A Simple Question

[babylonsister]

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/a-simple-question-ii.html

A Simple Question II
Andrew Sullivan


We appear to be nearing a happy ending in the case of Roxana Saberi, the American journalist detained by Iran and accused of being a spy. But ask yourself this hypothetical and distressing question.

If Saberi had confessed on Iranian television that she was a spy, and if the New York Times discovered that prior to this confession, she had been kept in solitary confinement in freezing temperatures, had been slammed against a wall twenty times in a row, and had then been shackled from the ceiling for days in such a way that the pain was excruciating, and had been blasted in her cell with extremely loud noises to keep her from sleeping for a week ...

... do you think the New York Times would report that she had been "tortured"? Or would they adhere to their current practice and say she had been subject to "harsh interrogation"?

If the leaders of Iran publicly stated that they had succeeded in proving that she was indeed a spy and her confession showed it, would Dick Cheney believe them? And would Bill O'Reilly proudly argue that the Saberi case proves that "harsh interrogation" "works"?

[Eric J in MN]

1. The NY Times has used the word "torture" for practices under Bush.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02EFD91238F934A35753C1A9619C8B63
========================================================
EDITORIAL; On Torture and American Values

Published: October 7, 2007

...The Bush administration has dishonored that history and squandered that respect. As an article on this newspaper's front page last week laid out in disturbing detail, President Bush and his aides have not only condoned torture and abuse at secret prisons, but they have conducted a systematic campaign to mislead Congress, the American people and the world about those policies.

After the attacks of 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the creation of extralegal detention camps where Central Intelligence Agency operatives were told to extract information from prisoners who were captured and held in secret. Some of their methods -- simulated drownings, extreme ranges of heat and cold, prolonged stress positions and isolation -- had been classified as torture for decades by civilized nations. The administration clearly knew this; the C.I.A. modeled its techniques on the dungeons of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union.

The White House could never acknowledge that. So its lawyers concocted documents that redefined ''torture'' to neatly exclude the things American jailers were doing and hid the papers from Congress and the American people. Under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mr. Bush's loyal enabler, the Justice Department even declared that those acts did not violate the lower standard of ''cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.''

That allowed the White House to claim that it did not condone torture, and to stampede Congress into passing laws that shielded the interrogators who abused prisoners, and the men who ordered them to do it, from any kind of legal accountability.
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[babylonsister]

2. That's an editorial/someone's opinion.

(from 2 YEARS ago)

In their daily reporting, it seems they're not allowed to breathe the word 'torture'.

[anonymous171]

3. That's a pretty good question. nt

[merh]

4. Poetic Justice.

Bush's congress passed The Patriot Act, many people have been opposed to that legislation and for good cause.

However, one provision in that Act provides the crime that bushco people could be charged with. The conspiracy to torture.

My thread on this has fallen away.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5660387&mesg_id=5660387

I think it is classic karma, that they forced this legislation on the US citizens and it provides the means to lock them all away.

[gratuitous]

5. Of course they'd call it torture if done to Ms. Saberi

But it's not torture when the exact same things (or worse) are done by our star-spangled fightin' men and women.

This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

I'm thinking of starting a petition to change the motto of the United States from E Pluribus Unum to Cruciatus Illus Illegitimi.

[babylonsister]

6. Wow, you speak Latin?

;) What does Cruciatus Illus Illegitimi mean?

[gratuitous]

7. No, but I can use a Latin translator program

It's a rough translation meaning "Torture those bastards." But thinking back to the Monty Python routine in "Life of Brian," I've probably used the declarative form of the verb instead of the imperative, so I expect John Cleese to show up momentarily and threaten to cut my balls off.

[babylonsister]

8. LOL!

I don't think you have anything to worry about!

I forgot about those translator programs. And I was forced into 5 years of Latin in my youth. I don't remember a word of it, either. Sigh.