their creation and approval of the torture program. Indeed, many are calling for their prosecution [14], and a former top Air Force interrogator notes that government officials knew they are vulnerable for war crime prosecution [15]:
They have, from the beginning, been trying to prevent an investigation into war crimes.
- The Nazis used the same “Enhanced Interrogation” techniques [16] the U.S. did … and even CALLED IT the same thing
- The Founding Fathers were strongly opposed to torture … and enshrined a torture ban in the Constitution [17]
- This is not the first time America tortured. Americans [18] tortured [19] Filipinos [20] over a hundred years ago as a way to terrorize the population into submission. CIA torture in Vietnam [21] was so severe that most prisoners died during torture [22]; and the torture was so horrific [22] that those who didn't die during torture usually killed themselves soon after. Americans also taught the leaders of other countries how to torture [23]
- The detainees held up as “poster boy” justifications for torture actually prove the opposite [24]
(Note: Other polls reach very different conclusions [25] about Americans' acceptance of torture.)