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America's Regression
The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. . . . Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.
The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.
Convention Against Torture, signed and championed by Ronald Reagan, Article II/IV:
No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. . . Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law.
Public opinion about the use of torture remains divided, though the share saying it can at least sometimes be justified has edged upward over the past year. Currently just over half of Americans say that the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can either often (19%) or sometimes (35%) be justified. This is the first time in over five years of Pew Research polling on this question that a majority has expressed these views. Another 16% say torture can rarely be justified, while 25% say it can never be justified.
Just think about that. Torture is one of the most universal taboos in the civilized world. The treaty championed by Ronald Reagan declares that "no exceptional circumstances" can justify it, and requires that every state criminalize it and prosecute those who authorize or engage in it. But only 25% of Americans agree with Ronald Reagan and this Western consensus that torture is never justifiable. Worse, 54% of Americans believe torture is "often" or "sometimes" justified. When it comes to torture, the vast bulk of the country is now to the "right" (for lack of a better term) of Ronald Reagan, who at least in words (if not in deeds) insisted upon an absolute prohibition on the practice and mandatory prosecution for those responsible.
With these new numbers, it's virtually impossible to find a country with as high a percentage of torture supporters as the U.S. has. In Iran, for instance, only 36% believe that torture can be justified in some cases, while 43% believe all torture must be strictly prohibited. Similarly, 66% of Palestinians, 54% of Egyptians, and over 80% of Western Europeans believe torture is always wrong. The U.S. has a far lower percentage than all of those nations of individuals who believe that torture should always be prohibited. At least on the level of the citizenry (as opposed to government), we're basically the leading torture advocacy state in the world.
Adam Serwer says that this is "what happens when one party in a two party system makes something outrageous part of its political platform: Even the most abhorrent behavior can be mainstreamed." That's basically true, but even leaving aside the fact that many Democrats acquiesced to if not outright supported the same polices, this outcome is also attributable to our collective and very bipartisan decision not to investigate and prosecute the torture crimes that were committed. After all, how is it possible to credibly maintain that we believe torture is some sort of extreme crime and absolute evil when we sat by while our political leaders did it and now refuse to comply with our obligations to prosecute it? By doing that, aren't we implicitly though unambiguously conveying that, whatever our rhetoric, we don't really think torture is all that bad? We don't "Look Forward" when we think truly awful crimes have been committed; we Look Backwards (sometimes very far backwards) and prosecute them. Whatever else is true, that's the message most Americans have received and embraced: torture is not really worth prosecuting so it must not be truly heinous.
UPDATE: Several commenters raise the reasonable objection that today's 2009 Pew poll shouldn't be compared to the 2008 World Public Opinion poll I cited above because they ask different questions (the former measures the % who believe that torture "can never be justified" while the latter measures the % who believe that "all torture should be prohibited"). I think they're reasonably comparable, but even if one disagrees, the 2008 WPO poll finds that America has a higher percentage of people who believe that torture can be used on terrorists and/or used generally than all but a handful of countries in the poll.
As for the reason more Americans find torture justifiable than ever before, today's Pew poll finds that "both Democrats and independents have become more accepting of the idea that torture can be justified" and, worse: "47% of Democrats say torture can either often or sometimes be justified -- more than in any previous Pew poll." Meanwhile, Republican support for torture has remained fairly steady (67%). Thus, the increase in support for torture among Americans this year is largely due to increased acceptance among Democrats and, to a lesser degree, independents (h/t sysprog; see p. 52 of the Pew Report)
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126 Comments so far
Show AllDear Mr. Glenn Greenwald,
Again, a fine article and wonderful insight and analysis.
I wonder what the results of a poll would be if the question was:
Is it OK to torture Americans?
Yes. Indeed.
I more or less had the same thoughts. It occurred to me that Americans are very very low on the list of citizens getting tortured around the world. I wonder how that poll would change if more Americans were getting tortured by the military or governmental agencies of other countries. I see the results of this poll as quite telling: brown-skinned people from countries thousands of miles away don't matter to Americans.
You've obviously never had to watch "American Idol".
Touche.
I was watching some sci-fi show on TV last night and the heroes of the show engaged in euthanasia of "really dangerous" people. This is the slide that America is currently engaged in. Your average teenager in America should well realize that any atrocities can be justified based on your perceived fear. You must condition yourself to relate to protagonists who engage in "euthanasia". This takes the whole revenge thing to a new level. Like I have said before, we could well make nazi Germany look like a walk in the park.
