why the post-9/11 generation is in favor of gruesome interrogation techniques

[KoKo]

why the post-9/11 generation is in favor of gruesome interrogation techniques

The reasons may be even more nuanced than that—a combination of social and political factors new to the national conversation since the Bush administration claimed that today’s enemy was different from the ones we’ve fought in the past. Intelligence attained through controversial interrogation techniques, Bush’s lawyers at the Department of Justice argued, may be the only way to save American lives. A 2006 dossier detailing the U.S. government strategy to combat terrorism described the difficulty of pursuing new enemies who constantly “evolve and modify their ways of doing business.” As a result, the document suggested, the military would have to evolve its understanding and treatment of the enemy.

Legal scholars see societal influences that may be responsible for de-stigmatizing torture, including increasingly graphic media. “I think it suggests the national conscious is becoming more and more corroded and more accustomed to the violation of fundamental principles of human rights and international law,” says Lawrence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard, who blames programs like 24 that trivialize serious issues. (Tribe, along with nearly 300 legal colleagues, sent President Obama a letter last month decrying the prison conditions of Bradley Manning, the army private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks.)

One irony was revealed in a striking study earlier this year from Brown University showing that enhanced interrogations may not even be an effective way to gather intelligence. Compared with traditional police questioning techniques like building rapport or offering positive reinforcement, the study found that torture more frequently alienates the subject, or produces unreliable information. The marquee example researchers point to is the Libyan detainee in 2002 who, under torture, claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, a major premise in launching the war in Iraq.

Still, the generational tip-toe back from humanitarian legal norms may say more about a nation increasingly removed from the costs of war. “For young people,” says Harvard’s Tribe, “to put themselves in place of a soldier is a level of empathy that most people simply don’t have anymore.”

More at........
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-12/red-cross-study-finds-60-percent-of-young-people-support-torture/#

[SheilaT]

1. Unfortunately, TV and movies show

torture as being effective. That alone distorts the reality of torture.

[Skittles]

4. torture is used as entertainment too

like the SAW series :puke:

[TheKentuckian]

2. Torture advocates and those that look the other way for them are barbaric wastes of skin

and are little better than an instinct driven shark or rabid dogs.

Fucking animals with little effective brain matter.

[sudopod]

3. This is the reason why I despair over pinning all our hopes on the political process.

I'm afraid that Americans are becoming an irredeemably cruel people. A society that has supports torture, that enjoys graphic violence unleashed upon those whom it hates and fears, is doomed to be ruled by monsters, because they will rule themselves.

[sudopod]

5. kick damnit. nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. This dovetails with the post earlier asking "is the country different since 9-11?"

Truly sad.

We've been completely desensitized to what america is supposed to be about. We don't even remember.

[sudopod]

7. Fixed that for you

We've been completely desensitized to what america humanity is supposed to be about. We don't even remember.

[starroute]

8. This is bullshit

I don't see any sign that Americans are less empathetic these days than there were back in the 50's or 60's. If anything, they're almost excruciatingly caught up in one another's problems.

The only real difference between then and now is that our government has concluded it is no longer able to lead the world through either moral example or economic innovation and has resorted to the use of brute force instead. That is what really changed after 9/11.

They've been trying to con us into believing that torture is okay -- especially if it means temporary pain for one individual balanced against the lives of millions. And no doubt that kind of propaganda has had an effect.

But the real villain of the piece is the people who are the source of the propaganda -- not its unknowing targets. And we should not for one moment let ourselves be fooled into blaming ourselves for the sins of our leaders.

[and-justice-for-all]

9. Torture does not work...

I could water-board someone and they would confess anything they thought I wanted to hear and if I was being water boarded, I would say anything to make it stop. False confessions.