A significant majority of Americans think torture of prisoners held at Gitmo was justified.
I think +Steven Flaeck has it right below — a goodly chunk of that derives from the politicization (as with everything else) of the torture debate. This isn't just a matter of some simple policy matter, though; one can admit one's favorite politician or party or administration is wrong on gay marriage or deregulation or climate change but still think they are an okay person; it's a lot harder to say, "Yeah, he favors torture, but aside from that he's okay." It's sort of like, "Well, aside from the occasional child molestation, he's a great guy to go on vacation with."
Cognitive dissonance becomes resolved by calling it not-torture, or by latching onto vague claims of how useful it was, or enjoying the sense of righteous vengeance, or just handwaving it into "The government said it was okay, so I'm not going to open up a can of worms by saying it wasn't." The message has been well spun, and molded neatly into existential fear of All Those Evil Terrorists Who Live Over There and the need for Manly Men to Give Them What For. And, hey presto, here we are.
It's altogether possible that as we move beyond partisan division associated most closely with the Bush Adminstration (and all those nights watching "24") that support for this sort of thing will fade. But the memory of it around the world will not. This is who we be seen as for a long time: the shining city on the hill with the dark, blood-stained dungeons underneath it.
Originally shared by +Steven Flaeck:
Why are Americans strongly favoring torture right now? I'd point to this paper from Reed College on polling about torture from 2001 to 2009:
Figure 1 shows torture gaining popularity starting in late 2004. More than likely, it reflects the spin-up of Republican damage control in response to Abu Ghraib, a scandal which would result in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. That is also the year when the CIA went on an aggressive leaking offensive, which included insistence that torture had worked.
So what gets us to the poll +Scott Maxwell shared earlier is likely the consolidation of partisan views behind torture as it becomes more strongly identified with the Bush administration and, though it, with Republican politics. Perversely, the more morally indefensible something is, the more political defensible it becomes. People's identities are on the line and it becomes very hard to dismiss grave wrongdoing as a mere mistake. Once you reach the nadir of morality, when the wrongs are grave and pervade a leadership, you also reach the zenith of political defense.
I suspect that is what you see in that poll and, likely, all the others which show large measures of support for moral repugnance in the past. Mostly, there aren't any policy results. Those who line up to actually get, f.ex., torture done will largely be over-signalers. The danger is that they can't be excised without tacit admission and, so, moral taint. With the passing of a generation the view will correct as new people lack any connection to the events.
New poll finds majority of Americans think torture was justified after 9/11 attacks
In a Post-ABC poll, 49 percent said the CIA’s treatment of suspected terrorists amounted to torture.
