I'm Nikki Clark with the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ICRC has conducted a survey in 16 countries, from Afghanistan to the United States, asking people about their attitudes towards war. Today, we're on the streets of Washington, D.C., asking people what they think. I think when you're having a war, you are breaking all the rules. So what rule is right or what rule is wrong for a war? I did know that there were some rules that govern war, but I don't know what they are. No, I was never taught that in school or college or anything, so I guess I just picked up on it somehow and have this vague sense of what it might be. When war people come hard into soft things because they're trying to survive, what you consider savantry during peacetime, during a war, it's normal because people are trying to survive. And that's why you have rules of war, rules of engagement, hosts and so forth agreements. So those kind of things don't happen, and when they do it, it can be monitored and managed and help people account for war. When you go to war, that's going to be part of it, the destruction of civilians and the destruction of hospitals. The most important thing seems, hospitals should be protected, mosques and chairs should be protected, schools should be protected. Innocence of civilians, never, never. I understand the motivation of why you feel like something's justified in pursuit of a greater cause, but it's often manipulated, and this means that a lot of innocent lives are affected as well. We need torture to get answers, unfortunately, it's just part of war. What I want to do it, no, but someone has to do it. You don't need to torture anybody to get what you want, even if it has asses that are still inhumane. How can you fix, how can you make, how can you fix humanity by doing inhumane things? People see it so often now that it's not as shocking. My understanding about torture is that there's no such thing as reliable torture, that it's not an effective way to produce information, so I don't believe in it. You see people suffering, and you see other people not caring about it, and I think it's because we are working as individuals and we're not working as a community, the sense of community is lost. I think people are disconnected with human suffering because it's just like they feel connected, we have all this technology, we have cell phones, you can reach around the world, but it isn't like after you reach across the world, what can you physically do? I think we are more connected to each other through social media more than ever, but we are more separate to each other more than ever. So we don't get to really understand what's going on on the other side. You see this is a story that goes through the feet, but there's another one and there's another one so we forget what's important or not. I think in the end we need a more communal kind of atmosphere and we need institutions that really allow people to connect again. I think the internet and this social media and the ease of understanding other people's experiences, just hearing what other people are going through and what they're feeling and why. I think it actually doesn't gender a very strong desire to respond in a positive and productive way. You have to speak about it and you have to do something about it every day, every minute. I mean if you care about something you have to do it all the time because otherwise people are not going to listen, but if you're like doing it all the time and sharing messages, one person is going to listen to it, I mean that's something so you just have to do it all the time. I'm Rosa Brooks and it's a real honor to be able to introduce Yves Decor, the Director General of the ICRC, the International Committee of the Red Cross. What we're going to do is Yves is going to come up and he's going to give a brief overview of this massive survey project that the ICRC has just concluded on people in war looking at attitudes towards war and related issues of international humanitarian law in several different countries around the world. He'll give a short introduction to the report itself and its major findings and then we have a fantastic panel who I'll introduce in a few moments after Yves has given the overview and we're going to talk a little bit about what this survey means, what these results mean and what they mean for the United States, what they mean for the ICRC and for those who care about international humanitarian law and what they mean for the future of conflict and the future of our efforts to rein in conflict. We will have questions that I'll pose to our panel for a few minutes and then we'll open it up to to get your comments and reactions as well. So Yves Decor, thank you for joining us today to launch this report. We're delighted to have you here. Good afternoon and thank you very much Rosa for this introduction. I'm very glad to be here for at least two reasons. One is to be able to share with you in fact some of the results of the survey but more interestingly is to be able to discuss with the panel but also with you what is our take? What do we make out of it? And I think this is what we are trying to do. You maybe know my organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross. Our mission is to work in very close proximity with people affected by war. We do work not only in Damascus, we work in right now in Aleppo, for example, in Idlib, in Homs, in close proximity with people, the same in Afghanistan, in Yemen, in South Sudan, in Ukraine, in Somalia and I would say in all these places we are challenged together with the people affected by war and we see some changes. We see on a daily, our daily base that things are difficult, that the international mental law is violated but we also decided not only to respond as we do but also to take the time to think what is happening? We need to reflect a little bit what is happening right now when it comes to war, when it comes to limits of the wars and I think what we did is we took the chance to in fact do a survey with 17,000 people in 16 countries. So stay with me, I will tell you the country, right? So we have 10 countries which are in fact directly impacted by war. It's Afghanistan, it's Yemen, it's South Sudan, it's Iraq, it's Colombia, it's Ukraine, it's Israel, Palestine, Nigeria and Syria and then we compare their opinion, the opinion of the people in country affected by war with in fact opinion of people living in the P5 country. So US of course, UK, Russia, France, China and we added Switzerland. Don't worry, it's maybe a dream of Switzerland to be one day part of the P6 but it's something we have to discuss that. It's just because our global headquarter is in Switzerland and it gives us a bit of a sense of what I would say average country will think about it. Just I want to say on one word how we did it, we use a professional agency and that came Gallup Win who did that for us in order to avoid bias because of course if we would ask ourselves the question it would be a little bit complicated. B, they did a mix of techniques face to face, online and telephone. I raised already two issues, one in South Sudan, it was only in one location in Juba. Okay, for the one who knows South Sudan you would understand why but it is some limits and in Syria, it was not in Syria, it was with Syrian based in Lebanon, right? We still feel that if you look at the overall 17,000 people in 16 countries you really have a good sense of what are the trends. Take it also as a survey which is not, we have no scientific ambitions, we have no ambitions to publish heavy literature around the survey, we're doing that because it's a time for us to listen to what people are telling us and also to challenge some of our own assumption and we think with what we have we have a good understanding of what people are telling us. So to make a long story and I hope you had already some of the survey or some of at least the executive summary on your seat but just give you a bit of a three block of finding. The first block of finding is really and it's, I would say positive, is that the vast majority of people surveyed boast in country affected by war and in P5 country think, believe that the law of war, internationalism and law matters. And if I'm specific you can see that 80% people think that combatants should avoid civilians as much as possible when attacking the enemy. 80%, eight out of 10 believe attacking hospital, ambulances, healthcare worker and healthcare facilities is completely wrong. And this is a cross culture, a cross country. 55% of people, so more than half people, surveyed in country affected by war then say that violation committed by the one side do not give the other side the right to do the same. I find it interesting. So because the other violating that I have the right to violate myself. And what is even more important, and I'm not sure I formulate that with the right word but there is almost a taboo and people are saying this is taboo is when it comes to healthcare. So the figures are very high, 90%, to be specific 89%, almost 90% agree that everyone, every wounded and sick in armed conflict has the right to healthcare. And I found interesting in a very polarized environment that people feel not everyone, including my enemy has the right to healthcare. 82% of the people believe this is simply wrong to attack hospital, I mentioned that before, ambulances, healthcare worker, this is not part of war. So that's the first element which in a way very clearly comes across as okay, people think, including people in country affected by war that this law of war matter. That's the first element around that. Now there is of course two other, I would say cluster of issues and we can look into that because there is a lot of questions but the first one is, and I'm trying to use my word, is possible a shift in the attitude of people in country, in P5 country, compare to the opinion of the people in country affected by armed conflict. You really see a difference, right? And a shift, why a shift? Because we compare with a survey that we did in 99 for the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention. So we have used some of the same country and we've used some of the same question in order to have a sense also, what happens? What are people thinking when it comes to some of the question? Here there is a shift and the shift is the following one. It's really around the growing acceptance of civilian casualties as somewhat a part of war that you can avoid. That's it. It's an individual part of war. Civilian casualties is there. So if you zoom in what you have, it's interesting. So if you look at people in conflict affected area, 70% of them think it's totally wrong to attack enemy combatant in populated area knowing that many civilian wounded would be killed. Sorry. So the answer is, can you attack an enemy combatant in populated area knowing that many civilian would be killed? This is exactly how it's made. You think it's wrong? You think it's part of war. 78% of people saying it's wrong when they are in affected country, right? Country affected by war. But when you ask the same questions to people in P5, they would say only 50% of the people think it's wrong. Alrighty. So you have already defense of almost 30% between the two.  