CNN

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I guess the people would rather the terrorists strike us again-is that what the majority wants?? Thanks to Bush for keeping us safe unlike other people I know. And remember Obama fans if you are so obsessed with taking Bush down your lovely Pelosi among others, will go with him.

Why bring things up from the past when it won't change things.

We do not decide whether to prosecute crimes in this country based on polls. If torture is illegal (it is) and it is committed and endorsed by an American administration (it was), the it must be prosecuted. If we have slid to such a low state that we will not, then it will have to be prosecuted internationally. What has happened to the morality of the American people? Wake up and find your soul before you are the one being tortured!

terrorists derserve everything they got and more

Let's also investigate and prosecute former Bill Clinton administration official whose policy led to 9/11 in the first place: Jamie Gorelik, the "wall" she set up between the CIA and FBI prevented the CIA from sharing intel with FBI and allowed terrorists to operate unchecked in this country. Let's bring out all the dirty laundrys and have a go at it, shall we?

my god, i went into shock when i heard your poll results. i think your polls are way off base. the majority of people i know think torture is an abomination of decency. its also against the geneva convention and every other law you can dig up. the people that gave the ok for this should be prosecuted and given stiff penalties. is this nation moving towards the principles of nazi germany.

Public Opinion will change once the investigation starts. Public opinion changed on Iraq once the facts came out. The same thing will happen here. The United States is engaged in a great test of the proposition that no man, no matter how powerful or rich, is above the law. President's have more power to change laws than anyone, if they do not like the law. Americans are free to disagree with a law, but they are not free to break that law.

absolutely should be investigated. The lawyers should be held accountable for advising that torture is legal. Their opinions carry weight and people suffer for it.

Would the people that approve of these torture techniques want something like this to happen to them or their families. America's sense of HONOR has always been displayed with a great deal of pride. If we don't hold ourselves responsibile when we do something wrong, why should any other country in the world listen to or respect us? The Bush Administration is a great source of SHAME for America.

They all knew, there is no scapegoat here.
Stop dragging our country through the mud.

Move on, there's nothing to see here !

Move on people, we have done it everyone does it and everyone will continue to do so as long as it is ambigues and clandestine.

I am not upset when murderers are murdered or tortured. Their loss is no loss to the world and their pain is no pain for the world.

Here is a problem with torture. We have twenty prisoners who all deny knowing anything. "We're innocent," they all say. We're pretty sure that some of them know something.

Because they are all saying they are innocent, we have to torture all of them. One of them breaks and says, "I confess! I helped forge fake visas for the 9/11 terrorists." The other 19 are innocent, and we were torturing innocent people.

Here is another problem with torture. We are paying our employees to torture people. We are as guilty of torture as they were. Those who eat meat, it is said, cannot scorn the butcher.

please investigate!

Bush, Rumsfeld and others claimed the torture was undertaken by 'a few rogue soldiers,' but they signed and fought for the documents which endorsed the use of torture. They cannot pass judgement on people who were following orders from these people themselves!!! Justice must be served!

These were TERRORIST people!!!! They are laughing at us now and would do it all again...

Investigate, prosecute, and dispense the justice.

I also question the validity of this poll. I think it's a farce. You must be thinking of a FOX poll, CNN. This is an issue that MUST be addressed.

Too Bad – Those high level officals who took us down the road of Communist China should be brought to justice.

I am surprised more people didn't admit they supported these methods. It was the terrorists choice to have these procedures done to them, they could have talked and saved themselves any discomfort that they felt. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. I support any and all methods used to get necessary information that protects lives. Personally I don't think we use tough enough methods.

I agree with the poll results. There are at least 2998 reasons to agree with the techniques used. Unfortunately, those people died on 9/11 so they can't voice their support!! Beyond that, with all the other things that the government needs to focus attention on, this shouldn't even be on the to-do list.