The lucidity of your comment has unsettled me. I truly hope we will have different viewpoints expressed in the mass media so we can avert your plausible prognostication.
I'm certain a poll of Green Party voters would show an almost complete condemnation of all forms of torture.
Such a poll should be taken and the results made public so the population can see there's at least one party that believes in upholding our treaties, law and basic human decency.
The same would go for libertarians and Ron Paul supporters if not more so.
Some of them would proably say it was OK to torture government workers. In the libertarian world, people who work for the government are suspicious characters.
And of course, the libertarians also believe it is the right of a person to set up a system with their friends, where poeple are forced to sell their labor to him at the lowest possible price - undercutting their fellow workers in a race to the bottom - or face starvation. They can also be made to work for him in all sorts of dangerous conditions where they face a high risk of dying on the job - but once again, the only other choice is starvation. The purpose of all of this being that this person and his friends get very rich buying this labor, because the fruits of their labor can be sold for much, much higher price!
And they then say such a system is "non-coercive", but laws that prevent such forms of virtual slavery are "coercion" by "big government".
I would like to see the poll results broken down by race, ethnicity, male/female and educational level. I would suspect that the largest group approving of torture would be white males (who as a group have never faced torture or other human rights violations. I would suspect that groups who had experienced torture at the hands of any authority anywhere in the world would be very unaccepting of any form of torture. By the same token, I would suspect that the greater the educational attainment, the less approving one would be (certain degrees excepted (MBA, JD, etc.)). It should also be noted that most of these polls never query the homeless, the jobless, or those who just don't appear to be worth interviewing. They often take place in suburban malls.
I was thinking something similar, ppeters. It isn't surprising that people who live in countries where torture can be routine are opposed to it, just as it (sadly) isn't surprising that a nation that only experiences torture on TV and in movies thinks it might be a good idea.
Charles Bukowski, in talking about the rich on Rodeo Drive, said that "the problem with these women is that their cities have never been bombed," and I think he sums up the problem nicely. If your only experience of horror is virtual, of course you have no problems with horror.
That makes me wonder what kinds of real horrors it will take to wake USAmericans up from this nightmare of apathy.
Since USA officials still allow renditions, I hope they would not object to themselves being rendered to the ICC.
Everyone knows that torture produces unreliable information...people will say whatever they think you want to hear to make it stop. This has been known for centuries. That isn't why our "leaders" are doing this.
This is a device for domestic control. If the American populace knows the authorities are capable of torturing you they are much more likely to put their heads down and move along.
This is also the underlying rationale for the massive police presence at party conventions.
Intimidate the people. Keep them docile. And afraid.
We've come to a real dark place when RONALD REAGAN can be considered a defender of human rights.
generalcommentator-
Your point is well articulated by Naomi Wolf in her book, "The End of America."
I highly recommend it.
There is another very plausible motive for the introduction of torture into the "war on terror" by the Bush administration. To obtain confessions for the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist incidents. Since torture victims will confess to anything, the Bush gang was thus guaranteed to find people who would confess to 9/11. The government's case against Khalid Sheik Mohammad rests on nothing but confessions given under torture. Without torture, the US government would have no one to prosecute. Think about it.
Exactly, Clovis.
Khalid Sheik Mohammad was water boarded 183 times. Shit, I have no problem admitting I would have most likely crumbled before that. Don't Americans consider the possibility that KSM very well may have decided to say whatever they wanted to hear sometime around number 180 or 181?
Do we have an admission of 9/11 guilt or an act of desperation to end the torture?
Hey . . . that gives me an idea! Let's water board Cheney and Rumsfeld 183 times regarding THEIR role in 9/11. I see new confessions!!
This is gonna be one scary country when it finally all comes tumbling down. Perhaps we should make being a republican a felony.
I had the misfortune of having to listen to several episodes of "24" while putting one of my patients to bed each night. I could avoid looking at the TV screen but I couldn't close my ears. That program, apparently very popular, has been filled with torture and specious justifications for it. It's all part of the conditioning process of the American public. It looks as though "24" and all the other violent programming has done the job it was intended to do. We even have a program with a serial-killer hero now.
