Americans’ torture tolerance is higher than that of the citizens of war-ravaged countries, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The ICRC report released Monday found that Americans are more comfortable with torture than any other country on the U.N. Security Council, The Washington Post reported.
These new findings come at a time when the debate about torture in the U.S. has been refreshed.
During the race for the White House, President-elect Donald Trump said he supported the use of waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse” when talking about tactics to get information from terrorism suspects, the Post noted.
Despite Trump’s recent backpedaling on the issue, he said in an interview with The New York Times last month that if waterboarding was “important to the American people, I would go for it. I would be guided by that.”
According to the ICRC report, 33 percent of Americans said torture was a “part of war,” while 46 percent of Americans said enemy combatants could be tortured “to obtain important military information.”
In comparison, only 16 percent of Afghans and 14 percent of Ukrainians said torture was “part of war,” the Post noted. About 18 percent in South Sudan and 15 percent in China said they would tolerate the torture of enemy combatants.
The survey polled more than 17,000 people from 16 countries between June and September, including participants in the U.S., Afghanistan, Syria, Russia, Iraq, Yemen, and South Sudan, the Christian Science Monitor noted.
“There is a disconnect between public opinion and the policies and actions of states and armed groups,” the ICRC said in a release with the report. “Violations of the laws of war – including the targeting of civilians, humanitarian workers and hospitals – continue. Yet the survey results clearly show that the majority of people understand that these practices are wrong and that civilians and health-care workers and facilities must be protected.”
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