These numbers may change if the MSM ever gets the word out that torture doesn't work. It is disappointing that some Americans persist in demanding vengeance. But frightened people make very bad decisions, and the Bush administration calculatedly exploited Americans' fears for almost 8 years. Still, I would be prouder of my fellow countrymen if they were willing to support the principles that America used to stand for: integrity, fair dealing, honor. Then again, it's not like we don't also have a long-standing tradition of taking the low road, as well: Salem witch trials; Sacco and Vanzetti; Japanese internment camps; HUAC; Hollywood blacklists. The truth matters though, and we should clean the stables for the sake of our future and the quality of our relationship with each other and the rest of the world. Our credibility until we do so is shot.

Any American that disapproves of the techniques but don't think it should be investigated have no moral compass and little intestinal fortitude. They are no better than those who wrote the torture memos because they are essentially advocating the use of torture while they know it is wrong. There is no place to sit on this fence. You are either against torture or you are a sick and naive masochist who endorses torture (while it provides only false information). We cannot sweep this under the rug. Obama called for transparency and accountability. Where is it????!!!!!

Of course no one will investigate. An investigation would show that Bush's policies were designed, implemented and monitored by Congress; and that is something that Murtha, Kerry, Pelosi, Reid, etc. don't want voters to realize.

As long as American's want to remain in the dark about what their representatives (ALL their representatives) do, then Americans should simply keep their mouths shut and focus on American Idol and other shows of similar intellectual challenges.

As a former Navy Seal, I am very familiar with water boarding. I and my team were routinely subjected to it during our Seal survival training, as was every other Seal over the past decade plus. Why were we subjected to it? Because we know our enemies (including Geneva Convention signatories) routinely use this technique in their interrogations. President Obama and the Democrats have done this country a great disservice, and have severly undercut and weakened the capabilities of the US Armed Forces and CIA. I am all for an open government, but Obama's inexperience in international affairs is noteworthy and hurtful. Mr President – JUST SHUT UP when it comes to our tactics, techniques, and methods as you are inadvertently giving aid and comfort to our enemies.

Prosecute the Bush administration. They refused to keep us safe on 9/11 and tortured individuals, which is against everything America stands for. I would like to hear a logical argument from church-going so-called 'Christians' that allows them to justify whether or not they honeslty believe God would justify torture. Prosecute our former incompetent administration!

So, half of Americans support torture? Disgusting.

We are a country of laws, the law was broken. There should be no questions regrading this issue, they broke the law period!!!

Skip the trial just put Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft in Gitmo until the people are ready for it.

While thinking, on the one hand, that Obama is right in wanting to move on from this spectacle, how can we look away? I think the flimsy argument that these spy agency folks, and others, were only doing what they beliveved what was legal at the time and that they were following orders is exactly the same defense of so many Nazi criminals after theWWII.

Hey, no one bothered to "poll" me about my opinion on torture investigations? My vote.....YES, investigate.

This is a disgrace! Even uglier is that more church goers are OK with torture than those who do not attend church regularly. Hypocrites, I guess. The New testament is filled with examples of the torture techniques Jesus used, huh?

Obama... You have gone around apologizing for The United States in which ( in case you forgot) your the President of, Bowed and shook hands with people that despise us.. Closing Gitmo was the dumbest thing you could have done..In case you forgot about all the people that died from 911 and the men and women who fight everyday to keep us safe, these thugs are laughing at us and YOU have NO clue what to do with them now !!!! Would you get your head in the right place and stop and think !!!! You are an embarrasement.... Hopefully you can clear alot of this up on your next "SPEECH" on a talk show..That is the only thing you are good at...speaking! Start being a President !!! AMERICANS would greatly appreciate it.... There is no need for this interrrogation, These were methods to be taken to secure our safety, I am appaulled that you have not put a stop to this...

A DISGUSTING result, pretty well calculated to make some of us ( me for one) ASHAMED of the preponderance of "mah fellow 'Merkans".

I just wonder to what extent it may have been the case that some of the more egregious outrages by fighters on the "other side" may have actually been ENGENDERED by the kinds of treatment being meted out to THEM in cases when THEY were held as "our" prisoners!

By the time they (for example) beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, "al-Qaeda" MUST SURELY HAVE BEEN WELL AWARE (given escapes, exonerations and releases, and some forcible "extractions" of prisoners that had occurred long before then) of much of what was being done to THEIR OWN brethren in captivity. (Only "We the People" over here, after all, were "kept in the dark" in THAT regard!)