Then if you look at P5, you would say that's interesting, 40%. 40% of people in P5 think it's part of war if a humanitarian worker is injured or killed when he delivers assistance or protection in conflict. This is 40%, right? Compare to only 25% in conflict in affected area. So you start to see some really statistically significant difference. And last but not least, 26% of people in P5 thinks depriving civilian population of essential goods, food, drugs, water to weaken the enemy is part of war. 26% can say it's not dramatic, but still compare to 14% of people living in country affected by armed conflict. So there is absolutely clearly a shift on some questions between, I would say, or attitude when you compare the attitude of P5 people, which are having growing acceptance of civilian casualties versus, in fact, interestingly people affected directly by the war. So that's the second cluster of results. The third one is clearly a shift in public attitude towards torture. And we need to talk about that. So in general, what we found reassuring is somewhat as a taboo, as a principle, you still have 66% across the world, across the country, across the culture, which thinks torture is wrong, 66%. But when you ask specifically about whether an enemy combatant can be tortured to get important military information, then you have a change. Then, so only 36 people, 36% of the people around the world thinks, yes, it's possible, and that's even more worrying. You have also 16 people who don't know. So if you look at the, yes, you can torture in this situation, plus, or don't know, you have one person out of two who somewhat think it's not a taboo anymore, very clearly. And then if you are specific, you can then look at some of the data. Nigeria, Israel, Iraq, and the US are the country which goes beyond the 36% of yes. If you specifically look at the US, you have 46% of people think it's yes, and only 30% of people think it's wrong. It's not just the US. I think there is something in terms of shift of attitude when it comes to torture. So if I compare it, it's interesting, because we were not sure about that. If I compare and we listen to people, they will still tell you health care is a taboo, even if we see what's happening on the ground. And we as an organization know very well that there is huge issue when it comes to health care in danger, hospital being attacked every day, and we know that in Syria. It's dramatic in Yemen, in South Sudan. But still, the people of this country think this is absolutely taboo. And it's very impressive. And across the board, by the way, in this country too, very strong support about it. Where the torture taboo seems somewhat to have gone, at least unspecific, and that needs maybe to unpack. So that's the three, Rosa, elements. There's much more, but just to have a sense, it may be just if I say one word is also all the data will be available on our website, because we are aware it's just not our data. It's also something that we want to share with people to be able also to look at that, study, maybe come with other challenging perception. Thank you. Thank you. Let me invite up the remainder of our panelists at this point. We'll shift to a discussion. Coming up in addition to Yves de Cour, we have Elisa Massimino, who is the president executive director of Human Rights First. We have Mustafa Haid, who is currently a world fellow at Yale. He's from Aleppo, and he's the chairperson of a Syrian human rights NGO called Daladi. And we have retired army major general Paul Eaton, who currently works with the Vet Voices Foundation of 501C3. So delighted to have you all. Let me start, and I'm gonna creep around and sit down in my own chair after I throw out this very first question. Let me just ask the very obvious question to start with for all of you. What do you make of the fact that in many ways, citizens of the most powerful countries in the world, the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, it seems more skeptical and less respectful towards the value of international humanitarian law than people who come from countries that have had direct experiences with armed conflict or currently in the midst of armed conflict themselves. What do we make of that? That's pretty disturbing. And let me start with you, Mustafa. You're Syrian. Your country is still in the middle of a horrific civil war, which has taken a terrible toll on civilians. What do you attribute this? Thank you, Rosan. Thank you for ICRC for giving me this chance to speak on Syria and also to reflect on this survey. Actually, when I received the draft of this report, it was really shocking. But also at the same time, it's not surprising. And I think when I was thinking about why actually, like people in the US, for instance, would be so tolerant about torture. And I think part of that is that they already have the image. When you ask them about torture, I think it's automatically would have the image of someone with the specific features, like let's say, Muslim terror, and then this would be very easier for someone to really be tolerant about that and say like, okay, it's okay to have this means of torture to get the information. And if you look into many of these Hollywood movies in which you would have one of the investigators would turn off the camera and then torture someone in this room that are full of mirrors and then they would get the information, which also shows that it's an effective mean. And I think this situation would be totally different in the countries where people would see themselves as subject to this mean, and then they would never want someone else to be in that position. And I think for me, this is probably exhibiting a lot that if you can imagine yourself, like let's say if a citizen of the P5 countries would imagine that they should, or could be like potentially subject to torture, and I think the opinion would be different. But if you are absolutely imagining that there's no way I would be there, it's only these bad guys, then it's the story. And it's very interesting also when you connect this to an older study that I read once about the genocides. And it's been done by the head of Genocide Watch in which he founded the batons around genocide in the 20th century, and then he classified this into 10 stages that actually start with the classification. And I think this is the first point which when you classify people, they say like them and we, and then you dehumanize them and then justify them by saying the terrorists, that's like it's less than human. And then it's much more easier for you to be tolerant about the means that you can use against them. Civilian casualties are one thing to contemplate when the civilians are far away, somewhere else, speak a different language. It's very different to contemplate civilian casualties when you're talking about your neighbors, your friends, your family members. Alyssa, does that seem like the right? For sure, that seems like the obvious explanation for some of this. But I also wonder whether, what kind of relationship there is, and I wonder if there's anything in the data that speaks to this, what kind of relationship there is between the fact that people around the world have a lot quicker access to the fact that a lot of more civilians are being killed, that healthcare workers are being targeted, that these things are happening, and the acquiescence essentially in those things happening is one the cause of the other, which one? I mean, I think that there is a sense, perhaps, of acceptance of things that are happening and a less of a sense of agency to stop them and less of a sense of connection that when you lose a commitment to the rule of law in other areas, it kind of weakens this idea that there's rules for war. So I'm curious about that. I think there also may be something to, I mean, I know I encounter it in this country when we're doing advocacy around the Geneva Conventions and that these are different kinds of wars now. And so that just has a general kind of sense of undermining of the, I can't tell you how many times that I hear, particularly during the last year or so of the campaign season. Well, those rules, you know, I wasn't even born when those things were, the situation now is totally different. And then finally, I think it's very interesting that in the United States, a country that's probably got the most forward lead deployed military of any other country, is where you see some weakening of commitment to a set of rules that really has done so much to protect the military personnel itself. And perhaps I wonder if that speaks to something Rosa that you've written about, kind of the, that polarization in this society between people who have some connection to the military and, you know, that's the population who've never met anyone who's ever served in the military. Paul Eaton, you have commanded U.S. troops in combat. From your perspective, when you talk to, when you talk to the veterans who you work with day to day and when you think back on your own experiences in Iraq and elsewhere, do you see a weakening of U.S. military commitment to the Geneva Conventions and the norms that make up the IHL? Thanks, Rosa. After World War II and this stunning loss of life that we saw, the indiscriminate firebombing of cities and whole populations within these big cities being killed in a matter of hours. So you see the Geneva Conventions kick in to, say that's not appropriate in the conduct of warfare. And then we move forward to 9-11 when America took a real shot. And in the 1999 to 2016, the 17 years, what's happened to data points as a trend? So back in the 1950s after the Second World War, we put in place conventions to limit civilian deaths and to try to get a grip on the monster of warfare. And then on 9-11, we took a shot and we lost several thousand Americans. And one of, at least some of us, Hamino's colleagues, John Hudson, who is a retired Navy admiral, staff judge advocate, would say they don't win unless they change us. Well, when you look at this report, there's change and it's not in the right direction. And the military is required to obey the Geneva Conventions. That is part of our duty. We teach it to every young soldier, Marine, airman, seamen. It's part of early instruction. We dwell on something called the Five S's, which governs conduct at point of capture. And where we are obliged to give first aid, we are obliged to provide safe conduct. We are obliged to treat this person who no longer is able to fight as a human being and to conduct ourselves as soldiers with honor to make sure this happens appropriately. Otherwise, you're subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and we will punish you. So that said, when you get into certain communities and you hear, well, I don't think waterboarding is torture because I was