The post 9/11 generation is more likely to accept enhanced interrogation techniques than older Americans. Why?

If this is a trend, it is because Republicans set this policy. Interesting since those in the Bush administration advocating torture never served in active duty, and then they lied about the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques. God help our soldiers if they ever are captured.

water-boarding an sleep-deprivation as acceptable...
How about strapping bombs to your body and walking into a cafe or bus station and blowing yourself and a lot of others into small pieces of flesh ?
Evil prevails when good men do nothing.
If we could STOP ALL the Violence...and Hate..maybe we would not need water boards or bombs.
Please someone come up with an idea .....its getting late

Being an OLDER AMERICAN...I say do what the situation calls for...if terrorist are involved...terror tacticts may be called on.
So dont count out the OLDER AMERICANS.(period)
Who is paying for are all these Studys?
Fund me and i will study ANY issue...maybe the red cross can tells us who gave them the money to STUDY.....I sure would like to get in on the Study racket.

I just went to this wikileaks website to see what it was all about. I clicked on archives and it told me there was an error

Torture in war is a non issue to kids because it does not hit home , point blank , its like when you hear about terrible floods in some far off country , they care until they change the channel. If you're a teenager now the only major conflicts that america has been involved in while you've been breathing is iraq and afghanistan and those are not no vietnam.

Id also bet money that most of those kids have no real concept of what waterboarding is , even if it had been explained before they were asked these questions.

Well, I sure as hell hope not.

9/11 generation just want to fight and prove that they are "bad ass". I know this because of friends that are grown in this generation and how they act. They don't know anything bout histories past examples of human torture and some didn't know what the holocaust was. Sorry to say the 9/11 generation is just ignorant and self absorbed and need a quick reality check what it really means to be in the world.

because we grew up with it. We saw this occuring and our parents not giving a damn except to defend it. We know our country is corrupt and have slowly adopted a general "fuck it" attitude. its going to occur and there isn't jackshit we can do about it. to us, its just another aspect of a never ending war.

I believe the older, more mature adults understand the ramifications of lowering our morals to those of a terrorist. We also know that under duress, a subject will say whatever is needed to make the torture stop. Therefore, torture is NOT a useful tool, but rather a means of venting frustration.

Torture is torture and as a Nation, we need to be above it. There is a laundry list of people to blame for 9/11 and "the terrorists" are not at the top of the list.

They don't know history and the reasoning behind the international laws governing holding prisoners of war. In their minds there are no connections to the Holocaust, Japanese prison camps, Vietnamese prison camps, etc. And too, it is our leading by example, something George Bush disgarded for expediency. Since we don't have a draft, our young people aren't compelled to pay attention to our actions around the globe. During the World War I, World II and VietNam everyone had skin in the game whether you agreed with the decision to go to war or not. It provided a very different point of view and oversight of the war and everything related to it. We are too removed from the sacrifices of war. We don't feel it.

I know I answered this before, but I just realized I was thinking too much. Our kids are stupid, ignorant, spoiled, whiny, etc... I'm glad I was never young.

Loosely related: http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/03/statement-on-private-mannings-detention.html

A Statement on Private Manning's Detention

Bruce Ackerman

(updated below)

Yochai Benkler and I invite members of the academic legal community to join us in signing the following statement, asking the Administration either publicly to justify, or end, the humiliation and mistreatment of Private Bradley Manning, the suspected whistleblower who is said to have leaked classified government documents to Wikileaks.

For background, you can read this editorial in today’s New York Times, The Abuse of Private Manning and get more details from Soldier in Leaks Case Will Be Made to Sleep Naked Nightly.

If you'd like to add your signature, please send your name and institutional affiliation to manningprofletterjoin@gmail.com. Signatories added below in periodic updates.

295 signatories.

UPDATE:Our initial draft relied on news reports in the major news outlets. Comments we received since then lead us to think that two facts may be overstated in the original draft:
1. The instance of forced nudity overnight and in morning parade apparently occurred once. The continuing regime apparently commands removal of Pvt. Manning's clothes and his wearing a "smock" at night.
2. The shackling apparently occurs when Private Manning is moved from his cell to the exercise room, but not while walking during the one hour of exercise.

Other responses we have received suggest that there are claims of myriad other abuses that make conditions worse in various ways than we describe. We do not, and cannot, seek to adjudicate these factual claims. The conflicting responses underscore the need for a public, transparent, and credible response to the reported abuse, and cessation of those among them that cannot be justified.

Private Manning’s Humiliation

Bradley Manning is the soldier charged with leaking U.S. government documents to Wikileaks.

He is currently detained under degrading and inhumane conditions that are illegal and immoral.

