Torture versus collateral damage; the bigger evil?

[Backwards Observer]

Enjoy.

U.S. Public Opinion on Torture, 2001–2009

Many journalists and politicians believe that during the Bush administration, a majority of Americans supported torture if they were assured that it would prevent a terrorist attack. As Mark Danner wrote in the April 2009 New York Review of Books, “Polls tend to show that a majority of Americans are willing to support torture only when they are assured that it will ‘thwart a terrorist attack.’” This view was repeated frequently in both left and right leaning articles and blogs, as well as in European papers (Sharrock 2008; Judd 2008;Koppelman 2009; Liberation 2008).There was a consensus, in other words, that throughout the years of the Bush administration, public opinion surveys tended to show a pro-torture American majority.

But this view was a misperception. Using a new survey dataset on torture collected duringthe 2008 election, combined with a comprehensive archive of public opinion on torture, we show here that a majority of Americans were opposed to torture throughout the Bush presidency. This stance was true even when respondents were asked about an imminent terrorist attack, even when enhanced interrogation techniques were not called torture, and even when Americans were assured that torture would work to get crucial information. Opposition to torture remained stable and consistent during the entire Bush presidency. Even soldiers serving in Iraq opposed the use of torture in these conditions. As we show in the following, a public majority in favor of torture did not appear until, interestingly, six months into the Obama administration. (Reed College Symposium)

Public Opinion on US Torture, 2001-2009 - Reed College Symposium Paper

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Elizabethan Crime and Punishment - www.william-shakespeare.info

What we can learn from the torture scene in Shakespeare's King Lear - firedoglake - 3.14.2010

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Lingchi - wikipedia

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Medieval Torture - medievality.com

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The Water Cure - new yorker - 2.25.2008

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Torture Practices of the Ancient World - spiegel - 5.15.2009

[jcustis]

What do Fannie and Freddie have to do with waterboarding and collateral damage?

[Dayuhan]

What do Fannie and Freddie have to do with waterboarding and collateral damage?

The link seems to be the proposition that torture, financial crises, and presumably much of the range of unpleasantness between trace back to a lack of some construct called "moral courage". Make of that what you will. I'm still not sure I understand what it's meant to be, beyond vigorous agreement with whoever is making the argument based on "moral courage".

[carl]

Public Opinion on US Torture, 2001-2009 - Reed College Symposium Paper

That was a great paper. It is filled with all kinds of insight. It gives me hope that what a Sergeant said to a fearful Iraqi in Brandon Friedman's "The War I Always Wanted" is still somewhat true. The Sergeant said "We're Americans. We don't do that ####."

The paper also brings up the question of why segments of the elite in gov, Cheney, Woo etc and the media, Jack Bauer and his ilk, why have they lost their moral foundation?

[Backwards Observer]

why have they lost their moral foundation?

Don't ask me. I just work here.

In sum, the study found, power doesn’t corrupt; it heightens pre-existing ethical tendencies. Which brings to mind another maxim, from Abraham Lincoln: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Why Power Corrupts. - Smithsonian - Oct, 2012.