waterboarded in Sierra School, Survival Escape RE, it's an evasion. And so, and the argument back is you may have been waterboarded, but you are not waterboarded with strong intent. And so trying to keep the lid on here is real important and it drove General Petraeus as the commanding officer in Iraq to write a letter that don't forget where you've come from. We hold ourselves to this standard. And in fact, it was a higher standard than the President of the United States, the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense. So you had a uniform soldier put in order to the field that this is my standard, this is your standard, and it's in fact a higher standard than civilian leadership of the United States. You know, that's one of the interesting points that I found in the survey that was actually encouraging and reaffirming. And that was the, I think there was a question about which various kinds of things influence the behavior of combatants. And you know, is it the law? Is it, you know, threat of punishment? And it was the influence of military leadership. You know, we have been stressing part of the effort that Admiral Hudson and General Eaton have been involved with the importance of leadership from the top from the commanding chief. And of course we lost a lot of ground on torture in particular, you know, over the last few, after 9-11, during the Bush administration. And, but coming back around now, learning the lessons of that, the people whose voices have been most influential here, both inside the military and in the broader population have been those of military leaders. And I found that, not so surprising to me, but very encouraging and also pointing a pathway forward, that 81%, I think, found that the voices of military leaders were the most influential in determining the conduct of combatants. I found that, can I just continue on what we're saying? Because you asked at the beginning the P5 questions. To be honest with you, what I was surprised was not the P5, what I was surprised was in fact the people affected country opinion. Because frankly, I thought, you know, when you're under pressure, we're talking about a country where war is wage for years, it's not decades, right? I thought in a way that some of their feedback would be more negative. They would say somewhat, you know. Do anything. No, frankly, give me a break, you know. I don't believe it. And in a way what this survey shows, and I just would like to make the link with the military leadership, it says something. So that when people experience war, and they somewhat reflect about it, they are able to understand the importance and the benefits, right? And the limits also, but also the benefit of the rule of the war. And I thought interesting that you see that very clearly with the people affected by war, but also by military leadership. So if you take another example, it's interesting in right now in the debate around us, around the world, you see military leadership exactly what you said in terms of having higher standards. And I think they don't only come on the moral perspective, on the legal perspective, they come also that on the military perspective, right? It doesn't work, right? It doesn't work to break the law. It's very problematic, right? In the way you will then manage your own troops, the way you will connect with civilians. So I think there is something interesting about maybe experiencing the law of war and the war. My second comment would be, and I think it's an interesting, there is something about not only the media, but just to understand then the P5, and I think maybe the world in which we operate. I think there is a sense since 9-11 maybe, but not only 9-11, where the popular culture has also had an enormous influence, and I think there is some discussions about that on the way we look at war, but also the way we look at torture, right? I think people mentioned to me, and maybe you can say a word on that, Elisadeh, that before 9-11, very clearly, torture was very rarely portrayed in our popular culture, right, in series, in movies. And when it was portrayed, it was portrayed as something completely wrong. Suddenly, after 9-11, for different reasons, and not just by the way in the US and a lot of country, today, even the good people would say, will torture in order to get information, right? Which is a complete, complete tensions with what is really happening around the world. So I think there is not just what leadership thinks, what leaders are telling us, there is also about what popular culture, what media cultures are we moving in, right? And I think we have to recognize also that people don't feel secure anymore, right or wrong. Even if maybe the war is very far away, but there is also a sense of insecurity sometimes in a lot of country around us. And I think there is something that we need to be able to capture. So there is a question of experience, the questions of the popular culture, and the questions possibly also of the war being far away, but also unsecured. If you allow me to add some words as well here. Because I found this fascinating that in the last page of the survey, when exactly when they say like 80% of those who would influence and make the impact is the leaders and also fellow combatants. Which is like make sense because it's the orders or chain of command and also the psychology of group. And this also make like total sense, but I agree also with you that, if you have a good leaders, but if you don't have a good leaders within the situation right now, for instance in Syria and other places. And I think this is where also we'd be like move to the second thing here, which those would be like surveyed say that actually increasing the effectiveness of low and also the accountability would really reduce these impacts. And I think this is what we lack in the last recent years because so far we see from all the conflicts that took place before and also from what's happening right now in Syria is that actually perpetrators not just only escaped and not being held accountable for the crimes that they did, but actually they being part of the post conflict country. And you could see them taking place and also being in power in Lebanon and also you could see them in impunity in Yemen and you can see them see running the country like in Sudan, other places. And I think this is exactly the wrong message that we, if you want to reduce these violations that this is absolutely were keep giving the wrong message and also keep giving the guarantees that to have this continuing in the future. And this is also very important. So it's always struck me as a strange irony when you think about torture that in the wake of World War II with millions of people dead, there was no big surge within the United States or other Western states say, obviously we need to have torture despite the horrific scale of the carnage and the horrific scale of the evil involved in the Holocaust and so forth. And yet in recent years after 9-11, which was a terrible, terrible attack, but not an existential threat to any Western state, how quickly, even though objectively speaking, it seemed the threat was far less than it had been in earlier periods of history, that there was a very incredibly quick shift in public attitudes. And I also just very struck, I think if you'd had a conference on torture in 2001 on September 10th, the only discussion would be how do we continue, there are a few more outliers left in the world that still use torture, how do we get rid of those last few outliers and get them to join the global consensus that this is illegal and immoral and unnecessary and so forth. And that changed so fast. And I think you're right that part of it, as you suggested, is this narrative of a shift from a kind of a mass enemy to an individual enemy. So there's this narrative fantasy that says whenever we think about torture, we're imagining this one terrorist mastermind with a nuclear bomb under New York and it's going to go off in two hours and only if we torture him will we possibly be able to diffuse it. And that sort of fuels this sense of urgency. But a couple of things that can I ask you to comment on. I mean, number one, when torture is used in conflict zones in the world, that doesn't tend to be what's happening, right? It's not the terrorist mastermind that's using a much more casual across the board way and it spreads to other kinds of criminal justice system and so forth. But also, how do we, how do you account for the speed of that shift? And I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about something that you've all alluded to and I know Alisa Human Rights First has done a lot of thinking about this. The role of the media in constructing narratives that reframe torture from something terrible and criminal to something that good men must sometimes reluctantly turn to and they don't like it, but it just has to be done. How did that happen? Well, I think there are, there was right after 9-11 kind of a perfect storm and it's important for us to learn those lessons because you had essentially the, our country was stung by this, essentially a sneak attack. So there was a sense of shock and a sense of, you know, there was a sort of desire for revenge and interestingly, you know, there was in the immediate wake of the attacks more calls for calm by President Bush and this is not a war on Islam and we have to bring people to justice and all that kind of stuff, but it didn't take very long for people to realize that you could play off of that sense of having, you know, the sting of having a surprise attack and the desire for revenge. You know, we did, you alluded to this project called Primetime Torture in the years after 9-11 where we looked at the statistics of how a torture was portrayed on television before 9-11 when it was rarely portrayed, but when it was, it was by the enemies of the United States for doing the torturing and the spike after 9-11, which peaked with the very popular television show called 24, that was the most popular show in America in the years after 9-11, essentially a half hour advertisement for torture that was watched by 15 million Americans every single week and it was the most popular show in Congress and that is a very difficult tide of, I have three, I'm the mother of three teenagers so I know the press of popular culture is unbelievably strong and in fact we sort of discovered this problem when we heard some service members coming back we were interviewing them coming back from Afghanistan and they mentioned that they were watching these shows and you combine that with the message coming from the political leadership which was that the Geneva Conventions might not really apply in this conflict, Al Qaeda is a different kind of thing, is a Taliban, they're different, different kind of enemies so there was legal ambiguity combined with a sense of urgency, an agreement across the board that intelligence was gonna be everything in defeating this enemy and an urge to young combatants to be creative and we discovered from talking to the