6 ms·
It's pretty striking that a media organization which has almost no restriction on the words it publishes would characterize a torture program that included 183
by mef 13y ago
It's pretty striking that a media organization which has almost no restriction on the words it publishes would characterize a torture program that included 183 waterboardings and 180 hours of sleep deprivation as "harsh interrogation"
- sliverstorm 13y agoI've found media organizations will sensationalize the little stuff (to make it news) and de-sensationalize the wording on big stuff. My hypothesis is they want to sound less crackpot. If they call it a "torture regime deserving of the Middle Ages", they are going to lose readers, because it can be hard to take that sort of stuff seriously. You might be inclined to say, so what, lose readers. But if people don't read it, how do you spread a message?
- gruseom 13y agoOne can write plain English without sensationalism. Waterboarding someone 183 times is obviously torture. People only use roundabout phrases to describe torture when it's their side that did it. Conversely, it's easy to see the nature of these bureaucratic euphemisms when others use them: http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/05/-versch-auml-rfte-vernehmung/228158/ http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/05/-versc... Tangential edit: every time I hear "enhanced interrogation techniques" I remember Orwell's classic essay: If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase [...] into the dustbin, where it belongs. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
- tptacek 13y agoWorth saying: "waterboarding" is itself a euphemism. A more accurate term would be "drowning", or, to capture the intent of the exercise, "mock execution via drowning".
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mullingitover 13y agoHow about compared to Japanese war crimes? When Japanese soldiers waterboarded US soldiers, we hanged them for it. Now that the shoe is on the other foot...
- mikeash 13y agoWhy, exactly, would we compare to KGB interrogations when "KGB interrogations" is not involved in the definition of the word "torture"?