So then THAT, of course, raises the question of to what extent it has to be considered, as a matter of logic, that a factor MOTIVATING such atrocities as the Pearl murder may well have been what had been and was being done by "our OWN" people!

That is, maybe at least a part of the more-or-less universal outrage at THAT horror really should be directed at "our OWN" murderers and torturers - who now come along and muster the sheer chutzpah to argue that "we" have got some kind of bounden obligation to "support" them on the things they have done because THEY were supposedly "protecting" "us"! But did not what they did ACTUALLY ADD to "our" risk?? TALK ABOUT CIRCULAR REASONING!!

Anyway, HERE is the only “circular” reasoning that is actually valid:

What GOES ‘round - COMES ‘round.

Sorry dudes, morality isn't easy. It also isn't up for a vote. The fact that all these supposed "Christians" were the ones approving the torture makes it all the more maddening.

I wonder how many American's remember the release of the Phoenix Memo? It is an interesting read on counterintelligence prior to 9/11.

BALONEY.... this "poll" is obviously fake....

Why should Bush and his henchmen be above the law? I'm sick and tired of their being no accountability in American government. Bush and Cheney and Rice etc. should all be answerable to the American people. If not, what's to prevent other politicians from trampling American laws and the Constitution (as Bush and company so smugly did).

Why should these people live fat, comfortable lives into retirement? What they did was immoral and illegal.

Best start to investigating BO for the deaths of children in Afghanistan and Pakistan....

Are that many Americans really pathetic, hypocritical monsters who would see other human beings tortured to satisfy their own cowardice?

We're suppose to be the good guys. The second we started torturing, we lost that. Now we're just a side in a war, and if we support torture, then none of us are innocent anymore. Snap out of it before we become the monsters we're supposed to be fighting.

Wait a minute. So, when a country tortures our soliders/sailors it's okay because the I never hear the American people in an uproar when the media reports it. So, the previous administration performed some type of interrogation/torture to the middle east extremist and now all of a sudden the American people (not all) want these folks to be brought to justice.

Folks, you better start looking back at history before you judge anyone from the Bush administration. No, I'm not a Republican either nor am I a Democrat so before anyone goes there. Enough of the Independent panels....wake up Americans!!!

Tom Paine, you hit the nail right on the head!!

I can tell that President Obama really doesn't want to deal with this and even though I am not like the right in favor or torture (it gets me that most of these same folks call themselves good Christians as well) I wish this would all go away. We need to look forward and not backward. And if this thing was not so bad why all the cover up? I think a can of worms have been opened and no matter what happens with it now there will be no winners over it.

hahahaaahhh!
What a perfect time for me to dust off an old adage from the primaries and the general election.... ahem* YOUR POLLS MEAN NOTHING!!!!

If the federal government made a mistake and saw you, one of its citizens as a threat, took you into custody, tortured you and left you for dead in a field, when you finally regain conciousness and health, would you then seek retribution? Would you seek justice of any kind?

Maybe Nixon was right, When the president does it, it's not illegal. Maybe the president, who is sworn to uphold the constitution is not bound by it's laws?!?
Maybe, I really am being naive for believing in justice in America.
Maybe i should give up and let hypocrisy rule the day.
Maybe, there is no hope
Maybe, there will be no change

To the 46 percent that swallowed the Kool-aid and listen to Obama and his media sheep liars, WATERBOARDING was done on THREE people and the FACTS are that all three would not talk and laughed at our methods and ALL three gave up information that saved an attack on the Brooklyn bridge and a 73 story tower in Cally AND we gained more insight on the doings of these terrorists that AGAIN saved lives.

How do I know this, the memo's that Barry was challenged to release by Cheney and Obama read, ALL contain these FACTS.

They DID NOT WANT to waterboard and only did after everything else failed and it saved lives, and yes even you genius LIBERALS were SAVED that hide behind your sanctimonius veil of "what this Country stands for".

You stand for NOTHING if you are KILLED by a terrorist.

