Approximately a year ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross surveyed residents of 15 countries to ask if torture was “part of war.” Sixteen percent of Afghans said it was. Fifteen percent of Chinese said they would tolerate the torture of enemy combatants. In the U.S. the figure was 33%, with 46% of Americans saying that enemy combatants could be tortured “to obtain important military information.”
That was a year ago. We now have had a year of President Trump, who endorsed waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”
We have become a force for evil. We are the people who now set a bad example for the rest of the world, not just on torture, but on climate change, free and fair elections, educational levels, income distribution, mass killings, life expectancy, and infant mortality.
Information for this post is from Kevin Sieff, “Survey: Torture gains U.S. acceptance,” Morning Call, (Dec. 8, 1016), p. 16. The editorial comment is mine.
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