For nine months, Manning has been confined to his cell for 23 hours a day. During his one remaining hour, he can walk in circles in another room, with no other prisoners present. He is not allowed to doze off or relax during the day, but must answer the question “Are you OK?” verbally and in the affirmative every five minutes. At night, he is awakened to be asked again, “are you OK” every time he turns his back to the cell door or covers his head with a blanket so that the guards cannot see his face. During the past week he was forced to sleep naked and stand naked for inspection in front of his cell, and for the indefinite future must remove his clothes and wear a "smock" under claims of risk to himself that he disputes.

The sum of the treatment that has been widely reported is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against punishment without trial. If continued, it may well amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture, defined as, among other things, “the administration or application… of… procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.”

Private Manning has been designated as an appropriate subject for both Maximum Security and Prevention of Injury (POI) detention. But he asserts that his administrative reports consistently describe him as a well-behaved prisoner who does not fit the requirements for Maximum Security detention. The Brig psychiatrist began recommending his removal from Prevention of Injury months ago. These claims have not been publicly contested. In an Orwellian twist, the spokesman for the brig commander refused to explain the forced nudity “because to discuss the details would be a violation of Manning’s privacy.”

The Administration has provided no evidence that Manning’s treatment reflects a concern for his own safety or that of other inmates. Unless and until it does so, there is only one reasonable inference: this pattern of degrading treatment aims either to deter future whistleblowers, or to force Manning to implicate Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a conspiracy, or both.

If Manning is guilty of a crime, let him be tried, convicted, and punished according to law. But his treatment must be consistent with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. There is no excuse for his degrading and inhumane pre-trial punishment. As the State Department’s PJ Crowly put it recently, they are “counterproductive and stupid.” And yet Crowley has now been forced to resign for speaking the plain truth.

The Wikileaks disclosures have touched every corner of the world. Now the whole world watches America and observes what it does; not what it says.

President Obama was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as Commander in Chief meets fundamental standards of decency. He should not merely assert that Manning’s confinement is “appropriate and meet[s] our basic standards,” as he did recently. He should require the Pentagon publicly to document the grounds for its extraordinary actions --and immediately end those which cannot withstand the light of day.
Signed:

Bruce Ackerman, Yale Law School
Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School

Additional signatories at link

At least our educated elite aren't completely hopeless.

This is depressing, perhaps its desensitization?

I think it's a great question and I hope you leave it up tomorrow.

Perhaps they should read the Gulag Archipaelego, it describes in great detail this type of torture.

Kaj Larson would have not liked being water boarded by the Ruskies -- which is how it's probably done in reality.

They were lied to about the truth regarding 9/11 and as impressionable youths exposed to more sophisticated technological propaganda and re-education, they are more likely to submit to tyranny as it further conforms with the social norms.

Jaded and desensitized through video games and other similar stimuli? A lack of connection, sense of community or ability to empathize with others?

Because they are Sheelpe. They are not leaders of their Brothers They are followers of the Government Rules because they live in fear of their Government.

Because this younger generation came of age under the Bush Administration. They saw that not only was it alright to torture and murder during war, they also learned that being stupid was cool, too. Who needs to be smart or care about other people? Remember, society is a reflection of it's leadership. This trend will continue, sadly.

Because it's what they see on the teevee

American Narcissism is a progressive cancer; its killing empathy.

American Narcissism is ultimately CAUSED and promoted by the materialistic id of the elite, the egotism of the Power Elite,...and the weakened antibodies of the American cultural Superego ; our "Red, White, and Blue" memes are dying,....as is our cultural memory, of the legacy,......... of at least SOME few truly visionary founding fathers.

- Oh,....and the natives left their mark on the psyche of PIONEERS ( we are so PROUD of that ),.....Indians and "Wide open spaces, and room to BE yourself,.....with VERY LITTLE MATERIAL SHIT attached to that sense of self ",.... we are losing that, lost like memories of childhood drowned in the day to day repetitive demands of the office place and sterile enclosed cubicles. . . . .and its making us MEAN, ENCLOSED, SELFISH, and COLD.

....and I actually BELIEVE that. ( It sounds "quipy",....but I believe it ).

I'd say video games, but on its own, that would be a crock of shit in my opinion.

I do believe that it is a combination of every source of media that our youth are growing up with. Movies, news, books, video games, television shows, political discussions, access to the internet, etc. There are so many factors, but I would have to chalk it up to desensitization to the general sociological environment. Honestly, take anything that kids partake in as a form of entertainment or understanding these days and compare it with the equivalent 15 to 20 years ago. It is almost all more violent and/or pushes more fear because that is what sells.

Why? Because of the unquestioned actions by the propaganda wing of the Cheep Labor Conservative movement. When you convince so many that you speak the only truth, and everything else is "evil" liberal media, then the first step in making propaganda work is complete. When the Cheep Labor Conservative movement's focus is on greed and self enrichment at all costs, and they are the only voice so many "americans" hear, then their methods, no matter how warped and morally wrong are accepted without question. Willfull Ignorance is the biggest danger to our country, not Turbins...