commander at West Point that tell it, he said Jack Barr, that's the character on 24, it's my biggest problem. He said I have to kind of deprogram all our 18 year olds coming in who believe they are doing the right thing and they wanna be instrumental in saving American lives but they think that's the way you do it so you have all of that and combined with the legal ambiguity I think that accelerated the acceptance and then you had the actual kind of legal engineering that was going on in the Justice Department to take what was a fairly straightforward criminal statute that we had to pass in this country to join the convention against torture which made torture a federal crime including punishable by death if the person died under torture to redefine that is not quite and then there's this strong, again another factor, strong sense of American exceptionalism almost to the fact that well if we do it then it can't really be torture so that all combines to kind of just all of those forces acting on what was a taboo so much a taboo actually Rosa that on the days after 9-11 when a bunch of groups got together to think about okay what do we need to focus on? What could happen? Torture wasn't even on that list the idea that the President of the United States would put forward as a policy of this country that we would torture other people was not even on our long list of a parade of fourables that we were afraid of so it was that much of a taboo and within two years it was kind of pretty much accepted If we need to reflect on two things one you just mentioned how torture is used and what we see in the field is torture is very, very rarely used to get information torture is used strategically to in fact put fears and to have impact on the entire population you want people to be really nervous to be extremely worried I mean there is nothing worse to imagine that you are arrested and you would be tortured and people are perfectly aware and regime are using that it's not new just to be aware that's very clear and we see that that's why it's so important to remember torture is totally illegal has a huge impact on people and not just on persons but on entire communities and society for decades so there is a good reason also why torture is absolutely legally and morally forbidden but what I just would like to reflect and submit a question here when I look at the survey is somewhat we're confronted with two different taboos one there is a tabo about healthcare in danger and I really would like just for a minute to unpack that because on healthcare over the last five years what we see is a much more systematic attack of health system people from day one of the conflict not just anymore a kind of incident of war casualties of war but really strategically aiming at in fact healthcare personal healthcare facilities somewhat also to create fears and control people so you have that on the ground and in a lot of places here as a terrible example but I can talk about Yemen, I can talk about South Sudan I can talk about Somalia, I can talk about Afghanistan really from almost day one of the conflict very strategically by all party of the conflict still people in the survey very strongly believe that healthcare should not be attacked under any situation so you still have a very strong support I would constitute taboo very strongly whereas on torture it's interesting the same taboo is somewhat breaking down and I think maybe we have to understand why and I think there are some elements which are related again on the popular cultures but I would say also if I may say it's not just the US right I think there is a question about torture which goes beyond the US and I think if you look at some of the country I'm talking about Nigeria for example I'm talking about Israel, I'm talking about other places so I think we need to try to understand what is at stake because if a taboo starts to really be challenged I think there is a real risk that then the rule of law is not respected at all, is not perceived not only by the politicians or the state but also by the people are something important and here there is really something we need to reflect Can I ask a question just about that I agree with that so much and I just wonder it made me wonder why the survey question was framed the way it was around torture I think the question says well you think it's acceptable but then it also asked to get important military There was two questions right? One wrong in general and then specific Yeah and so given what you said and what we all know that torture is not ordinarily the most widespread use of torture is not to get important military information because as most military leaders know it is not a reliable way to get important military information and yet the question's asked that way and it does play into I think what a lot of people have been kind of programmed to accept which is that it gets important military information Does that raise the possibility that so one way to think about this would be to think interestingly enough, surprisingly enough, strangely enough despite the erosion of taboos against torture there continues to be a strong taboo against targeting healthcare professionals and so forth and another way to think of it might be to think is it possible that it's an artifact of the way the questions were asked I mean do we think it's possible that if the question's about the right to healthcare for injured combatants and targeting of healthcare professionals had been framed as would it be acceptable to target them if it was vital for military reasons or something like that would we have gotten different answers because otherwise it does seem like a puzzle but it does seem like why so much erosion of the norm against torture and yet such strong support for the norm against targeting healthcare professionals what do we think is going on there? Quickly, if you may just on the survey we did two things, one we really used a 99 question in order to be able, they were not perfect but they were framed the same way, right, at the time and at the time already the feedback we got and I think there was the people who had helped us to establish the question, they said be careful if you just ask what do you think about torture is it wrong or right, you won't get the real answer, right because the issue is much more complex, right now is it perfect or not and at the time already 99 despite of the fact that it was maybe taboo here there was some questions about torture can be used in useful in some places and at the time it was not about making pressure on the people was more about information, still already 99 just to be aware of that in order to grasp it on hospital if you look at there's several questions including some questions, do you think for example to have the right to healthcare even they are your enemy and interestingly enough with one exception all the answer are rather strong about no they do not accept that somewhat if you want the rules or the principle is then conditioned around some specific practice on healthcare very solid on the torture a little bit more complicated, I understand what you're saying but what I'm hearing as a message maybe I'm wrong is our survey and the result of the survey in fact sadly are supported by other survey which have done around the world so I don't think our surveys that completely bring new information dramatically maybe what is interesting is the fact that we did our survey 99 and we're doing in 2016 it's exactly what you mentioned since 99 things have changed and at least I've heard to you telling about one 9-11 very clearly and not just 9-11 in US but 9-11 has a huge impact in our society it has great polarization, it creates tension and fear also but also I would say the end of the 90s there was a very very strong feeling that international justice was on the up right statues of Rome, things were working so people somewhat at a time felt that maybe there is something happening 16 or 17 years later I wouldn't say that there is nothing happening but there is deception very clearly about what you mentioned the international justice still people hope that at the end of the day accountability would make sense but I'm not surprised Dan when you specifically ask them what can have an influence on the behavior of combatants they would choose major leaders for good reason really. So let me come back to Mustafa and Paul everyone has spoken about the influence of the media and it was interesting watching the short video that played at the beginning how many of the people interviewed on the street in Washington DC mentioned social media and the 24-7 news cycle but they mentioned kind of contradictory ways it seemed to me that about half of them blamed this for hardening our hearts to the suffering of others in wartime and or creating narratives that glorify torture and so forth but the other half said well maybe this is something that can enable people to be more empathetic towards others because we can see images of other people suffering and so on and so a lot of ambivalence came out about the role of what does it mean now to live in this 24-7 media environment is this a good thing or is this a bad thing what direction does it cut in does it make us inured to other suffering it becomes just like a television show we don't have to care or does making other people suffering like a really good television show inspire us to care and Mustafa you're a Syrian your life's work is to try to encourage people to care about human rights in times of conflict and raise awareness about what is happening in Syria itself and you live and work in the United States at an American university when you talk to young Americans what shakes them up how much do they know about Syria how much do they care and if they don't seem to know or care what have you found to be helpful in trying to persuade them to care when what role does the media have in all of that I think like when I think about that also like during the listening to the panel of that I think like a long time ago we used to say like we didn't know this is why we say like we sorry but I think it's not the case right now we know and I think like even if we don't know it's much more easy right now to really to know just like few clicks spend one hour or two during the weekend and you can get a good sense of what's going on on any conflict in the world but I think like also at the same time it's the issue of different factors for instance let's starting by manipulating the information also the context in which and the narrative in which the incident certain incidents and being presented it's much more easier to get more solidarity and also empathy and sympathy when you when you see like this picture of someone that you could see as well you know imitate it could be your brother or sister or mother or father or friend or someone you would probably in the future be like familiar with and then hear about the story and then you would know that this person has been either killed or tortured this would really make you anger and