The Cowardice of American Journalism: Fear of the T-word
Nothing better shows the utter cowardice of American journalism than Washington Post reporters refusing to call a spade a spade. In other a word, calling "enhanced interrogation" torture.
As posted by ThinkProgress:
Yesterday, during a chat with the Post's Dana Priest, a questioner revisited the issue, specifically asking why the paper doesn't call waterboarding "torture." This time however, the questioner received a different (and somewhat shocking) answer. According to Priest, the Post doesn't call waterboarding "torture" because the Bush administration doesn't:
Q: If they are going to follow the analogy on reporting other criminal issues, why wouldn't reporters use the term "alleged torture" or "accused of torture"? Waterboarding is torture, no one disputes it. To substitute "harsh interrogation techniques' with regard to waterboarding is like saying "manslaughter" when the charge is "murder."
PRIEST: Not true. The Bush administration would dispute that waterboarding is torture. That's what the memos are all about. Torture is a crime. There is not a lot of case history to define torture.
And as TP argued:
Let's be clear, as the questioner noted, waterboarding is torture and torture is a crime under U.S. law (as Priest acknowledged). Prominent Republicans and Democrats -- from Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder -- all agree. In fact, the United States "convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war" after World War II.
The Bush administration (even President Bush himself) admitted that it had authorized waterboarding on three terror suspect detainees, and the Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel memos released earlier this month confirm it.
Note to The Washington Post: The reason many former Bush administration officials who were involved in authorizing waterboarding don't call it "torture" is because they would be admitting to a crime punishable with long prison sentences. Presumably, they make this argument because the do not want to go to jail.
As Media Matters's Jamison Foser noted of Kane's "libel" arguement, "So who does the Post think is going to sue them for libel if they refer to torture as 'torture'? It doesn't seem like there is a long line of people who participated in harsh interrogations torture who are eager to litigate their conduct, but maybe I'm wrong."
And this was the once storied newspaper that broke the Watergate story?
Let's face it: the United States has become a politically depraved society masquerading as a democratic republic. It's easy to cite people like Charles Krauthammer's demented justification for torture, but what else would one expect from someone whose profession is a willing executioner of such a policy. However, average Americans also think it's okay to torture people. Now you have reporters too afraid to call engage in truthful reporting.
This does not bode well for the democratic process. It's Orwellian, which makes the process of self-correction difficult. This kind of mindset may well represent the insidious nazification of American society.
The country may have tried to save its soul by voting for Obama, but it has shown that it has opted to do the devil's work by being so casual about torture, rationalizing it, and refusing to call it by its true name.
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Comments
Yeah, we're Americans. We don't do stuff like that. The realist in me thinks that there are times when "the heat of the moment" or some immediate exigency may justify it much like Reacher's actions in any Lee Child novel. The ideologue in me is repulsed and finds it abhorrent and contrary to the notions of justice that I so firmly believe in.
So rather than think that the term is not used because of former Bush officials' concern for their culpability, I prefer to think of it as their means to rationalize their abject pragamatism and arrogance behind more "civilized" terms. It's just too bad that they are too pompous to call a spade a fucking shovel and be honest about it with themselves and with the rest of us.
Rated as thought provoking
Wonderland!
From its inception America has played dirty pool of the dirtiest kind. How many Americans have asked themselves why the Japanese attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbour, Dec. 7, 1941?
It's much easier not to ask such questions and just blithley assume that anyone who opposes American domination is, of necessity and by definition, "evil".
And it goes without saying that Americans are NEVER evil. Therefore "intensive interrogation" needs to be called that because good American folks would never use torture.
Is this a form of brainwashing? Yep.
Monte
Exactly. I'm thinking of the weapons of mass destruction. The media waited until it was super duper clear that there were none before they started "investigating" the claims that there were.
Nice post, Norman. It's TORTURE.
I think it is important to ask the unanswerable questions. I believe today matters more than yesterday and we should expect lessons to be learned and justice to prevail. What is the preferred outcome of this discussion and public debate?
Please keep pressing the issue, Norman. Americans may still have "hidden potential" to see and understand the truth.
Didn't it used to be the case that this kind of nonsense was confined to the lunatic fringe. How did the nutters become mainstream?