There are 2 television channels worth watching; Free Speech TV and Link. The rest is garbage (except one hour a week on PBS when Bill Moyers is on). If you want to keep your sanity, not to mention your soul, the first thing you have to do is quit watching the brain-killing machine.
sierra7
My sentiments exactly! I watched only two or three "24" episodes; couldn't stand them at all...pure, absolutely PURE propaganda!
But, except for the extreme attitudes towards "terrorists" not too different from the sit-coms of post WW2 depicting such pure "family" programs showing the "foursome" family, mom, dad, two children (oops, forgot FIDO).
This is all the game of "necessary illusions" created by the interconnected political contollers, (fear not, they do exist) and purveyed by the major media, albeit paper, airwaves, wireless, or whatever media process.....construct an illusion of exceptionalism so as to provide the ruling class (horrors of horrors! A Marxian term!) "reasonable" control of the common folk.....
Most Americans are too bewildered and "brain dead" to even come to terms with the destruction of our country.
Ben Franklin said it well:
"You now have a Republic; IF you can keep it!"
"pure, absolutely PURE propaganda!"
how many of the Creationists thought the Flinstones were documentaries?
And unfortunately, Moyers is leaving.
Republican support for torture is stable, but Democrat/Independant torture support is moving closer to the Republicans...interesting.
Of course everyone here knows that Obama, who many somehow believed was in favour of accountability and open government, just recently gutted the freedom of information law that Americans put in place after the watergate crimes. The Democrats with Republican support did this first and foremost to prevent the disclosure of evidence of widespread torture by the US government.
So with Obama leading the way...what could you have honestly expected other than a further descent into barbarism?
WHAT.SO.EVER.
Can we finally put to rest the myth that the USA is a "nation of laws"?
If those who use torture changed the law first to permit it, that would be bad enough but it would be legal.
USAcorp's disregard for the Constitution and continuing protection of traitors makes a lie of all that civics class crap about citizenship.
Americans are corporate subjects, not citizens.
We should bury that myth, but we won't. Just as we won't bury the myth that the USA is a civilized society when the majority of our population enthusiastically supports the killing of our own citizens. More Americans support the death penalty than the citizens of just about any other country, with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia. Our support for torture is similarly far higher than any other supposedly civilized country and, indeed, higher than some pretty nasty dictatorships (almost all of which are our BFFs and many of which provided the black sites for our CIA to torture their prisoners).
Stupid is as stupid does!
Americans are what they are!
It's enough to make you question evolution, enit?
Thanks to the MSM, propaganda networks such as Fox and Clear Channel, Hollywood terrorist chasing shows, and Obama's failure to pursue tortures (and sometime hide evidence), we have become a nation supportive of torture.
Sibling Incest?
The other notable nation which comes closest to the United States of Global Domination in the attitudes of their public (that I know of) is England.
I find myself wondering what is it in the character of these sibling nations (the U.S. supposedly "cherishes" the same background as, and has largely modeled itself on, the English) which leads to such callousness?
I know both nations have a long history of thinking of themselves in terms of exceptionalism.
Other than the fact that there is a contagious aspect, it almost seems like a genetically transmitted mix of callousness, ignorance, and willful pride.
I wonder if it is connected to their love of Dogmatic religions.
Is it in the global domination by the language?
Is it that both of these nations depend upon their physical isolation?
Whatever the source, this shared condition(ing?) may never be pinpointed, but I believe it is our greatest flaw.
Have we all just become the bastard children of the "Queen?"
The IMAGES of wealthiness, pretentious circumspection, and power are what is most important to the so-called leaders in both countries.
The English were always resistant to the "Enlightenment" thinking (Too French!) which was really THE core of the foundation of the U.S. and which the U.S. has, especially in the past 60 years, increasingly abandoned.
We are now in the midst of the "offspring" of their illicitousness.
p.s. Look at how the behavior of their representatives from what might be called the people's party, "LABOR", (Blair and now Brown) are so quick to promote the thinking and policies of their supposed opposition. They act the same as the fraudulent democrats in this nation.
Nope sorry. You don't get to blame the Brits for this.
If you look at the World Public Opinions poll that Greenwald linked, 82% of Brits believe that ALL torture should be prohibited. ALL torture, no exceptions. Same with France and Spain, 82% believe that ALL torture should be prohibited.
US? 53%. Which is BELOW the average of 57%.
The laws against torture of detainees and moral justification for torture of detainees are different. Also, torture of detainees held as suspected terrorists and torture by, e.g., serial killers are different. The polls don't seem to make these distinctions.