move and this is not the context in which you would see the narrative in conflict in conflict it tend to be more unabstract they talk about numbers and they are like slides and breaking news which even doesn't make like a whole story and which also would break this way of really you know having this as imagining it as something real as well as something human as something you could really sympathize with and also this normally when you talk about the casualties you tell number and then you move to terrorist attacks or potential and having again this image that would really ascertain that and I to certain extent I start like really think about also inception and also this the the photography of you know using the image because there are two incidents when it comes to see that really shake the world and the two images are from different times like probably the year difference of two children one of them is called the Ilan which has been found on the coast in Turkey facing the the ground so you cannot and it's fantastic that when I read some of the articles explaining the psychology of why we really felt angry because one of these articles would say that the fact that you don't see his face maybe it would you know make you imagine that could be some you know your kid or a kid in the neighborhood or you know future kid that you could have and this like pushed you more to really empathize with the situation and also the fact that it's being killed by the sea it's not you know you cannot really manipulate and put it in the context that someone that really we agree on the ideology or we agree on ethnicity or whatsoever did that so I can justify it for him and I think also like this is like to make it also clear there is nothing at all in my opinion could justify torture or attacking civilians no reason at all like not now not in the past and also in the future because civilians are civilians and they need to be protected whether they are we agree with them and in ideology and religion and political views whether they are in our country or another country I think this is the this is the humanity connection and once we break this by classifying who would really deserve to be alive and who would deserve to really you know we have the solidarity and also raising the voice for and I think this is would be again the first step of being you know perpetrators as well this is where you tend to be able to be like a perpetrator because the more you are connected with those who are in conflict the more you would feel them and probably I would have like better understanding right now about this psychology because I'm from Alibu my family is still in Alibu and when I talk to them every week I could feel even their frustration and also the survivor mood which totally would have an extreme views about the also the values of other people life because I think there is nothing worse than injustice and isolation that when people feel alone isolated and also nobody care about them and under really very brutal circumstances and daily basis for years and I think the most shocking thing is that when you see victims and survivors turning like gradually to be perpetrators and it's totally it's something totally could be prevented by many mechanisms and starting from solidarity I think like when people they feel that there are other people who would care about them who would know even if they are not doing anything just the fact that you say I lost a brother just like some words sometimes when somebody say I'm sorry that makes you feel good but when you are just by yourself and you feel like it's not justice it's not fair and then I think and this is again it's not justifying when people would agree or justify or push with something that justify attacking other civilians but I think this is where they would start moving to be more and more tougher and they would ask even like okay our hospitals being targeted then why not their hospitals and I think this is the time in which you see like if we didn't interfere at this moment by really speaking up and by also bushing for more accountability and by bushing for you know to see that these people and also the context that we present these stories and these people are the first thing then we are not moving in the right direction and then probably the survey in five years later it's going to be even worse than this one. So Paul I want to go in a moment to the audience for questions and comments but first let me I can't I can't let this panel go by without mentioning our president-elect who during the campaign said a number of things that obviously run really counter to what the ICRC works for ranging from what's saying he wants to bring back waterboarding and a hell of a lot worse because torture works and even if it didn't they deserve it and also suggesting on a couple of occasions that when it comes to threat of terrorism you have to go after the terrorist families because that's the only thing that would be effective and my question for you Paul when you look at young American service members who have come of age post 9-11, grew up watching 24 listen to the man who is going to be in the White House in a couple of months say these things how do you persuade them that that's not the right way to think about this I mean it seems like a tremendous challenge to take young Americans and convince them that the Geneva Conventions is something other than a dry set of rules that nobody who really is out there in the world takes seriously and how do you persuade them this isn't just some boring bureaucratic set of rules I tell them stories and one of the benefits of age is that you have more stories and so and here's the story my mission in Iraq go 304 was to rebuild the Iraqi security forces Iraqi army, police, navy and we brought all these young Iraqis a lot of veterans from Saddam's officer corps non-commissioned officer corps and a lot of 18 year old Iraqi young men and we worked very hard on the messaging component to tell them these are the behaviors that we're looking for this is civilian rule of the army this is how you behave on the battlefield to your opponent and at that time about March timeframe Abu Ghraib blew up and my Iraqi senior advisor who'd been a Brigadier General in Saddam's army walks into my room and says you cannot believe how badly this is going to play on the Arab street so that had an immediate impact on my mission it had an immediate impact on all the work that we were doing to mitigate the influence of Saddam and when you give that story to a young American soldier today they go I get it that I get the messaging that you were trying to do and the frustration that bad behaviors in Abu Ghraib who had and behaviors that had been informed by Guantanamo and then you work your way into another story and here is a conversation that I had with a special forces major and I said and we were talking about this whole business of torture and the Jack Bauer problem and the ticking time bomb and we had one of our senior guys working with Alisa and I said you know every Staff Sergeant commanding a squad on the streets of Baghdad runs into a ticking time bomb problem almost every day and so you asked this major and said okay, enhanced interrogation techniques do you want to, at what level do we want enhanced interrogation techniques to happen at Sergeant? 20 year old Sergeant E5 Infantry, Fire Team Leader? Oh no, no. How about Staff Sergeant? Lieutenant, no he's too young. Captain, well, how about a major? Well, I think I could handle that and that's the whole, you work your way through a dialogue with young people and you use anecdotal based training and learning and put them in a scene and draw all the goodness that exists in every one of our guys and gals certainly in this country and they will revert back to training, to the education that they received in school. Let me open it up at this point. I think we have someone with a microphone so let's go to Doug Brooks. Doug, can you briefly say who you are? Introduce yourself and ask your question and we'd be happy to take other people as well. Doug Brooks with the, what's working? Doug Brooks with the International Stability Operations Association. We work with the contractors who work in conflict, post-conflict environments but my question is more about the legacy of torture within the US military. In my graduate school days I interviewed a lot of Vietnam vets who had a very strong ethos against torture that they'd always been trained that way in the military and I just wonder is there any survey now to see if there's a significant change within the military? Is there any survey on the training that goes on? Has that changed at all since Vietnam days that torture may possibly become more acceptable? Good question. Anybody here know the answer to that? Anybody else in the audience know the answer to that? Well I'm crowdsourcing our answers. Good timing because I wanted to ask a question to you. I'm Andrew Bell. I'm a research fellow with the Stockdale Center for Ethics at the US Naval Academy and I'm currently actually involved in an ICRC project where a number of researchers are actually going out to different countries around the world to try to assess what's the impact of training on combatants, not necessarily the local population but the people who are involved in actual military organizations. My portion looks at the US Army and the Philippine Army and we've actually just recently got back from some of this work in the Philippines and so the data has to be crunched but it's been very interesting from the point of view of talking with the combatants which leads into my question that I wanted to ask the panel and the other groups are looking at non-state groups just as a highlight for the project. So they're looking at Mali, South Sudan, Columbia so those types of places. But the question that I wanted to ask not to hijack the microphone here was from some of most of our interviews with some of the tactical level combatants in the Philippine Army. So these are the sergeants enlisted troops pretty much at the lower level. The answer is that we would ask them about torture we would ask them about issues regarding civilians on the battlefield. The answers that we got tended to vary a great deal from the talking with the majors or the captains or the lieutenants who were very good about towing the party line of what the headquarters wanted. The ones at the tactical level and the tactical level unit problem was very much you were getting kind of what the real sense was in the units and some of the variation we saw was that the units that were coming from Luzon in the North where there wasn't so much of a the fight wasn't so hot, so to speak. IHL had a very important impact on how they were thinking about treatment of civilians on the battlefield. But when you got into some of the units in Mindanao where they were engaged in the heavy fighting with some of the Islamic groups. A lot of the questions we were getting from these soldiers was what are you and I was working with ICRC delegates