It's Torture–but Let's Not Call It That - FAIR

[WillyT]

It's Torture–but Let's Not Call It That
By Peter Hart - FAIR
4/2/14

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The Washington Post got a big scoop on the massive Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the CIA's Bush-era torture program. But they wouldn't call it.

Under the headline "CIA Misled on Interrogation Program, Senate Report Says," reporters Greg Miller, Adam Goldman and Ellen Nakashima explain that the still-classified, 6,000-plus page report finds that the CIA misled lawmakers and the public about the effectiveness of torture.

But the piece doesn't call it torture. Readers learn about a "brutal interrogation program," "harsh techniques," "excruciating interrogation methods," "brutal measures," "harsh interrogation techniques," "coercive techniques," "previously undisclosed cases of abuse," "harsh treatment" and "enhanced interrogation techniques."

The descriptions were at times quite vivid. Readers learn of the treatment of one prisoner:

CIA interrogators forcibly kept his head under the water while he struggled to breathe and beat him repeatedly, hitting him with a truncheon-like object and smashing his head against a wall.

But they still won't call that "torture." The only time that word was used was in reference to critics: "methods that Obama and others later labeled torture."

It's important to understand that, as many critics have pointed out, that these kinds of tactics would be labeled as torture if they were happening in another country. The media's role in endorsing and excusing torture has been an issue as long as the US torture program has been public. The press has done its part to justify torture, even pushing the false idea that torture was key to finding Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

So while it's not new that some media outlets are still hesitant to call torture "torture," it's still revealing–and probably not an accident. Post reporter Miller appeared on the PBS Newshour to talk about his piece. Host Judy Woodruff referred to "harsh techniques," and Miller explained that there was

very little evidence that these enhanced techniques, as they're called–we're referring to water-boarding, sleep deprivation, things like that–delivered any significant intelligence in the aftermath of 9/11.

What reporters call torture is important–even when they're reporting illuminating and very useful information about the scope of the program.

The Post isn't done covering the issue...

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More: http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/04/02/its-torture-but-lets-not-call-it-that/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=its-torture-but-lets-not-call-it-that

[MannyGoldstein]

1. "Freedom dunks"

Sounds much nicer than "torture", no?

[smokey nj]

3. Bobbing for Liberty!

[MannyGoldstein]

5. I like! nt

[gratuitous]

2. The CIA "misled" Congress

So much softer and gentler than "lied."

And, even after torturing the captives, "very little evidence" that it "delivered any significant intelligence." How much "evidence" constitutes "very little"? My guess is "none." Thanks very much, Washington Post, for papering over crimes against humanity.

[LiberalEsto]

4. If they don't consider it torture, let's try it on the CIA

After all, keeping their heads under water while they struggle to breathe and beating them repeatedly, hitting them with a truncheon-like object and smashing their heads against a wall, isn't really TORTURE, is it? .

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Did congress want to be "misled" to avoid the truth of torture by the CIA?

Did they just go along with the CIA out of expediency if fear of being accused of not supporting "our troops"? Of being unpatriotic? Of outing the CIA for what it is, a bunch of hired thugs and sadists that congress pays?

I think the answer is clear....

"Prussia is not a state that has an army, but an army that has a state." Mirabeau