I agree with Greenwald about the coarsening of American opinion on torture, but I'm sure it concerns torture of terrorist suspects, serial killers, etc., being questioned. On the other hand, after studying this for some time, it became clear to me that the laws banning torture of detainees have nothing to do with possibly justified torture of suspected terrorists (the so-called "ticking bomb" exception).
It's now becoming clear that the laws against torturing detainees were, and still are, window dressing designed to dissuade countries who might take custody of U.S. citizens from torturing them, and secondarily to make the U.S. look less harsh to its own citizens and internationally than it actually is. In that cause, the sacrifice of a few lower-level operatives, not Bush administration officials who authorized torture, has occurred. It's clearly counterproductive to keep knocking at Obama's door about this. The effort to instigate prosecutions of officials who trashed the anti-torture laws should be directed at individuals and groups with power to act upon complaints about torture -- prosecutors, grand juries, law enforcement agencies.
-It's now becoming clear that the laws against torturing detainees were, and still are, window dressing designed to dissuade countries who might take custody of U.S. citizens from torturing them, and secondarily to make the U.S. look less harsh to its own citizens and internationally than it actually is
I strongly suspect this is correct. Of course there are "true believers" in the US, when it comes to justice, human rights, the laws etc, but if they were the drivers of US policy, as opposed to cover for the real aims, America wouldn't be doing the unspeakable things they are doing.
The poll question refers explicitly to the justification of torture of suspected terrorists:
"Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?"
The complete report is at http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/569.pdf.
John Mitchell December 4th, 2009 6:06 pm -- You're right. But the question doesn't state whether the justification is presumably moral or legal. I would prefer that the following two questions be asked (my emphasis added):
(I) "Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified UNDER EXISTING LAW?"
(II) "Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information is MORALLY justified often, sometimes, rarely, or never?"
Of course, we who have studied this know the answer to (I) is "never justified." I'll bet most of the respondents didn't know this, especially if they've been listening to Dick Cheney. If they knew it, some might have answered that torture is never justified instead of, for example, that it sometimes is. Quite a few people will presume that a law properly reflects moral principles.
Bill from Saginaw perceptively noted earlier that the poll question is loaded; it presumes "important information" can be "gained" by torture, which is Dick Cheney's claim. I have yet to see any persuasive evidence that this claim is correct. And so another question would be:
(III) "Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists has resulted often, sometimes, rarely or never in gaining important information that could not have been gained without the use of torture?"
Now, the poll results have been used by Greenwald and those of us following and responding to his observations to make a judgment about the character of people who answered the question one way or another. I maintain that one can't begin to properly assess the character of people on this issue until one considers the answers to questions like those I've stated. Someone who answers (III) "never" but still answers (I) or (II) "rarely," "sometimes," or "often" must be totally lacking in moral scruples (in addition to being ignorant of the law). But someone who answers (III) "often" while answering (II) "rarely," "sometimes," or "often" might be morally challenged -- more so if they think it's often justified -- but not totally without moral scruples.
I'm reluctant to condemn 54%, or any large percentage, of U.S. respondents without looking into these nuances.
manning120: I agree that your questions are more precise, and would be preferable to the question asked by the Pew Research Foundation. You can write them a letter suggesting that they use your questions. Who knows, maybe they'll do it.
I suspect, though, that most respondents considered the question to refer to moral, not legal justification. When people are asked a question of the form "Do you think something-or-other is justified", they probably assume that they're being asked about their personal opinion, not about the law.
And even if the form of the question misled respondents into believing that torture is an effective way to gain useful information, I still think the only morally correct response is "never justified". Whether the 54% are ignorant of the law, or wrongly believe in the effectiveness of torture in eliciting useful information, or are morally bankrupt, it seems to me that there's reason to criticize them.
I think it boils down to the simple fact that Americans have been scared out of their wits, and this, combined with the fact that they don't have to deal personally with the effects of torture, leads to a cavalier acceptance of torture as a tool in keeping them safe (in their opinion).
John Mitchell December 5th, 2009 4:25 pm -- You say,
"And even if the form of the question misled respondents into believing that torture is an effective way to gain useful information, I still think the only morally correct response is 'never justified.'"