It would be funny if it weren't so godawful and tragic. It feels like a bad joke. a storyline you wouldn't have swallowed if it had been in the West Wing.
Although it seems to be a cultural thing to simply rename or ban the mention of things in the hope that they'll go away, rather than deal with the issue. (I'm not American, but my partner is, and I find her family maddeningly weird in similar, if less world-shakingly horrifying, ways.)
I know that's sweeping, even as sweeping statements go, but it's what I see. I would be happy - very, very happy - for someone to tell me I'm wrong. You'd have to prove it though, there are enough empty words flying around.
And people are worried about Pakistan's nukes? I wonder when the WP, NYT, et al, will rename them Pacification Packages, easing the way for their use in Mexico/Iran/insert country here?
*rips out hair*
…Obama has a reason for proceeding the way he is.
I voted for him because I like the way he thinks…and I trust his instincts.
Trying to micromanage the way he should proceed makes no sense…and all this constant whining in that direction is not being helpful…it is being hurtful. Harming him, right now, harms our country…and our country doesn’t need any more harm coming its way right now.
Get off his back.
The have tortured logic. They have tortured their readers by "waterboarding" the truth.
Is there any wonder that newspapers are dying? They are committing suicide by trying to torture and kill the truth.
I respect and commend you for that.
Mal
I wrote this in response to one of Dennis Loo's excellent posts... (I thought it was excellent)... Anyhow for what it's worth.....
[SNIP]
I contend that Mr. Obama does in fact “see” the bigger picture. He knows forcing “change” cannot and will not work.
I further contend that there has been both renewed debate AND more vociferous debate (in many areas) since his inauguration.
I believe this is a strategy
I believe it will produce a synergy beyond anything we have yet seen.
I believe it is less divisive
I believe it will work – better...
My views in NO way lessen my abhorrence of torture, nor do they in any way condone it's use in any circumstance.
When I look at “repressive” regimes across our world, it seems to me, that those that condone torture, repression, etc... have the most dysfunctional societies.
Conversely those that do not, are much better places for humanity to reside.
Regards Mal
To Frank Apisa and Mal Noble: there is nothing more dangerous—it get us to the debased place that this post is about—then trusting a politician and assuming motives.
None of us knows what Obama is thinking, what his strategy is. We can trust actions. He did a very good thing when he release the torture memos, and I wrote him to give him props for that—as I wrote him to question him about "looking forward."
The "he knows what he's doing" attitude is the same thing I heard from Nixonites when their saint was shredding the Constitution, and from Reaganauts, and from Bushwhacks.
Here is Noam Chomsky talking about the use of the word "terrorism": http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200111--04.htm. It is particularly relevent.
Twaddle. Plenty of people think it doesn't come close and even more are prepared to restrict the definition of torture depending on circumstances. Torture is a rubbery concept-easy to identify at the extremes but difficult to pin down in the grey area where waterboarding lies.
That explains both McCain's and Obama's positions. The Washington Post is simply keeping an open mind as it should.
The more railing by the radical left the more sure it is that there will be no prosecutions and, a fortiori, no convictions. Get used to it.
Bill Michtom…I think Mal is on to something…and that you are simply being too jaded.
I don’t “trust” any politician…or any other human being, for that matter…in the sense that I do not question motives. But at some point, you gotta “trust” people in ways that are even more threatening than a politician.
You’ve gotta “trust” the train engineer or airplane pilot or surgeon. Life simply demands that we do.
As for politicians…just like the engineer, pilot, or surgeon…I make as good a choice as I can…and then I “place my trust.”
Doing some of the stuff I see some people doing is not truly helping in the trust area anyway.
I say: Give Obama a chance to straighten as much out as he can…and I have absolutely no problem with him as far as his handling of the “torture” issue for now. There may come a day where I will want this issue revisited…in some way or another. But for now…I am giving the man my trust. If that is perceived by some as naiveté…so be it.
Should read ""Waterboarding is torture, no one can reasonably dispute it."
I'm guessing the idea it isn't torture is another "conservative opinion." It's a cryin' shame that conservatism is used to "justify" an oblivious argument.
Evidence please, if it's not too much trouble.
Rated, and dugg.
