8 ms·

Why do they insist on saying 'enhanced interrogation technique' instead of torture? Even when it obviously means torture: "Another senior CIA officer stated tha

by Loughla 12y ago

Why do they insist on saying 'enhanced interrogation technique' instead of torture? Even when it obviously means torture: "Another senior CIA officer stated that COBALT was itself an enhanced interrogation technique." When talking about a physical place. That is so blatant word replacement that I find it hard to take it seriously.

mladenkovacevic 12y ago
I think one of the conditions for the release of this report was to erase any mention of the word "torture".
- lotharbot 12y ago
  The word "torture" is in the document. I happened to just read it in the middle of page 12 (conclusion #5).
fit2rule 12y ago
>Why do they insist on saying 'enhanced interrogation technique' instead of torture? Because there is an 'unenhanced interrogation technique' that is almost but not quite torture. Never forget that beneath the violation of human rights is a desire to destroy. Calling something 'enhanced' is just another way of saying 'we forked you'.
colinbartlett 12y ago
I think you already know the answer to this. They do this for the same reason that when cops shoot civilians they don't say "Then Officer Smith shot the assailant". They say "Then there was an officer-involved shooting.": To use language as a tool to manipulate the viewpoint of the public.
- rqebmm 12y ago
  except, "Officer Smith shot the assailant" is more manipulative of the listener's viewpoint than the actor-neutral phrasing "there was a shooting and Officer Smith was involved"
r0h1n 12y ago
"...Language can be used politically to deceive and manipulate people, leading to a society in which the people unquestioningly obey their government and mindlessly accept all propaganda as reality. Language becomes a mind-control tool, with the ultimate goal being the destruction of will and imagination." - On George Orwell's 1984. [1] - http://www.berkes.ca/archive/berkes_1984_language.html http://www.berkes.ca/archive/berkes_1984_language.html
addicted 12y ago
This is probably why: "While the Office of Legal Counsel found otherwise between 2002 and 2007, it is my personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured."
downandout 12y ago
In her introductory letter, Feinstein said it: "...it is my personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured." (page 4)
DevX101 12y ago
"You can't be afraid of words that speak the truth. I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms or euphemistic language. And American english is loaded with euphemisms. Because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent a kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it. And it gets worse with every generation. For some reason it just keeps getting worse." - George Carlin Here's an amusing and insightful video of Carlin dissecting the language behind Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc The U.S. military seems particularly prone to this habit of using euphemisms to mask reality.
- ericksonjon 12y ago
  George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" covers this subject well. "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them." Full Essay: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  As a European I think this has deepcultural roots, probably in religion. I'm struck by the way many elecators don't go to the 13th floor, or the 13th in a series of numbered streets is often called something else (eg in SF you have 12th Avenue, Funston Avenue, 14th Avenue...). People prefer to say someone 'passed' (presumably to the afterlife) rather than that they 'died'. And of course there's no swearing on TV - although this only applies to American swear words, it's OK to use words that are considered quite rude in English or Australia. I have a theory that this is part of the American fondness for TV shows featuring English detectives (Elementary, Forever, Constantine and just about every mystery show on PBS): by speaking the same language but coming from a quite different cultural context, they're able to engage in narrative truth-seeking because of their obliviousness to or disregard for implicit American cultural mores.
maxerickson 12y ago
One reason to do it is to just set aside the language debate and get on with talking about the actions taken. So "These things you did are wrong, I don't care what you want to call them or who said they were legal." The legal debate has important implications for lots of people, but the fine details of it aren't very interesting to the moral debate.
- pseudometa 12y ago
  The trouble is that legality is all about language and definitions.
spacefight 12y ago
It's because they stick to their narrative. PR speak.
- uxp 12y ago
  Torture is a loaded word that directly implies guilt, where as "enhanced interrogation" is a fairly neutral term. Despite the reports narrative of pointing out all the failures of the CIA in allowing these techniques to be performed, it can't just say "The CIA is a bunch of jackasses who tortured some folks". It needs to be objective to be taken seriously.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Why do they insist on saying 'enhanced interrogation technique' instead of torture? "Enhanced interrogation technique" is an uncontroversial, accurate factual description. "Torture" is a conclusion of law applied to the facts that, while there is overwhelming reason to accept that the conclusion is valid for the program as a whole, and many of the specific instances in particular, does not necessarily apply to all of everything that is under the label "enhanced interrogation techniques", and is, in any case, not a legal conclusion that the Committee reached (though the Chair of the Committee, Senator Feinstein, in her introduction to the release, emphatically and directly states as her personal conclusion both that the program involved "torture", and that it involved "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" treatment (both terms being significant in regard to grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (including Common Article 3 of the Conventions, which applies to conflict that is not between states-parties to the convention) [0] and the manner in which grave breaches of the Conventions are incorporation into US criminal law as war crimes under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2441 [1].) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions#Grave_breaches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions#Grave_breach... [1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441
- ilyagr 12y ago
  > "Enhanced interrogation technique" is an uncontroversial, accurate factual description. Such language exists only to obscure the meaning. How exactly do you distinguish an "enhanced" interrogation technique from merely an interrogation technique? Is there any better criterion than saying that an interrogation technique is "enchanced" if it involves torture? Orwell has a nice essay about this: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm UPDATED: I can't reference Orwell and start sentences with "In my opinion..." :)
- sesutton 12y ago
  "Torture" isn't just a crime it's also a word that's been around for centuries that is used to describe the kind of things described in the report. People who want to avoid it do so because its a powerful and emotive word. Describing it as "enhanced interrogation techniques" is just a euphemism to make it seem more palatable because everyone agrees "torture" is wrong but who even knows what an "enhanced interrogation technique" is?
ryanmarsh 12y ago
The media is saying the methods were "far more brutal" than previously thought, which is a gross understatement.
nolok 12y ago
Because torture dungeon doesn't exactly sound nice
jstalin 12y ago
Just like murdering jews was called a "resettlement operation." To sanitize the language.

