2005 Jan 7-9
Willing 39%
Not willing 59%
No opinion 2
2001 Oct 5-6
Willing 45%
Not willing 52%
No opinion 2%
Taken from gallup.com
I would expect that another poll, with more recent numbers, exists.
I understand Jessica Lange and John Cussack oppose torture at any cost ... well, I don't really think they do, I think they say they do, in part because they have no backbone and it is easier to align yourself with other losers than think for yourself. In any event, I will (until I explain why they are hypocrites) accept them at their word, and the fact that, according to the poll, between 52-59% of Americans oppose torture.
I will admit - I am very happy that there are rough men who will do what is necessary in order that I live, in order that my family lives, in order that hundreds of millions of others do what they do each day without missing a heartbeat thinking about how close they have come to becoming a terrorism statistic.
I am very happy knowing these men will do whatever is necessary to ensure they do not win.
The 59% of Americans feel the same way, they just don't understand what is at stake.
It is always easier in the abstract to be opposed to torture, spanking, divorce, or the death penalty. Abstract. When Americans are confronted with the question and it is held in the abstract, they will side with what Americans have always been known for, their compassion and humanity. Fewer than 1/2 a percent of Americans think torture is a good idea. The rest of us oppose it, and we sleep well believing that as Americans we uphold a standard, an ideal - that forbids us from applying torture to our list of methods to get answers.
In the real world, the results would be different and Americans would become much more realistic - what if a terrorist is caught, and enough information is discovered at the scene to suggest there were 15-20 others, and their plans involve malls, buses, and elementary schools, in at least 12 cities across the US. Several dates were written on various papers, but all of them in the very immediate future.
We know they are terrorists because bin Ladens photo is on the wall, they have written 'jihad is our mission' on the walls, and evidence exists of ablution having been done recently.
You caught one person. He spits at you and tells you he would rather die than talk. He wants to meet Allah, and he wants you to die. He tells you that soon he and others will be in paradise and blood will run in the streets.
What do you do?
Arrest him?
Handcuff him?
Read him his Miranda rights?
Call him an attorney?
And wait?
His attorney will not be arriving for 1-2 hours.
You cannot speak to him, not even to ask him where he was born. Can't do it. In fact, asking him if he wants something to drink may well be problematic, but would be overlooked at trial.
I'll change it a bit.
You find documents that mention C-4 and electronic devices to detonate bombs, plans for buildings that you cannot tell for sure what they are, but they include ventilation systems, Blue Bus, MTA, LAUSD, a number of private schools, 1-2 universities, a number of buildings in downtown Los Angeles, LAX, Burbank/Glendale Airport, John Wayne Airport, and something about a water treatment plant and gases.
I suppose you could: close all schools servicing 12 million people, shut down the bus lines in LA County, close three airports, close universities, evacuate buildings downtown, shut down water plants in Los Angeles ... and the cost would be easily $50 million lost, in a blink. At a time when the city is short $400 million. I DOUBT IT.
I assume waht Jessica Lange and Cussack would say is - use your police, detective work ... and then BOOM.
Scores of buses, a mall, a univserity, five middle schools, an airport - all blown up. Thousands dead.
And the police - had just begun their detective work. Now they won't need to. What they can do, is use the time to notify the families that their relatives will not be going home because torture is unAmerican.
I am sure they will understand.
Let's assume for a moment that Jessica's son and her daughter were at the airport. Lange's other son, was at the local university when it was attacked. None survived.
Mr. Cussack was a bit more fortunate - his nephew was at school and the school was bombed, but his nephew did survive.
The police who wouldn't have much else to do, could go around and do notifications.
Here is where the hypocrisy comes in - if someone took Cussack's nephew or Lange's son - and buried them alive. I have absolutely no doubt, both of them would tear the perpetrators eyes out if it got them their loved one back. I am certain, beyond a doubt - and I don't know either of them.
Our intelligence services do not collect people who were strolling along the road picking flowers. Use the gray matter you have to grapple with this idea - collecting some useless piece of garbage to store for years, at taxpayer cost, in a facility where he might be set free and or might pass along information on his location, and or get an attorney and or make the story known ... just grapple with that for a moment. These men who have done intelligence work, been trained in at least 3-4 foreign countries ... are fucking rock hard stupid. Is that what you are suggesting Mr. Cussack. They collect sweet innocent little boys off the streets, having no clue why or what they will do with them ... that these men cannot distinguish between bad and reasonably innocent. That is what you are saying Cussack/Lange/Streisand et al. It is you who are rock hard stupid.
The hypocrisy is and would be deafening.
These men will do what is necessary, regardless of what Obamessiah says, to ensure it does not happen - to ensure you and your unworthy ilk, are not slaughtered at the alter of hate, by those who desire your deaths (far ahead of mine given what it is you do - paid prostitutes). When you are begging for your life, they will not offer you a tea to calm your nerves or dullen the pain - for you are unworthy of that small gesture. They will butcher you - even while you protest at the top of your lungs how much you hate Bush.
There are moments when I wonder why - why you can't get a fucking clue, why the men who protect us, bother. Most of us are not worth it.
terror
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