Because disasters, especially those directly caused by someone else, are a seemingly endless pit of money and power.

Well, assuming these statistics are an accurate representation of young Americans...
Until we got Bush-whacked, our economy did nothing but grow for 20 years (which isn't how it normally works), so us young'uns don't really have any idea of how a healthy economy "behaves". So the 9/11 attacks likely scared the shit of them (or they picked up the fear from their parents), then the economic collapse came right on it's heels and probably gave their feeble young minds the idea that the recession was the result of outside influence, giving a very fatalistic feel to this new generation. Combine that with a fairly shitty education and it's pretty easy to see how teenagers would think that torture is necessary. They're "fighting" a battle on all fronts: physically, economically, and theologically.
Then there is the media. I was 12 when the towers went down but even then, I realized that the reporters weren't doing their jobs: They had become cheerleaders just waiting for the President to tell them what to cheer for next. While this made me stop watching television for a few years, most of my peers sided with the news and repeatedly called my patriotism into question, but I digress. Actually, I just posted an interview related to this topic, "Why Our Broken Political System Falls Prey to Right-Wing Extremism":
http://current.com/news/93151171_why-our-broken-political-system-falls-prey-to-r...
Thomas Ferguson: "In a word: money. Since the mid ’70s, more and more political money has been moving right and center-right. To understand Congressional polarization, though, you have to focus sharply on the crucial moment, which was 1994. That was the second stage of the Reagan Revolution, when Republicans took over both houses of Congress. Notice the key political players then. You have Newt Gingrich, who was organizing the GOP push in the House; Phil Gramm, who headed Senate fund raising for the GOP; and Haley Barbour, who chaired the Republican National Committee. These people weren’t ‘bowling alone’. They were free market fundamentalists. They wanted to cut taxes, on high brackets especially. They wanted to push deregulation of the financial and telecommunications industries. They wanted to abolish things like the EPA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission and cut back the FDA, the FTC, and just about every other government regulatory agency. THE ONE AREA WHERE THEY LIKED BIG GOVERNMENT WAS DEFENSE. (Emphasis mine)

These anti-government, pro-corporate Republicans broke every record for raising political money. Look at Gingrich and his history in particular. When he started attacking the older Republican leaders in the House as timid and too willing to compromise, money came pouring in. Yes, they supported and allied with evangelical religious groups. But those were always secondary to the main objective, which was to deregulate the economy and roll back the New Deal in all its manifestations.

Lynn Parramore : How did the 1994 Republican victory affect Congress itself?

Thomas Ferguson: When Gingrich won control of the House, he installed what amounted to a pay-to-play system internally, which forced individual representatives to compete to hold their positions on key committees and leadership posts by raising funds for the party. The effect on the House was far-reaching, because the seniority system was already pretty much dead as a result of reforms in the seventies. The movement to limit the terms of committee chairs also worked in this direction, because it meant that more posts were coming open on a regular basis. What happened was that the entire Congress became money-driven.
Positions on key committees, leadership posts — they were all being sold. The money collected then was poured into election campaigns, especially for so-called “open seats,” in which no incumbents were running and in doubtful races. The vast spending and noisy campaigns heated up the political atmosphere in and out of Washington, as the media transmitted the messages.

The Democrats looked at the Republicans’ pay-to-play system and basically decided to copy it. They did this instead of mobilizing their old mass constituencies. Today, as my paper documents, both parties are essentially posting prices for influential committee slots and leadership posts.

The Democrats’ decision to emulate the Republicans and follow the money shifts the system’s center of gravity to the right, as both parties frantically cultivate investor blocs. The result is the weird political world we live in. Behind the scenes, investor blocs and businesses maneuver for advantages in both parties. The system’s center of gravity moves to the right, checked only by the diminishing influence of unions and other mass political groups that retain some resources and influence on the Democrats. You end up with two “money-driven” parties. The parties are not identical, but they have this in common: They cannot possibly campaign only on appeals to investor blocs, so each party reaches out to select public constituencies to scrape together enough votes to win elections, in a sea of public cynicism."

While this topic is somewhat interesting, a more relevant question would be: "Is torture good for profits?" Has anyone answered that yet? I'd try, but it would be bad methodology to risk terminating any subject when my statistical sample is already so small...

what could be leading to this trend?

propaganda by the right-wing
introduced by our good friend and all american
richard bruce cheney

that right-wing propaganda has become a machine
and
it's on a downhill run that's picking up crash-and-burn speed
(see (Astro) Turf Wars)

Society has desensitized our youth to pain and violence.

Because they embrace the concept of "relativism" and have less of a a moral compass.