There is, to me, a significant difference between putting my trust in the former and the latter. I would not trust a pilot who also claimed the earth was flat, or a doctor who thought that HIV does not cause AIDS.
Mr. Obama has done a number of things that, to me, fall into those categories: his support for Bush's version of state secrets; his abasing himself—during the campaign—to AIPAC; his hiring of, and continued support for, an economic team that has stolen from everyone to help the rich.
You get the idea.
The tried and true reporters are out there looking for truth and trying tp be objective , too many whiners, too many me me's, too many egos waiting for their moment in the limelight.
Look at Jerry Falwell and his ilk how they were cow towed to for years & now look at the same crowd moaning that the country has gone to hell, all because we refused to have their beliefs forced upon us. Cowards take the easy way out, that's a fact. It's so easy to have the air filled with talking heads telling us what to believe and how to live our lives.
He did not pull any punches either...
I do not know where you get "never" from?
Regards Mal
http://open.salon.com/blog/kanuk/2009/04/29/
torture_do_unto_others_remember
Exactly. We all know Bush told the media what to say and how to say it. But he's history. BAD history. Let's put some honesty back into all forms of media. Obama is honest. Let's follow HIS example now.
Bush and Cheney ordered waterboarding and other violations of the Geneva Convention for the prisoners at Guantanamo. They should have been strung up or....better yet....been subjected to the inhumane torture they ordered for the POWs. What Bush and his Gestapo did during eight years of shameful politics should not be repeated. Time for journalists to take refresher courses on honesty in reporting.
“There is, to me, a significant difference between putting my trust in the former and the latter. I would not trust a pilot who also claimed the earth was flat, or a doctor who thought that HIV does not cause AIDS.
Mr. Obama has done a number of things that, to me, fall into those categories: his support for Bush's version of state secrets; his abasing himself—during the campaign—to AIPAC; his hiring of, and continued support for, an economic team that has stolen from everyone to help the rich.
You get the idea.”
Yeah, I do, Bill. You’ve got a hardon for Obama…and you are going to beat it every chance you get.
No problem. I will defend your right to do so.
I am even willing to apologize for thinking you to be a jerkoff for doing it.
The pathetic thing is, Dana Priest actually says there isn't a lot of case history on what is and isn't torture? Please. And that the first sentence of the answer is "The Bush admin. would dispute..."
The media used this similar tactic when discussing the Bush administration's lies running up to the Iraq War- the MSM refused to call it what it was- a LIE. They had no problem characterizing Clinton's cigar escapades and subsequent testimony a "lie", despite the fact that lying to start a war has far greater consequences than lying under oath about sex.
Can we please put to rest the fiction of a liberal media? I know it appeals to the right-wing crowd, but in terms of "truthiness", not so much.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.
The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.
The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Leith Anderson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The survey asked: "Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?"
Roughly half of all respondents -- 49 percent -- said it is often or sometimes justified. A quarter said it never is.
The religious group most likely to say torture is never justified was Protestant denominations -- such as Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians -- categorized as "mainline" Protestants, in contrast to evangelicals. Just over three in 10 of them said torture is never justified. A quarter of the religiously unaffiliated said the same, compared with two in 10 white non-Hispanic Catholics and one in eight evangelicals.
If you believe this then you would have to admit that we torture our own service men and women every day. Waterboarding is done in training for E&E and POW survival.
Others try to relate this to what the Japanese did in WWII. Not even close. Here we use a small amount of water to make you think you are going to drown. They used large amounts of water and you really did drown. Not exactly the same thing.
But why should we stop here with calling things by names that we like or don't like. The Obama administration refuses to use the title War on Terrorism. How about the MSM refusing to call some here illegally and illegal. No we have to call them undocumented.
I don't think waterboarding is torture, won't call it that so your statement about "no one" is wrong from the start.
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Forget Waterboarding. Just put the perpetrator of the "man made disaster" in a small room with a huge screen and run video's of Obummers' Teleprompter speeches, non-stop, until the POMMD tries to strangle himself to death with his own bare hands. He'll start talking in no time.
Choose your newspaper or TV news station and it’s all the same. It really doesn’t matter who you watch or read. “Don’t like station X? Go watch station Y. We own that too.” How curious that only in Communist and fascist countries does one see such uniformity in the news and in the language of gutless pandering ‘journalists.’ Dissent is exiled to the margin and its voice drowned out by Madison Avenue public relations propagandists.