there. What is ICRC doing to ensure that the other side is also compliant with this? Why should I watch my fellow soldiers get tortured or killed or see the rules of war being denigrated? And why should I have to abide by these and not the other side? And so I wanted to push back a little bit or at least ask a little bit more because I understand the importance of the tactical unit training, get drilling these norms down into the tactical unit. But how do you break past that when you're in the small unit environment where it's very easy for these soldiers who are say away from the fob or away from the captain level or even sometimes lieutenant level leadership, how do you really get them to understand the importance of these norms so they're not reverting back to the 24 culture that they've grown up in? I have to say it's seen the survey results has been very enlightening for me because this breakout between P5 and then conflict, just from the initial look I saw regarding the torture question where it breaks up by country. It's not really P5 versus other. It's the US, it's the UK, Israel, a scattering of other countries. But P5, if you're talking about Switzerland or China necessarily or even France, they're right up there with supporting the norms and theories. So it really looks like a UK, US, Israel issue for the population as well. So given that this culture is sort of evolving, how do we break out of that and really drill this down into the tactical level? And let me actually maybe even add a tweak to that question. So in a world in which we're increasingly dealing with non-state actors who may themselves not have any interest in complying with IHL and whatever old arguments about reciprocity have been somewhat weakened, how do we persuade the young private or young corporal that it matters that he or she should comply with these norms when the enemy won't? Well, if I could say one word about that, I think that the, I might be able to tie all those questions together. On the training issue, you know, I think there was a period of kind of coming back to our senses after 9-11 and that was done partly through public debate, investigation and exposure of what we actually did through the torture program and then retraining and also new laws. So the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogations has been legislated essentially now in a bipartisan vote and adopted as the kind of baseline standard for interrogation of prisoners. The manual can be and will be updated and revised, but that's now kind of been adopted that the legal piece of that has been reinforced. And my understanding at least is that the training now has kind of also gotten back to the clarity that it had in prior days. So we're kind of cleansing the troops of that period of uncertainty where we wandered off track. My anecdotally, we have a project at Human Rights first called Veterans for American Ideals and we have got about 700 or so veterans. These are not the flag officer level, but and so they're a good kind of test case for how is this resonating and they very much are kind of reinforcing and it gives me some confidence that things have turned around. I think that one of the other issues that's addressed in the Army Field Manual that I think deals somewhat with this question and also yours Rosa, because there is a beautiful part of the Army Field Manual that's basically the golden rule. Like if there's a gray area, just ask yourself if this were being done to an American service member, would you think it was unlawful? And if the answer is yes, don't do it. And it's a brilliant way of dealing with the inevitable gray areas around treatment of prisoners. But it's true that that doesn't resonate as much when there is the strong sense that the current enemy is not gonna comply. But there's also the argument in the Field Manual that I think could be elaborated and expounded on by the ICRC and others about the particularly relevant for the United States about the integrity of these norms for future conflicts. And that it's not as immediate maybe for the ground troops, but it is a really, I think a powerful argument about once if you lose the integrity of those norms, then you're kind of back to before the ICRC and that was a terrible place, particularly for the United States. So I think that one of the things I take from this survey, which is the positive things about it, which are what can we do going forward so that it's not terribly worse five years from now, but it's actually better. There is somewhat of a roadmap in here. And one of the things on torture, for example, is that it appears there's not widespread understanding that torture is illegal and that it doesn't actually produce valuable intelligence in a military setting. So that those, perhaps if we improve the public understanding of those things, something that the military tends to know from its operational perspective, much better than the average person, then maybe we could get these numbers closer to where they should be. If I made that to these also elements, I think also it's very important that we also emphasize on the consequences of violating this thing. And this is again echoing what the also people said in the survey that the accountability once again. And I have a great example also for that. It's in which also in the Syrian conflict, the turning point happened when the Syrian government used the chemical attack in August 2013. And if we have a close up on the violations after that, since the Syrian government escaped a huge violation that really was shocking, not just only to Syrians, but to others that to see the scale of violation that took place by using chemical attack and then escaping this, is that also this encouraged other actors actually to take the same face and say, okay, if they escaped that, we could do that. Why we should, as you mentioned, why we should respect this lower where the others are not responding that. So it's again, I think like accountability is not just right of victims and also their families and friends and it's like the right thing to do. But also it's, I think it's a very significant thing to prevent something worse from happening and also to really make the things in the right way as well and minimize the even the opinion about that. What could be acceptable and what not? Eve, maybe just on two issues. One, we talk a lot about torture, but the P5 story was not about torture. When you had the change of attitude was not about that, was a growing acceptance of civilian casualties, right? When you look into that, which is as worried I would say that the torture questions and I think we need to be very careful and that leads me to the new questions is our experience at the ICSC is, it's very clear. It's do you have a culture of accountability? Yes or no, right? And I think if you start to be unclear about the accountability from the top level, that's very clear. And not only the civilian level, as you mentioned, Paul, but the military level, if the military level is very clear about what is the culture of accountability and the discipline in its own troops, I can tell you the young guys and girls, they know it very well, they're perfectly aware. And what I mean by culture, it means that you have very clearly all the rules of engagement be totally connected with in fact what is required legally, but also that you have a sanctions. So people are aware of that. So there is a clear limit. As soon as a culture of accountability shifts or is unclear, we see that everywhere, behavior are different, right? That's, and I think that's a critical issue. The other issue is the political issues. So you do have legal obligation, that's very clear, but you do also have policies. And I think one of the key questions, I think including in our world, when a state is fighting a non-state armed group, is that somewhat what it is? Where is the standards? Are you somewhat willing to compare yourself with the non-state armed group? Or are you saying no, my standards are very high? And that's the big question. That's really a question which we, as I see, we cannot respond. But our experience is as soon as we see a state, and this is true around the world, we decide that somewhat they compare themselves with a non-state and they agree somewhat to lower down their standards, we see immediately impact for the civilian, for their own soldiers, by the way, for their reputation, that's very clear. So I think that this is maybe the key questions we should ask ourselves, which is not just an international law or an legal obligation, which is a real policy question. And it's a huge one. And I've seen, tell me if I'm wrong, but I've seen very high level military leaders being in a very difficult situation where politicians or governments around the world, you know, we're somewhat playing with the level of standards. And that puts military in a very, very difficult situation. Other questions from the audience? Yes, in the orange jacket. Thank you, Rachel Chan from the Department of State. I have a question about that survey and I haven't had the chance to read through this, but I was wondering if you asked during this survey or in the past survey about people's opinions related to landmines and cluster munitions, because this is obviously one of the huge impacts of conflict in many of the countries that you surveyed are highly impacted by landmines and unexploded ordnance till today. Can I answer? Not on that survey. We use, in fact, a lot of data in the 90s to, in fact, which, by the way, was not based on a survey, was based on our practice, in fact, and it took us some times, but it helps us at the time in the 90s to have a much better understanding what was the issue in terms of cluster munition and landmine munition, which then help us to really work on policies and then on IHL and new treaty law. But it was not surveyed. We really based that on our data that we cross around the world. On that survey, we don't ask on landmines and on weapons in general. With one questions on specific, but not on landmine and not on cluster. Jim Shearer. Thank you very much. I'm Jim Shearer, the Wilson Center and the U.S. Army War College, and very illuminating discussion, thanks to all of you. A comment and a question. First, your point in particular about the gray area and non-state actors, I think really speaks to me in terms of the struggle we have in defining really what are civilians, what are combatants, non-combatants. We didn't struggle with that back in the days of carpet bombing and World War II. Although if we had had drones, we probably would have targeted munitions factories in Dresden and Tokyo because civilians do contribute to war fighting in some capacity or some civilians do. But in a world of non-state actors where conflict is rife, that creates burdens. And we've seen horrific examples, whether it's Srebrenica with military age males or others. So, quick question. In terms of polling and future research, I'm wondering what might be the benefits of, rather than focusing on P5, I absolutely