RT.comTue, 13 May 2014 15:32 UTC
US soldiers torturing innocent Iraqis.
Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
Since 1984, 155 countries have signed up to the UN Convention against Torture. However,
at least 79 of these countries still engage in torture, according to human rights group.
And since 'enhanced interrogation techniques', as the US military euphemistically calls the practice, generally occurs behind closed doors, the actual number of countries that engage in torture techniques is probably "higher still."
Meanwhile, Western attitudes to the use of torture seem to be changing with the times.
According to a poll carried out by Amnesty,
nearly 29 percent of people in the UK think torture is "sometimes necessary" and an acceptable method to protect the public. That is a higher rate compared with Russia, for example, where 25 percent agreed with the practice.
This contrasts with the vast majority of people around the world, (82 percent) who think there should be clear laws against torture. However, more than one third (36 percent) still thought torture could be justified in certain circumstances, according to Amnesty's poll (In China, 74 percent of the population is said to support torture).
The rise in support among Britons for torture, Amnesty believes, is at least partly blamed on popular cultural trends that have a tendency to show the dark practice in a glamorous light."Programs like '24', 'Homeland' and 'Spooks' have glorified torture to a generation - but there's a massive difference between a dramatic depiction by screenwriters, and its real-life use by government agents in torture chambers," said Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK.
'24', an American television series that premiered in November 2001, just as the 'War on Terror' was taking off, has been criticized for its depictions of torture, as well as its negative portrayals of Muslims.
Comment: Torturing other human beings is how psychopaths get their "kicks". There is no better indication of just how pschopathologized the human race has become than when a large number of them support the torture of others in order to "protect their freedoms". It's pure psychopathic paramoralistic thinking: 'I support the brutalization of other human beings and the denial of their basic freedoms so that I can have my 'freedoms'.
The world seemed surprised to learn of the US practice of torture in Iraq.
But in fact, the US has been actively engaged in torture since at least the 1940s.
After the Second World War, the US not only imported hordes of military scientists - beginning with Werner von Braun who designed the US missile and space programs.
The US also imported and protected many condemned German and Japanese war criminals, especially those skilled in torture methods.
When the US overthrew the government in Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah, they also designed and installed his dreaded Savak Secret Police - which was especially famous for torture.
According to researchers, not only did the US design this secret police and torture regime, they actually managed it on a daily basis, down to the selection and running of agents.
The CIA in the Philippines and Indonesia developed a massive 1000-page torture manual based on direct experimentation that was subsequently distributed for decades to all their dictator-puppets in Central and South America.
It was until at least well into the 1980s that the US CIA was distributing its euphemistically-titled "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983", teaching its dictators all the fine points of how to torture their own people.
And it was in Central and South America that the CIA participated so actively in the training of torture methods, even bringing many "students" to the US to study and practice, so the US could export the savage brutality to its colonies.
The US actively taught, and supported, torture as a means of civilian control, including the numerous CIA-sponsored "death squads" in Central America. None of this is a secret any longer.
Comment: Torturing other human beings is how psychopaths get their "kicks". There is no better indication of just how pschopathologized the human race has become than when a large number of them support the torture of others in order to "protect their freedoms". It's pure psychopathic paramoralistic thinking: 'I support the brutalization of other human beings and the denial of their basic freedoms so that I can have my 'freedoms'.
The world seemed surprised to learn of the US practice of torture in Iraq.
But in fact, the US has been actively engaged in torture since at least the 1940s.
After the Second World War, the US not only imported hordes of military scientists - beginning with Werner von Braun who designed the US missile and space programs.
The US also imported and protected many condemned German and Japanese war criminals, especially those skilled in torture methods.
When the US overthrew the government in Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah, they also designed and installed his dreaded Savak Secret Police - which was especially famous for torture.
According to researchers, not only did the US design this secret police and torture regime, they actually managed it on a daily basis, down to the selection and running of agents.
The CIA in the Philippines and Indonesia developed a massive 1000-page torture manual based on direct experimentation that was subsequently distributed for decades to all their dictator-puppets in Central and South America.
It was until at least well into the 1980s that the US CIA was distributing its euphemistically-titled "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983", teaching its dictators all the fine points of how to torture their own people.
And it was in Central and South America that the CIA participated so actively in the training of torture methods, even bringing many "students" to the US to study and practice, so the US could export the savage brutality to its colonies.
The US actively taught, and supported, torture as a means of civilian control, including the numerous CIA-sponsored "death squads" in Central America. None of this is a secret any longer.