Following last Tuesday’s attacks on the Brussels airport and metro where nearly three dozen people were killed and hundreds more were wounded, the number one question on the minds of those who have followed the Belgium-based ISIS cell responsible for the Paris attacks was this: what did Salah Abdeslam know?
The lone survivor of the Paris massacre, Abdeslam was captured the Friday before the Brussels attacks in Molenbeek. Needless to say, it seems highly likely that he knew precisely what was being planned for the following Tuesday. Although some have suggested that the cell (which was once run by Paris mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud) changed their target and timetable once Abdeslam was caught, his fingerprints were found on March 14 in a Forest apartment rented to one of the Bakraoui brothers. That apartment was used to make the bombs that were detonated in the airport and metro attacks and it’s also the residence where a taxi driver picked up Ibrahim Bakraoui and bombmaker Najim Laachraoui before driving them to the airport.
The point is this: Abdeslam knew something, and Belgian police didn’t manage to extract any information from him in the three days he was detained prior to the attacks.
Well, the dust hadn’t even settled in Brussels before Donald Trump was on NBC suggesting that if Abdeslam had been waterboarded, he might have “spilled the beans” (to use a phrase Trump is fond of lately) allowing authorities to prevent a tragedy and save 34 lives.
“Waterboarding would be fine and if they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding,” the GOP frontrunner said last Tuesday morning. “Authorities “should be able to do whatever they have to do,” he continued. “Listen, you have to get the information and you have to get it rapidly.“
Would torture have made a difference in extracting information from Abdeslam? Who knows. What we do know however, courtesy of a new Reuters Ipsos poll, is that nearly two-thirds of Americans agree with Trump that torture is justified if it means extracting information from terrorists. Here’s more:
Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe torture can be justified to extract information from suspected terrorists, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, a level of support similar to that seen in countries like Nigeria where militant attacks are common.
The poll reflects a U.S. public on edge after the massacre of 14 people in San Bernardino in December and large-scale attacks in Europe in recent months, including a bombing claimed by the militant group Islamic State last week that killed at least 32 people in Belgium.
Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has forcefully injected the issue of whether terrorism suspects should be tortured into the election campaign.
Trump has said he would seek to roll back President Barack Obama’s ban on waterboarding – an interrogation technique that simulates drowning that human rights groups contend is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. Trump has also vowed to “bring back a hell of a lot worse” if elected.
The March 22-28 online poll asked respondents if torture can be justified “against suspected terrorists to obtain information about terrorism.” About 25 percent said it is “often” justified while another 38 percent it is “sometimes” justified. Only 15 percent said torture should never be used.
Republicans were more accepting of torture to elicit information than Democrats: 82 percent of Republicans said torture is “often” or “sometimes” justified, compared with 53 percent of Democrats.
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