by Loughla 12y ago

mladenkovacevic 12y ago

I think one of the conditions for the release of this report was to erase any mention of the word "torture".

lotharbot 12y ago
The word "torture" is in the document. I happened to just read it in the middle of page 12 (conclusion #5).

fit2rule 12y ago

>Why do they insist on saying 'enhanced interrogation technique' instead of torture? Because there is an 'unenhanced interrogation technique' that is almost but not quite torture. Never forget that beneath the violation of human rights is a desire to destroy. Calling something 'enhanced' is just another way of saying 'we forked you'.

colinbartlett 12y ago

I think you already know the answer to this. They do this for the same reason that when cops shoot civilians they don't say "Then Officer Smith shot the assailant". They say "Then there was an officer-involved shooting.": To use language as a tool to manipulate the viewpoint of the public.

rqebmm 12y ago
except, "Officer Smith shot the assailant" is more manipulative of the listener's viewpoint than the actor-neutral phrasing "there was a shooting and Officer Smith was involved"

r0h1n 12y ago

"...Language can be used politically to deceive and manipulate people, leading to a society in which the people unquestioningly obey their government and mindlessly accept all propaganda as reality. Language becomes a mind-control tool, with the ultimate goal being the destruction of will and imagination." - On George Orwell's 1984. [1] - http://www.berkes.ca/archive/berkes_1984_language.html http://www.berkes.ca/archive/berkes_1984_language.html

addicted 12y ago

This is probably why: "While the Office of Legal Counsel found otherwise between 2002 and 2007, it is my personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured."

downandout 12y ago

In her introductory letter, Feinstein said it: "...it is my personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured." (page 4)

DevX101 12y ago

"You can't be afraid of words that speak the truth. I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms or euphemistic language. And American english is loaded with euphemisms. Because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent a kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it. And it gets worse with every generation. For some reason it just keeps getting worse." - George Carlin Here's an amusing and insightful video of Carlin dissecting the language behind Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc The U.S. military seems particularly prone to this habit of using euphemisms to mask reality.

ericksonjon 12y ago
George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" covers this subject well. "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them." Full Essay: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
anigbrowl 12y ago
As a European I think this has deepcultural roots, probably in religion. I'm struck by the way many elecators don't go to the 13th floor, or the 13th in a series of numbered streets is often called something else (eg in SF you have 12th Avenue, Funston Avenue, 14th Avenue...). People prefer to say someone 'passed' (presumably to the afterlife) rather than that they 'died'. And of course there's no swearing on TV - although this only applies to American swear words, it's OK to use words that are considered quite rude in English or Australia. I have a theory that this is part of the American fondness for TV shows featuring English detectives (Elementary, Forever, Constantine and just about every mystery show on PBS): by speaking the same language but coming from a quite different cultural context, they're able to engage in narrative truth-seeking because of their obliviousness to or disregard for implicit American cultural mores.

maxerickson 12y ago

One reason to do it is to just set aside the language debate and get on with talking about the actions taken. So "These things you did are wrong, I don't care what you want to call them or who said they were legal." The legal debate has important implications for lots of people, but the fine details of it aren't very interesting to the moral debate.

pseudometa 12y ago
The trouble is that legality is all about language and definitions.

spacefight 12y ago

It's because they stick to their narrative. PR speak.

uxp 12y ago
Torture is a loaded word that directly implies guilt, where as "enhanced interrogation" is a fairly neutral term. Despite the reports narrative of pointing out all the failures of the CIA in allowing these techniques to be performed, it can't just say "The CIA is a bunch of jackasses who tortured some folks". It needs to be objective to be taken seriously.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Why do they insist on saying 'enhanced interrogation technique' instead of torture? "Enhanced interrogation technique" is an uncontroversial, accurate factual description. "Torture" is a conclusion of law applied to the facts that, while there is overwhelming reason to accept that the conclusion is valid for the program as a whole, and many of the specific instances in particular, does not necessarily apply to all of everything that is under the label "enhanced interrogation techniques", and is, in any case, not a legal conclusion that the Committee reached (though the Chair of the Committee, Senator Feinstein, in her introduction to the release, emphatically and directly states as her personal conclusion both that the program involved "torture", and that it involved "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" treatment (both terms being significant in regard to grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (including Common Article 3 of the Conventions, which applies to conflict that is not between states-parties to the convention) [0] and the manner in which grave breaches of the Conventions are incorporation into US criminal law as war crimes under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2441 [1].) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions#Grave_breaches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions#Grave_breach... [1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441

ilyagr 12y ago
> "Enhanced interrogation technique" is an uncontroversial, accurate factual description. Such language exists only to obscure the meaning. How exactly do you distinguish an "enhanced" interrogation technique from merely an interrogation technique? Is there any better criterion than saying that an interrogation technique is "enchanced" if it involves torture? Orwell has a nice essay about this: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm UPDATED: I can't reference Orwell and start sentences with "In my opinion..." :)
sesutton 12y ago
"Torture" isn't just a crime it's also a word that's been around for centuries that is used to describe the kind of things described in the report. People who want to avoid it do so because its a powerful and emotive word. Describing it as "enhanced interrogation techniques" is just a euphemism to make it seem more palatable because everyone agrees "torture" is wrong but who even knows what an "enhanced interrogation technique" is?

ryanmarsh 12y ago

The media is saying the methods were "far more brutal" than previously thought, which is a gross understatement.

nolok 12y ago

Because torture dungeon doesn't exactly sound nice

jstalin 12y ago

Just like murdering jews was called a "resettlement operation." To sanitize the language.