To put it another way, you're saying that if Dick Cheney was proven correct -- if the credible evidence showed that torture, and only torture, produced information that led to the saving of numerous lives -- morality still bars use of torture. This gets us to the philosophical question of whether pragmatism has any role in morality.
Immanuel Kant claimed that morality forbids lying to a murderer who comes to your door asking for the location of his intended victim. This flows from the general principle that moral actions do not derive their worth from the expected consequences. Many thinkers have parted ways with Kant on this, including me. I don't have trouble with not only lying to, but affirmatively misleading, the would-be murderer. On the other hand, I don't accept a coldly utilitarian argument like that of Steven Pinker, who has presumed that morality tells us to sacrifice a single person if that would save five from death by a runaway trolley. I suggested changing the trolley example by letting the one to be sacrificed for the five be your own child, and the five be strangers. I don't think morality requires the sacrifice of the child.
Nonetheless, I think morality does require both maintaining awareness of consequences, and weighing consequences to determine which, in this case the death of many innocents or the torture of one suspected terrorist, would be morally better.
That being said, the lack of proof that torture has led to valuable intelligence from terrorists causes me to come down on the side of not torturing. However, as I've frequently said, it's hard to argue with the German police official who was prepared to torture a kidnapper to elicit disclosure of the location of his victim, in the hope of reaching the victim before his death. In that well-known case, the victim was located due to the illegal threat the police made to torture him, although unfortunately the victim was already dead.
manning 120: In weighing the potential consequences of torture, under the hypothetical assumption that it can elicit information that can be used to save innocent lives (an assumption which neither of us accept), if the only consequences one considers are the death of innocent victims of terrorism versus the possibility of torturing an innocent person (say, an Afghan taxi driver sold to American soldiers for a $10,000 bounty), one might conclude that the torture is justified. But this ignores an important consequence of torture: history shows that regimes that systematically make use of torture inevitably descend into a state of totalitarian barbarity.
I don't pretend that such moral issues are easy to decide. The book "Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong" by Marc Hauser discusses several variations on the trolley experiments you mention. One of the most interesting findings of those studies is that, although people generally make quick and intuitive moral judgments, few of us can state coherent reasons why those judgments are justified. Hauser points out a crucial distinction regarding the morality of decisions to do harm in order to prevent greater harm: whether or not the doing of harm is intended or merely "forseen". Torture clearly falls into the "intended" category.
John Mitchell December 6th, 2009 4:17 pm -- You point out that, assuming torture of detainees can work, if the only consequences one considers are the death of innocent victims versus the possibility of torturing an innocent person, "one might conclude that the torture is justified." But, you continue, this ignores the historical fact that regimes that systematically use torture descend into "totalitarian barbarity."
This argument has some merit. On this theory, the analysis for 9/11 would be that, assuming torture at least might have saved the 3,000, their loss would be better than the U.S. descending into barbarity as a consequence of a policy authorizing torture of detainees. Previously I've addressed this (again, assuming that torture might rarely work) by insisting that it be used only under strict, internationally accepted and supervised guidelines, which would include mechanisms for determining beyond a reasonable doubt that the sought-after information could be obtained from the suspect and would allow thwarting the terrorist operation.
I confess to believing that in very rare circumstances, torture of a detainee, like the torture of a kidnapper in a similar case to the incident in Germany, might work. Although I find this relevant to evaluating the moral uprightness of someone who answered the poll question by saying torture is at least rarely justified, it's really irrelevant to the real world unless and until the hypothesis that torture sometimes can work is established, and the controls and guidelines I suggested are adopted.
I don't understand your "analysis of 9/11" in your second paragraph.
In any case, my point was that I don't believe that the use of torture can be controlled, or used under "strict, internationally accepted and supervised guidelines." In my opinion, torture is inherently barbaric and degrading to both the tortured and the torturers; it cannot be neatly contained.
Shakespeare wrote that the quality of mercy "is twice blest: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes." We can invert that to say of torture, "It is twice cursed; it curses him that gives and him that takes."
John Demanjuk, who may or may not have been a guard in a German prison camp during WWII is now going on trail for his alleged actions. He has been deported from this country and is now on trial in a court of law. He didn't order anyone to torture anyone else, he was just "following orders", which we ALL know, since WWII, is NOT an excuse. Those who issued those orders were found guilty and hanged.
Why is it that those in OUR gov't, who PROSECUTED those who issued those orders during WWII, can't see that our "leaders" are just as guilty if not MORE SO than Demanjuk is, as they issued those orders themselves?
