Survey showing American support for torture disturbing

Such concern is justified despite the torture report talking mostly about the practice under the administration of former US president George W Bush.

It is true that President Barack Obama was the one who prohibited the use of such torture methods because, as he said in April 2009, “they undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer”. Obama has supported the declassification of the documents and said that, if CIA agents are still using such torture techniques, “they would be directly violating the orders that I’ve issued as president and commander in chief”.

That incidentally also suggests Obama is not absolutely sure if the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs, have really been abandoned by the CIA. While the efforts of Obama and Senator Dianne Feinstein, who released the report on the CIA last week, are aimed at regaining the moral high ground for the US, they are far from enough to ensure that such crimes are not repeated in the US.

First, neither Obama nor Feinstein has talked about bringing people responsible for using EITs to justice despite the fact that they violated US laws. This is in sharp contrast to what the US has done on the international stage in the past: pushing for the trial of people responsible for using inhuman torture methods in other countries. 

Ironically, the US is still not a participant in the International Criminal Court based in The Hague.

So, while applauding Obama and Feinstein for the release of the report, many people have expressed disappointment with the US president for not pushing for charges against the human rights violators.

Second, the prosecution of those responsible for using EITs will not only show that the US is more determined than ever to reject such inhuman torture methods, but it will also help the US regain the moral high ground and deter the CIA from indulging in such practices again.

More disturbing, however, is a Pew Center survey released on December 15, because 51 per cent of the respondents have justified the torture methods used by the CIA. Only 29 per cent of the respondents opposed the EITs, with the rest not having any opinion. About 56 per cent said they believed EITs helped elicit intelligence from suspects, which, in turn, helped prevent terrorist attacks. And just 28 per cent said they did not succeed in getting the right information.

The survey results pose a direct challenge to what Obama and Feinstein have renounced. They could even send the wrong message to and embolden the CIA to continue using the inhuman techniques.

And shockingly, people who should be held responsible for using EITs were given a lot of airtime on US mainstream media in the past week to defend themselves. Former CIA director Michael Hayden probably talked more than any other invitee on TV the past week. Their arrogance on screen is a slap in the face of justice. Former US vice-president Dick Cheney even declared on TV: “I will do it again.”

Most people cannot remember the last time when the US mainstream media gave so much airtime to foreigners accused by the US of violating human rights and other international laws. So unless the US takes serious action to truly proscribe EITs and educate the public, inhuman torture of terrorism suspects and prisoners will not stop anytime soon.