The Mushroom Cloud Thinking Fostered By Our War on Terror
Foreign Policy has a must read article describing how much more support for torture there is now than there was when it was the affirmative policy of our country.
Respondents in 2012 are more pro-waterboarding, pro-threatening prisoners with dogs, pro-religious humiliation, and pro-forcing-prisoners-to-remain-naked-and-chained-in-uncomfortable-positions-in-cold-rooms. In 2005, 18 percent said they believed the naked chaining approach was OK, while 79 percent thought it was wrong. In 2012, 30 percent of Americans thought this technique was right, an increase of 12 points, while just 51 percent thought it was wrong, a drop of 28 points. In 2005, only 16 percent approved of waterboarding suspected terrorists, while an overwhelming majority (82 percent) thought it was wrong to strap people on boards and force their heads underwater to simulate drowning. Now, 25 percent of Americans believe in waterboarding terrorists, and only 55 percent think it’s wrong. The only specific interrogation technique that is less popular now than in 2005, strangely enough, is prolonged sleep deprivation.
I actually find that last statistic–that people oppose the one torture technique we still use more than they did in 2005–rather interesting. There really hasn’t been any outcry about our “isolation” treatment, which can include sleep deprivation and sensory manipulation. Nevertheless, that’s the only thing people are more opposed to than they used to be.
But I’m just as interested in FP’s throwaway question, showing that a quarter of Americans would support nuking terrorists.
A quarter of all Americans are willing to use nuclear weapons to kill terrorists. No joke. This was among many surprising findings in a new national poll that YouGov recently ran for me on hot-button intelligence issues. (The poll, conducted between Aug. 24 and 30, 2012, surveyed 1,000 people and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points).
To be honest, I threw in the nuclear bomb question on a lark, not expecting to find much. Boy, was I wrong.
Now, I don’t think we’re about to drop any nukes on Waziristan anytime soon (though now that we’ve improved our bunker busters, I don’t guarantee we wouldn’t use them the next time someone hides in a place like Tora Bora). I assume these 25% are just crazies who don’t think about much beyond force.
But consider what it says about the general mood in this country, 11 years after 9/11, that a quarter of the country would consider both violating all norms of civility that have grown out of WWII and killing lots and lots of innocent civilians to take out a few terrorists.
That’s the background lurking behind our drone debate, I think. I’m not saying that drone supporters are this idiotic. I do take their discussion of “surgical strikes” in good faith, regardless of how questionable that claim can be in light of our dodgy intelligence and use of signature strikes. And no matter how hard they have to twist to claim the drone strikes are legal, I also believe that is also good faith argumentation.
What I am suggesting is that the underlying mood in this country is such that low information citizens embrace astounding views. In the same way that lots of dog whistle racism from the elite encourages birthers to sustain outrageous beliefs, so too does the assumption that our best weapon against terrorism is force permits people who don’t think things through to believe that nukes would ever be an effective–much less appropriate–response to terrorism.
Well…the leadership of both major political parties have spent the last 11 years raising the alarm of a (non-existent) existential threat to the United States. War and more war. Drones and more drones. The USA PATRIOT Act. Warrantless wiretaps. Indefinite detention. Pledges to “do whatever is necessary.” When that’s how the leaders (right up to and including the right wing Nobel Peace Prize winner in the White House) “lead” for more than a decade, is it any wonder that in response to the (non-existent) existential threat to our nation that people follow?
Define “low information voters.” What you’re talking about is voters that are chock full of information. The official information. The information that…well…let’s just look at how it was done in another democracy:
That’s what was happening under Bush. Under Obama we now have another “war president” whose campaign is largely based not on 2008’s false promise of change but on being the more ruthless and effective killer. And Democrats eat it up.
Without a counterpoint in the leadership of either party to offset, of course the opinions have drifted even more to the pro-nuke, pro-torture mindset. That’s what happens when two parties get together and decide that fear makes the best politics.
Low information voters? No. Voters that are processing exactly the info that our leaders give them in exactly the way our leaders want it processed. A pox on both parties.
I get your drift EW but I feel there has to be an element of humane bankruptcy in the nation when the attempted murder on a Congress woman creates more of a stir than the unflinching claim by a SoS that the death of over 500,000 children was worth a lie.
There is an element of moral abnegation when someone walks into a theater and takes the lives of others on his own terms and the act is rightly denounced and mourned but the President reserves the right to do the same and this is published and accepted as a show of strength.
