Personally I am ashamed to be a human being on a day when less than two-thirds of the world opposes torturing people to get information. Information that is, in most cases, totally unreliable.

I should point out that India is the only nation polled where the majority think that torture is fine, which on the surface may appear to offer a sliver of hope to the rest of us, but the truth is actually much darker.

Think about it...What responses would we have expected 25 years ago? 10 years ago? Before 9-11? Before the invasion of Iraq?

Like a mindless, blood-filled computer game the War of Terror, coupled with TV shows such as Lost and 24, has desensitised many of us. The "fact" that Iraqis (well, Sayid from Lost) would torture us given half a chance or the notion that if it is good enough for Jack Bauer it is good enough for me (and he is trying to save all of America EVERY day, after all!) are very powerful driving forces that inevitably force their way into the more than malleable human psyche.

Sayid & Sawyer get "acquainted" during one of the torture scenes in the hit TV series, Lost

We no longer see things the the same way as we once did. That may be obvious as times change, people change and ideas change, but I refer more to the halcyon view that we all had prior to the exertions of the current leaders of the western governments, prior to Osama the Bogeyman, prior to the Abu Ghraib photos, prior to the Detainee Bill, prior to the destruction of the Geneva Conventions. The view that you should treat your fellow man, regardless of suspicion or mistrust, as we would wish to be treated ourselves is long-forgotten, replaced by the protective aura of "the government do it, I don't," and "they are only doing it to protect us."

How much protection will captured US soliders now be afforded from an enemy that sees the example being set?

There was a time when lunatics living on the fringes of society would have been the only ones prepared to even consider such a view. Now those lunatics are in the White House and Number 10 and they are influencing public opinion in the most terrifying ways of all.

Osama Bin Laden could NEVER have achieved this, nor would he ever have believed that he could. The real terrorists at work here, those who terrify the people of a nation, are those that would convince you that making a suspect believe that they are drowning to gain totally unreliable information is a worthy way to behave for a worthy cause. What cause could possibly be more unworthy?

One of the now infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos

I should also point out that Israel, after the only categorically pro-torture nation of India, was the next on the list in terms of popular indecision with only a 5% difference in those polled between support (48%) and opposition (43%). A nation that has spent many, many years living with the perceived threat of terrorism, no matter how real, widespread and likely that threat, clearly has a head-start in the process and is well placed to show us what our future may hold. The very idea that less than half of the people of a nation can believe that torture is justifiable shows the ignorance of humanity and the power of governments with their anti-terror laws and rhetoric.

Also worth noting is that there are still 9% of Israelis polled that are unsure. Were just one-third of that 9% to decide that torture is a reasonable practice, we have another pro-torture nation. The fact that public opinion is so evenly split leads me to extrapolate that, were those 9% forced to make a decision (maybe the nation would like them to be forced by the torture methods that 48% of the country supports) 5% would support torture and 4% would oppose it.

But Israel is not the only country that demonstrates this pattern and thank goodness for that, or the "you are an anti-Semitic pig" e-mail floodgates would be open once again!

Russia, where only 80% of people could actually make their minds up, (possibly through fears that the question was being asked for reasons other than a poll?!) showed a 43%:37% split. Again, less than half of the 20% who chose not to answer the question would need to support torture for us to have another pro-torture nation on our hands. This is not difficult to expect from a nation where 7 people support torture for every 6 that oppose it.

The world has and will doubtless continue to oppose torture much more strongly than it supports it, regardless of the statistics, as those that oppose will stand taller and speak louder than those that do not.

But for how long? How long will it be before we live in a pro-torture world where the minority opinion, muttered nervously behind closed doors, is that torture should not be allowed in any society that would ever claim to be free or just.

For good measure and to offer a slightly more positive note, Italy were the most fervent nation against the use of torture (81%), followed by Australia and France (75% each), Canada (74%), Britain (72%) and Germany (71%).

I would be willing to bet that, were you to ask those same people what, if any, direct impact the War of Terror was likely to have on their lives, you would receive similar levels of scepticism.

The United States showed 58% of those polled to be in opposition to torture.

It is not bad enough that the ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES OF THE US are clearly ignoring the majority of those that they claim to represent when signing into law the Detainee Bill, which, amongst other draconian and previously unthinkable practices, allows for secret prisons in foreign countries to perform torture on behalf of the very same US citizens that oppose it in the first place? Although, Bush is not a king, as any good Republican will tell you.

One can only begin to imagine how far that number must have fallen since the War of Terror began and the people became scared...

But what are they scared of most? That the terrorists may "get them" or that the government might just be the behind a curtain asking the questions?!

We are told that the terrorists want to attack us to destroy our values, our way of life, our very culture.

The introduction of torture as an accepted form of interrogation achieves all three of those goals in one fell swoop.

Even the Bogeyman could NEVER have managed that.