Today all journalism is propaganda journalism and those who used to be watchdogs are now toothless, pandering, sycophantic lap dogs. Witness another result of Reagan’s deregulation that fueled merger madness allowing a few to gobble up independent news.
"EVERY JOURNALIST WHO IS NOT TOO STUPID OR TOO FULL OF HIMSELF TO NOTICE WHAT IS GOING ON KNOWS THAT WHAT HE DOES IS MORALLY INDEFENSIBLE." (Janet Malcolm)
On an intellectual level we know torture is wrong, but emotionally what would we do in the context of saving lives of loved ones?
I was having a discussion about torture with one of the sweetest and kindness women I know. I am borrowing from the storyline in Dirty and asked what would she would do if a pervert kidnapped one of her children and unless she get the location from the pervert who kidnapped her child, the child would die. Her answer was pretty much predictable. She said she would cut their balls off to get the information to save her child.
The definition of torture, in Websters is burning, crushing or cutting to gain a confession or for sadistic pleasure. I think in the minds of most that is considered torture. We may think we have distance ourselves from dungeons filled with racks and iron maidens, but when it becomes personal and our loved ones are at stake, how many of us would go medieval.
The fact that we are having this discussion in the public forum shows that there is hope, but right now it is an intellectual discussion, but what if another plane crashes into a building? Would we be so morally high minded about our enemies then?
And using the wrong words is a surprisingly easy way to mislead people. For instance, I'm perfectly willing to credit the unspoken agreement to use the phrase "human trafficking" with making most Americans believe there is no such thing as slavery happening anymore. What they think the difference is, I'm not sure...
Maybe we just need to torture- oh, I mean waterboard- a few journalists. I betcha that would change some things.
And while I would not support extreme physical pain, would I punch you in the nose if I need to save a loved one? Well yes I would give it a try. Maybe that's all it would take. If I hadn't tried something that simple, how much pain would I and my loved ones suffer to spare that criminal's nose? I could sleep at not over a bloody nose.
Does that make me a "bad" American. If so , then so be it.
Now Obama seems to be unwilling to do anything to get criminals prosecuted. I think that the right method is to put Congress to do it.
The Global War on Terror is now the Overseas Contingency Operation. We no longer speak of corporate bail-outs, it’s the TARP. The national media is complicit in the usage of the euphemistic phrases to desensitize the American public and appease our national leaders.
I wasn’t aware anything had changed. Eastasia has always been at war with Eurasia!
Didn't it used to be the case that this kind of nonsense was confined to the lunatic fringe. How did the nutters become mainstream?
The American public is ahead of the press on this issue, even if there is a plurality that thinks sometimes torture might work or be necessary.
The politico-journo-elites, though, are almost universally in favor of preserving the choice to use torture. Just in case...
Who ever thought that we'd live to see the lunatic fringe take over the 4th estate? Even my imagination wasn't that good, despite the craziness that's been getting published every day since the advent of 24/7 cable news and the Clinton persecution/saga.
And how have the MSM skewed these results? By continuing to do what Mr. Kelley point to above- by minimizing the torture by re-characterizing it as "harsh" despite the fact that it has become all to clear that Bush and Co. knew what they were doing was torture, thus knew it was illegal and did everything they could to create 'plausible deniability' by having their neo-con lawyers create the most absurd legal arguments which essentially did little more than say, essentially, "everything that was once generally accepted as torture, isn't anymore because we say so and because we are only doing this to keep America safe, blah, blah, blah."
You've gotta love the following media story which perfectly illustrates the media complicity in all of this:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/torture/abc-news-whoops-our-story-sanitizing-torture-was-all-wrong/
And if only the media had actually bothered to maybe do some, oh, I don't know, investigative reporting, they might have come across interrogation experts Malcolm Nance, who would be able to clear up pretty quickly, what is and isn't generally considered torture and why the CIA had no business doing any of these interrogations to begin with:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/04/19/2009-04-19_why_the_bush_torture_architects_must_be_prosecuted_a_counterterror_expert_speaks.html?page=0