This poll says it all
Q: As best you can tell, do you think the CIA treatment of suspected terrorists did or did not produce important information that could not have been obtained any other way?
Did produce 53% Didn't 31
Even though the report concluded it did not
Q: Do you think there should or should not be criminal charges filed against officials who were responsible for the CIA interrogation activities?
Do 34% Not 57%
Even though torture is banned under International law and Conventions.
Q: All in all, do you think the CIA treatment of suspected terrorists was justified or unjustified?
Justified 59% Unjustified 31%
So basically Americans may:
1] Approve of torture
2] Don't believe it was torture
3] Don't understand that there are no exceptions under International law
4] Believe if America does it, it's all good.
5] Believe cruel and unusual punishment is fine, re: our prisons
We must look forward never mind that we have tried people in the past for doing the same damn things, look forward and forget, well until someone tortures an American that is, then scream like hell.
That is why the photographs must be released and to my mind this statement is false
In May 2009, however, the president had an abrupt change of heart. Obama went to the South Lawn of the White House, and told reporters, “The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”
The rest of the world knows that the US and its black sites tortured people, and some of them are already inflamed as it were. The problem is not foreign perception, but the perception of Americans themselves. Tsk, tsk it was no worse than a pinch, waterboarding is fun, ticking time bombs, yada, yada.
When there are no images of police killing young black males you can hear the collective "meh" even this side of the pond, hell even when there is a video it's hard to get the message home.
The photographs must be released, not as some form of sadistic pleasure but as a public record to what has been done [and possibly still being done] in our name.
Oh sorry, we are now on Cuba, still catching up with the rest of the world on that one I see.
Without the photographs public opinion will allow this to disappear, even then, I don't hold a great deal of hope that anyone will be held responsible.