[quote]Now, even as we learn how this happened and who’s responsible, [b]we may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this. Such violence, such evil is senseless.[/b] It’s beyond reason. But while we will never know fully what causes somebody to take the life of another, we do know what makes life worth living. The people we lost in Aurora loved and they were loved.[/quote]
That’s how the President addressed the nation only some days after the Kill List article was published in the NY Times. Can no one see the hypocrisy?
I don’t get it, we are talking about human beings. Where’s the information deficit in that?
[post]Hmm I fail at formatting, any help?
Of course she withheld the instrument. Did any questions ask if torture was legal? Or whether the state should break the law? Bet you they never said the words. This is propaganda polling, designed to make torture a matter of lifestyle and self-expression, and to get a show of hands to justify government breaches of jus cogens. That’s how torturers and criminal aggressors can plausibly claim that there’s no relevant law, only policy.
I note that the article doesn’t give the actual numbers for the one “technique” for which support is dropping. This leaves open a rather simple explanation: that support for sleep-deprivation used to be much higher than that for keeping-people-naked or waterboarding, and that support for sleep-deprivation is merely “regressing” towards the levels of support for other “techniques.”
If I’m correct, then this could be further explained in at least two ways. First, it could represent a growing understanding of the damaging effects of sleep-deprivation, which I would take as a good thing (even if the rest of the data are rather disheartening). Second, it could represent a lack of interest in the topic, with people giving more similar answers across the board to all such questions, maybe because they just don’t want to think about it deeply, which I would take as a bad thing.
In any event, I am not at all surprised that support for torture is growing. Not only do more people have dissonance to deal with, since pretty much all of us have now voted for a guy who at least condones retroactively the practice, but people just can’t maintain outrage for a decade and start rationalizing acceptance. Thus, the American public is almost ready for the next step “up” in this spiraling descent. What that will be I can only guess at, but I know it won’t be pleasant.
Gee, does anybody start these surveys out with the disclaimer, “Now keep in mind we do NOT have energy independence…” before asking these type of questions? Or, “Any torture we commit puts our armed services at greater risk in their efforts to promote democracy and fight terror.”
Sheeze.
And what about live burial being asked in the poll?
@JTMinIA:
“…people just can’t maintain outrage for a decade and start rationalizing acceptance. Thus, the American public is almost ready for the next step “up” in this spiraling descent. What that will be I can only guess at, but I know it won’t be pleasant.”
Spot on.
Does anyone else think the [linked FP article] paragraph that begins with
…is a little dodgy? I’m not really understanding why this second possible “reason” for
…is dismissed.
@JTMinIA: Thanks–I did think about that after I posted, but I much prefer to have a stats guy explain what might be behind it.
I’m not saying that drone supporters are this idiotic. I do take their discussion of “surgical strikes” in good faith, regardless of how questionable that claim can be in light of our dodgy intelligence and use of signature strikes. And no matter how hard they have to twist to claim the drone strikes are legal, I also believe that is also good faith argumentation.
There are three mistakes in that paragraph: they are; you shouldn’t; and it’s not.
@Roman Berry: BINGO!
And, imho, this is not an issue in which to exercise or grant “good faith” exceptions. Those who would rationalize drone violence are doing just that – rationalizing violence, the FACTS of which are established and undeniable. To argue that because drone strikes kill fewer innocent people they are better completely elides the real issue.
As for the “legality” of them, isn’t that the same excuse used for the lack of prosecutions on Wall Street. For Obama (following and expanding on Bush’s murderous agenda) to declare something is legal and thus avoid testing the legality in a court of law is as undemocratic as it gets. We should also remember that our murderer-in-chief stated forthrightly that Bradley Manning “is guilty” before his trial even started. Legally, isn’t that grounds for impeachment?
What does “legal” even mean anymore in a culture as craven and debased as ours?
A couple of ways to look at this: (A) These are the views of a mere 1,000 people (out of 320 million). (B) That there are more than 2 or 3 knuckleheads who believe in torture — because they think it works or because, like the sociopaths who waterboarded a suspect 183 times for fun — is plain depressing.
Either way, given the public’s lack of information and control over what the government’s doing in its name, does it matter? Does Congress which, as a whole, supports the unlawful treatment of suspects, represent the people, or is it just a question of Americans’ being too busy with the humdrum of daily life to get their representatives to advocate different policies? Finally, if pro-torture advocates have their way — the treatment is lawful as well as effective — how long before police departments will be cleared to use it?
I’m not sure that this is necessarily a ‘War on Terror’ issue. It would be helpful to know how many of these 25% believe that Obama is a “crypto-Muslim” and there is plot underway to impose “Sharia by Stealth” on America. Perhaps these 25% represent white rural Christians who have gone off the deep end after the election of Obama and have reverted to traditional/pre-modern Christian apocalyptic thinking.