Survey: US Public Rejects Torture

[mom cat]

Survey: US Public Rejects Torture

by Jim Lobe
Two-thirds of U.S. citizens believe their government should "never use physical torture" against detainees, and 90 percent reject sexually humiliating prisoners, as was done by U.S. soldiers at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail, according to a major survey of attitudes here.

The poll, conducted by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), was released Thursday amid new reports of abuses by U.S. soldiers of Iraqi and other detainees. It also found that 60 percent of the U.S. public believe that all captured individuals should have the right to appeal their status to a neutral judge, even if they are not conventional soldiers as defined by the Geneva Conventions.

Seventy-seven percent of respondents said a soldier should have the right to refuse to follow an order if he or she believes it was a violation of international law.

It also found that supporters of Republican President George W. Bush were more likely to support harsher treatment of detainees than independents or respondents who said they intended to vote for Bush's Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry in the November elections.


http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=3153

[wtmusic]

1. The real news is: one third condone torture n/t

[cliss]

2. How true. What about this third?

Maybe they'd change their minds if they saw it being done to their own countrymen?

Sorry, RumsFailed. Looks like the public is giving you a solid thumbs-down to your aggressive techniques of world domination. The public has spoken.

Maybe that 1/3 is including RumsFool in that number.

[Mari333]

3. Then why is the US public putting up with it? n/t