The gutless one won't release the Airfarce photo's from last week, but he will release photo's of harsh interogations, perfect, a window into his anti-American mind.

This should be a no brainer, but then again, you are Liberals.

It doesn't matter what the majority of Americans THINK. Torture is a crime against humanity. Anyone who indicated that they believed that "harsh interrogation techniques" WEREN'T torture, or that torture was justified, should be ashamed of themselves.

America, pro-torture. It's appalling. None of this was remotely a ticking time bomb scenario. it was routine torture for general information. Torquemada would be proud.

Investigations can exonerate as well as expose. Without an investigation the American public will not know whether laws were broken, powers and trust abused, or whether indictments should be handed down for further criminal investigation or prosecution. America will not reclaim moral credibility or ability to exercise global leadership as long as we are fearful of knowing the truth. And that fear will exact a terrible cost for America long into the future.

I don't trust the CNN poll – I think they are biased; most people I know that think like more or not belive if you comit a crime you do the time.

What is it that they say about ignorance?

I personally challange the validity of the poll you are referencing.
There is no way that the general public has approved the Bush administrations use of torture,....period.
Americans do not condone supression of a persons rights under any circumstances.
There are some political pundits that are looking at the possibility of exposure and general disdain by the public.
The discussion isn't about the use of torture, it's about whether we as Americans have the guts to expose those who choose to ignore those basic principles.
Bush, chenney, Rumsfield, and a host of lawyers working for the Bush administration should be asked to answer some very pointed questions and accept the ramifications.

I don't know who conducts these polls, but I want to see an investigation. Condi Rice has recently said that she passed the info to the CIA. A complete thourogh invstigation needs to be done to see who authorized these torture techniques. Condi stated that the administration felt terrorized and that was why they approved these techniques. If you ask me, she just confessed to a conspiracy.

How soon history is forgotten... It's ok to torture because it's us doing it to other people, right? Very frightening thought process.

We must investigate this in order for America to live up to it's true bread. To not investigate would be like to allow racism to go unchecked, it would be to allow a women to get rape repeatly and never to say it's not right. My point is the guilty must be held accountable.

If Ameica don't stand up for something we will be allowing the Men and Women in the Armed forces to die for nothing@!!!!!!

PS: Can my fellow soldiers get out of jail now for following orders??????

An opinion doesn't make it right.

I may want to kill my neighbor because he is an idiot.

But that doesn't make it legal.

Torture is illegal. It must be investigated. Or we are no longer a moral superpower but just a bunch of third world punks.

I'm always suspicious of these CNN polls – they rarely seem to agree with what the majority of the individuals I talk to think on a subject and this one is no exception.

Virtually every single person I know or have talked to wants Bush, Cheney, and all the rest of them brought to trial for war crimes. Waterboarding is torture, there is no other way to describe it. Information gained by its use is totally worthless.

I want the people responsible for torture taken to trial and put in prison.

We need to know what we were doing. We don't want to be like the good Germans who, after World War II, reported that they had no idea what was happening to all those Jews who went into prison camps and never seemed to come out.

If our government was doing what we all would have approved of, there is no reason to keep it secret. If they were doing things we would not have approved of, we need to know what it was.

No one should be prosecuted because they were doing what their government told them to do.

To hide this stuff to keep up a false "image" of ourselves is nothing to be proud ot.

This poll is an out and out LIE.

I want this investigated and I want those responsible for these horrendous acts brought to justice, they are no better than any other american....they broke he law of the land and should be held accountable for their actions.

Sorry, I don't believe it. Every American I've spoken with wants an investigation and prosecution of anyone in the Bush Administration who may have committed an illegal act. Otherwise, it just sets a precedent for any future Republican president to abuse the office.

NO. Don't sweep this under the rug. If we don't police ourselves then we cannot hope to keep any shred of moral high ground.

I'm not sorry the mastermind of 9/11 had water poured on his face, up his nose, down his throat.

Just like he is not sorry 2998 Americans died horrible deaths and would do it again if given the chance.

Absolutely. If you want to investigate and prosecute the Bush administration, start by prosecuting Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.