agree, conflict affected communities and nations ought to be a focus. What about focusing on countries that have provided expeditionary help and coalitions for deploying? So, for example, yes, Germany, the case Georgia and Afghanistan, Mongolia, a number of other countries that have seen their forces, large scale forces deploy to foreign, not their own conflict zones, but the foreign conflict zones because I should think the Abu Ghraib example, I think would resonate very much in those communities, but there may be other cases. There's also, there's a crowd, I call the pay it forward crew, countries that actually were recipients of peacekeepers and external stability providers and now they're going overseas to do it, to a degree, Colombia. Colombia's not out of the woods, although we're hopeful, but there are other countries too. So maybe that was just a question about whether you had thought about that cohort, not just the P5. Thank you. The answer, we didn't really think about that because we are slightly overwhelmed by survey. That's not our expertise. We don't always do survey. We prefer to do it in a way to engage directly government or non-Satan group. But I think if it allows us to have the right discussions, to engage right, maybe to ask ourselves the right questions, your point is very, very well taken. At the time we just decided it was important for us to have a bit of a sense. Let's take, we took a stick if you want, 99. Let's compare it with what right now. But I think your point is a very good point. I would find very interesting to survey different country and I think your point is about country who have deployed, what have they learned. We just have to agree, what do we want to survey and what is the baseline we're looking at but I think it would be very interesting. I would also be very interesting to look at country, as you mentioned, who have been receiving end in peacekeeping and now are more and more, in fact having their own peacekeeper. I think it would be interesting to look at Kenya, for example, a different look at Ethiopia, look at what is happening in the African Union, Nigeria as a good example. So I think there will be not only the Georgia, the Germany and the Mongolia but I think it will be interesting to look at it. I think it's a, thank you for your advice. And I'm looking for any partner willing to do well with that. It's complex but in case you're interested join us. So we just have a few more minutes. So let me take one more question and then I think we'll give everybody a chance to make any closing comments. Thank you, Ava Havas. I just wonder how much of, I can only speak for the US in this instance, but how much of the acceptance of civilian deaths and torture, et cetera, is because as you pointed out, it's the other, it's somebody we don't really know or understand or we think we don't like. And how much is that the military experience has now become so unreal to so many Americans because we don't know people who have served abroad mostly. And it's just a very, very small percent of people that are affected and so war itself doesn't seem real to all too many Americans. So what's wrong with 24, I have never watched it, but what's wrong with that kind of version of reality? Paul, do you wanna try that? We like to say that the military reflects our society. And that was a lot easier to say when we had a draft than it is today. But I think it's safe to say, and I'm a father of three children, three children who are all soldiers, I believe that the US military represents the best of American society. Interesting statistic is that 75% of the youth of America is ineligible to serve in your enforces for physical reasons, intellectual reasons, or temperament or behaviors. 75%? 75%, so it's a different group of men and women who are on board right now. And those men and women must walk into service with all the values that society has given them and they must leave service better than they came in. Otherwise we are doing a gross disservice to the United States. And I believe that the military is a vehicle to do that. And we tell every leader that, and goes to your question as well, that every leader has that responsibility to take this young person. And when that young person breaks contact that he or she is better than he was. Milai will forever dominate discussion in our leadership training. It's a unit that broke down. And are you that kind of leader or are you the kind of guy or gal who's gonna make sure that your guys do the right thing?  Thinking about the findings of this survey, what's your biggest takeaway in terms of priorities moving forward? Whether it's priorities for the ICRC, is this, I mean you said it when you were opening remarks, see if you said that you did the survey in part to challenge your own assumptions.  Is this going to lead to any changes in how the ICRC thinks about its role or the kinds of campaigns it conducts? Alisa for human rights groups, such as Human Rights First and Mustafa for your own NGO and for your efforts on behalf of war victims in Syria. Does this suggest a different set of challenges or any new priorities? And Paul as well from your perspective, where should we go based on these survey results? What next? If I start, I don't think it's really challenging dramatically the way we look at the world but it somewhat gives another, or let's say it reinforce some of the elements and maybe challenge the other. But if there is one way, so what it reinforces the fact that people affected by war people in country which are really experiencing war for a very long time, they still strongly tell us that's low of war matter and that you can't let a free-for-all world happening. So they in a way are perfectly aware that it could even be worse. It's terrible to say that but there is something about that. I feel this is a huge call to political leaders, to the international community, which frankly is not able right now to bring any convergence when we're talking about global issues. So I think there is something which is very important and we need really somewhat build on this energy. I consider it's a very positive energy. I think that one, what thing we need to do differently or maybe to explore, we've tried to do that when it comes to healthcare. We need to try to understand that not only we need to engage states, we need to engage government and to continue to engage military or so that's very important for us. But we would like also maybe to start to reach out more clearly to community of concern. I think we are in a world where community of concern have a role to play. I'm not talking here to the grand public, I'm talking of people who feel that they're concerned, not about the Geneva Convention, but they might be concerned about the hospital, my dream would be that any American hospital would twin with a Syrian Yemeni Afghan hospital. One to one. Imagine, one to one. It will exactly change maybe the way you relate to the other. It's not somewhere far away. This is your hospital as well. And suddenly you as a doctor, you as a patient, you feel deeply this is something which is happening. So maybe in the world where there's so much information, just asking people, please support the Geneva Convention. This is good, this is bad. It's too much. I don't think people connect with that. So I think we have to find a way where people would somewhat relate that very directly with us. And I think it's our work to find a way. Too easy to say, this is your problem. It's our work to find that. And I think maybe the community of concern is maybe a way to go along on specifics. Well, for us, there wasn't a lot of surprising information in this because it's something that we've been working on, particularly on the issue of interrogation standards and treatment of detainees for a long time. But we've just been through a presidential campaign that had these two very dangerous things coming together, the politics of fear and the other, and a kind of factory environment. And those two things, I think, exacerbate every problem that's revealed in this survey. So what that means, I think, for us is that we have to work harder to make sure that people understand the facts about all of these issues, in particular that the Geneva Conventions and other human rights laws and norms are they were part of the solution to global insecurity. They are not something that constrains the strength of the United States and keeps it weak. And the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was grounded in the sense that this is a strategy for human security, for global security. And so we have to shift that perception. And then I also think, as I mentioned, a lot of the wisdom of how this works in practice comes from military operators. And I think elevating those voices, particularly at a time in this country, at least, where people feel insecure and also surveys show that the military is far and away the most trusted institution in our democracy right now. That those are good messengers for a message that they believe and experience firsthand. So I think that's where we're going to focus our energy. Likewise, it's shocking, but not surprising. But also at the same time, I think like I'm doing fellowship right now in Yale in which it's kind of a break from the work before heading back again. And I remember that a therapist working on personal development told me that it's better right now to focus on working in the strength, not improving the weakness. So reflecting on this, I think the positive thing is that I see that there are 70% of people who also agree with me on the importance of increasing the low influence and also the accountability, which is like right now is taking the large amount of my work. And I think it's again, it's the issue of working on how perpetrators are accountable for the crimes that they did. It's not just will prevent more atrocities from happening in this conflict, I mean in Syria. But also I think it's going to be also a prevention mechanism for our next conflict to come. And meanwhile, also the priority of protecting civilians right now in Syria and elsewhere by maybe showing more people that they are also human beings and they deserve to be alive and they are civilians. And there's nothing could justify targeting them even with the accurate weapons. We just had an interesting revelation from General Mattis. And where he pushed back on the president, he liked and said, we can do a whole lot better with a couple of beers and cigarettes than enhanced interrogation techniques. Leadership starts at the top and it may not be at the very, very top for the next four years. We don't know. We're going to see this evolve. But we certainly hold our Secretary of Defense and the uniform military to the standard that we talked about here and that they're going to establish the ethical environment for the armed forces and the other lettered agencies that might touch this to do the right thing. Well, thank you all very, very much. And thank you for joining us here for this terrific discussion. Thank you.