We signed treaties that made such acts illegal throughout the whole world, and within 20 years, shit all over them, as well as our own constitution. We have destroyed the very basis of our own country for the political gain of a few very sick and twisted people. The fact that the media hasn't pointed out that we have prosecuted people and executed them for the very things that W and Cheney et al did in OUR names.
It's time for an independent investigation, and prosecutions all around for the entire GD W administration. Without it, and I have been saying this for years, now, we are NOT a country anymore. With no respect for law at the very top of our society, we are finished as a country. We are being run by pirates, nothing more. The fact that Obama and his "justice" dept won't do what is required by law and by treaty shows that we have NOTHING to brag about as a country anymore.
US Government : DO AS WE SAY, NOT AS WE DO.
One point I don't think Mr. Greenwald really touches on is the "fear factor." Americans are conditioned to be terrified. If you live in a country where you believe you are under a constant threat of being blown up or murdered by terrorists, illegal-aliens, gangs, black people, Vanilla Ice, Islamists, communists, socialists, anarchists, Somali pirates, etc... then you are going to be much more likely to condone torture. After all, from your perceptions your life may very well depend on it. This is the same country that didn't laugh in hysteria when Ronald Reagan told us with a straight-face that the Nicaraguan army was just a couple days march from Texas. I would argue these same people who advocate torture are probably good people and not dissimilar from any of us or any of the people in other countries who are anti-torture. They just need to be helped to see that the fears they are being constantly fed from television, church, the radio, billboards, etc... are not real.
Then why, for example, do Europeans who are much closer (in proximity) to the perceived threats hold views that oppose torture in all it forms. I think you are creating excuses for (54%)Americans who are adults and should know better.
EXACTLY.
it is giving too much credit to americans' being the "victims" of fascistic corporate rulers -- when in fact Americans themselves are PART of what brought that system around.
this is so simple - EITHER YOU CONDONE or yoU DON'T CONDONE TORTURE - for ANY reason.
NOT even for your or your loved ones' safety.
TORTURE is TORTURE. it is EVIL and you don't make excuses for it.
What do you mean by Americans brought the system around? As in Americans voted for candidates that enacted the torture policies? Hahaha... That is like pinning the problems of the Iranians on the way the people of Iran voted and not the theocracy. America is a democracy in name only. Just as in Iran the candidates are vetted by the theocracy, in America candidates are vetted by capital. The population has much less input on policy than you are giving them credit for. The political arena is supposed to be watched like a spectator sport by the population; we aren't supposed to participate. That goes back to the origins of the framing of the Constitution. Furthermore, we have almost no input on the institutions of manipulation and control that exist within the media. You can't expect a vast majority of people who have been educated their whole lives to worship at the altars of institutions and media outlets that promote fear mongering to somehow figure out for themselves that the fears they are being fed are BS. I agree with your position on torture. But, don't preach to me... Preach to someone who has the other position.
I think you answered the question yourself... do Europeans "perceive" terrorists or Iranian missiles, or communists, or socialists, any whatever else we are conditioned to be afraid of, to be the biggest threat to the world??? No. Europeans in poll after poll after poll perceive the AMERICANS to be the biggest threat to the world. You can pin that on the actual people of America... I don't know what good that would do. That will just further balkanize the population. I think it would be a much better use of our time to attempt to educate the people who are educable, and start working to fix the institutions that foster, promote, and manufacture the "perceived" threats.
". You can pin that on the actual people of America... I don't know what good that would do. That will just further balkanize the population. I think it would be a much better use of our time to attempt to educate the people who are educable,"
How do you propose to fix the problem, if you either won't acknowledge that there is a problem, that is ~50% of Americans supports torture, such as some posters on CD (still) do, or you make excuse after excuse for why the problem exists?
"and start working to fix the institutions that foster, promote, and manufacture the "perceived" threats."
There will ALWAYS be people who use the promotion of fear to get power, to achieve their own ends. This is the case all over the world. For example, in Switzerland, the right wing promotes fear of Islam to get power, the recent minaret ban, never mind that only a small minority of Swiss are Muslim, and only a small minority of those Swiss Muslims are actual practicing Muslims. In fact, the (far) right all over Europe engages in the usual fear-mongering about Muslims that the right in the US engages in.
Yet, most Europeans do not support torture.