File servers have served multiple purposes over the last, you know, 20-30 years. They're a place where people share files, a place to have centralized data, to back up user data. If I were to go visit, you know, 10 customers and go through their file share, any company of any length of time that's been in business for a length of time, I would find a new folder, new folder one, new folder two, accounting, old accounting. And they begin this digital hoarding process. So many of you are familiar with logging into the 365 portal. Let's take a look at some SharePoint content. Let's say you were in the marketing group and you wanted to see what was going on in marketing. We have our news, we have our activity and whatever kind of top tier documents that marketing might be using could be available here. So if I was interested in this international marketing campaign word document, I could simply click here. This could be edited right in the browser. Most of the functionality of Word is available right in the online version. So I can see the file was introduced initially 2.4 by Megan Bowen and there's been modified. Now these revisions aren't something that I'm really excited about. I'm capable of viewing the original, deleting the original or restoring the original. I want to go over this marketing term success spreadsheet with a colleague. I'm going to go ahead and share that one. Great. So now my colleague will receive a link in her email and have the ability to kind of edit this file. Now I just got a notification that Christie is also editing this online with me. We can see what she's doing. She's editing that cell. You can even open the chat to her. Now this is my personal SharePoint site that only I see. It's got a quota of data that is generally one terabyte depending on your licensing and it's one terabyte per user. So if I were to have a series of documents that are just my documents, my personal things that I use, they would live here. Microsoft has the OneDrive client. So what that does is it gives me a folder, a local folder where files are created locally. They appear to be local to me. This is actually the identical data. And from this interface, it's very familiar for users to open documents. So Microsoft came up with the concept of a group. They said a group is an easy to spin up SharePoint site with these kind of vital normal pieces. Users could create them on the fly. So here we have exactly that. Here's our business development group. We have our members. We have our share of conversation. We have a file share that's on SharePoint and our notebook. So we have our 365 platform with lots of tools. We have SharePoint, we have OneDrive, we have groups, we have Skype. How can we unify all that? How can we put that in one location that the user could easily have access to and kind of be my daily console of how I work? So here comes Microsoft Teams. You can have a myriad of add-on pieces. So here's a PowerPoint presentation that's stuck to the group. That I can edit, that I can download. That's kind of collateral or information that each person within Team could use. And distance is no longer an issue. So if something that Denver is working on and it's sitting on the Denver file share and I'm in Minnesota and I need to get on the Denver server so I can see the file shares, this kind of negates all of that. And that's a real common problem that happens in any kind of multi-state and international environment. You're working with a centralized set of data or a spread-out set of data that is geographically limited. Here you're limited by the bandwidth, right? What I can tell you for being an admin for many, many years is that call in the middle of the night where you're getting alerts, the file server's down, somebody can't get on the VPN, somebody can't log in. These are all things that are circumnavigated. I don't worry about raid controllers and drives and server health backups. These are not my concern, right? And that right there is a lot of peace of mind when it's your phone that rings at 3 in the morning.


Item Number – SCP-157 Object Class – Euclid Special Containment Procedures When not being used in an experiment, SCP-157 is to be stored in its cryptobiotic form in a dry, airtight container. It is estimated that SCP-157 can survive in this condition for at least 10 years. Specimens needed for experimentation can be removed from storage and given water then food to restore them to a usable state. Personnel working with an active SCP-157 colony are cautioned not to eat, drink, change clothing, or apply any substance to their body in the presence of SCP-157. Foundation MTF agents are authorized to administer Class A amnestics to any survivors or witnesses of wild SCP-157 attacks. Description – SCP-157 is a previously unknown microscopic animal in the tardigrade phylum, adapted to live on land as a predator. Like other tardigrades, SCP-157 is extremely resistant to environmental damage and can enter a cryptobiotic state when no food is present. SCP-157 normally exists as an amorphous mass composed of millions of individual organisms. In this form, it can slowly crawl and climb. SCP-157 colonies are predatory and can attack insects and small animals by engulfing them and then slowly dissolving their prey with digestive enzymes. Humans and other large prey are not normally attacked directly by SCP-157 colonies, as they are too large to engulf, and long-term contact is necessary for SCP-157 to successfully feed. The organism has developed an alternative method of achieving such contact. SCP-157 colonies possess an innate telepathic ability. When in the presence of prey that is too large to directly attack, the SCP-157 colony will use telepathy to present the illusion of something its prey wants to eat, wear, or apply to its body. SCP-157 is highly toxic when eaten. Someone having done so requires antidotes to and within 20 minutes, as well as immediate gastric surgery to remove the portion that was eaten. When applied to human or animal skin, SCP-157 will produce an anesthetic to encourage prey to ignore pain and leave the organism in place. It then dissolves and consumes the skin within 30 minutes to 2 hours. Dead prey is rapidly consumed and SCP-157 will grow significantly as it feeds. When reaching a size of 5 kilograms, SCP-157 will split into smaller colonies that move off in search of new prey. When in the presence of two or more individuals, SCP-157 will have an inconsistent appearance. It may appear to be a food item to one person and an article of clothing to another. This can serve as a warning and prevent exposure to the organism. Addendum. Note that due to its resilient nature, SCP-157 can be split into smaller pieces, boiled, microwaved, etc. and remain alive and dangerous. SCP-157 Capture Incidents. Incident 157-01 Found with extensive scalp damage after mistaking SCP-157 for a bottle of shampoo and applying some to his hair, victim was apparently immune to SCP-157's anesthetic and began screaming, attracting the attention of his wife who had been eating a snack. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. He had a pastrami sandwich on his head and it was eating him. Victim treated for chemical burns. SCP-157 Captured Alive Victim and wife given Class A amnestics and released. Incident 157-02 Found partially consumed by SCP-157 in his office after apparently believing SCP-157 was a pair of socks and wearing them. Victim bled to death after feet and lower legs were mostly dissolved. Incident 157-03 Standard monitoring of police reports revealed a missing person's case where the investigating officers observed a couch, slowly attempting to crawl towards the door of the victim's apartment. Couch initially sealed an area by police. Foundation agents later determined it to be an unusually large variant of SCP-157 and contained the specimen. Amnestics administered. Although large enough to attack humans directly, this specimen prefers to use its telepathic ability to attract prey in the manner of smaller SCP-157 colonies. Lesson complete. If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-156 Reanimating Pomegranate right now. Or for the complete course, watch this playlist.


This scoping review aims to map existing research on the use of virtual reality, VR, in undergraduate medical education and identify areas for future research, finding that VR modalities such as surgical simulators, 3D models, and virtual worlds are commonly used for anatomy education, while there is limited evidence on the use of more novel VR modalities and conceptual frameworks or theories in VR design. This article was authored by Haowen Jiang, Sunita Vimelsvaren, Jeremy King-Wong, and others.