The Washington Post (3/31/14) 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 (Extra!, 6/08). The media’s role in endorsing and excusing torture has been an issue as long as the US torture program has been public (Extra!, 6/04). 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 (FAIR Media Advisory, 5/4/11).
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 (4/1/14) 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; today (4/2/14), columnist David Ignatius makes it sound like the Senate report is shocking—it “includes gruesome new details about interrogation practices in the first year after September 11, 2001, before the CIA’s program was formally established with the misplaced approval of President George W. Bush’s Justice Department.”
Ignatius uses the “T-word,” and suggests that some of the details “will shock the conscience in the same way that the Abu Ghraib and waterboarding revelations did.”
He also writes: “The heart of the dispute isn’t whether torture is immoral—nobody would argue that question today—but whether it was ever effective.”
Of course, there are still people who would argue that torture is, in some cases, perfectly moral. Like his Post colleague Charles Krauthammer, who wrote this a few years ago (5/15/09):
Our jurisprudence has the “reasonable man” standard. A jury is asked to consider what a reasonable person would do under certain urgent circumstances.
On the morality of waterboarding and other “torture,” Pelosi and other senior and expert members of Congress represented their colleagues, and indeed the entire American people, in rendering the reasonable person verdict. What did they do? They gave tacit approval. In fact, according to Goss, they offered encouragement. Given the circumstances, they clearly deemed the interrogations warranted.
Perhaps Ignatius thinks Krauthammer has changed his mind. I suspect not.
Hat tip: Alice Chan.
Doug Latimer
Only an wilful ignoramus would be “shocked” by this.
Only an utter fool would believe it doesn’t continue.
Whether by proxies abroad, or within our own “criminal justice” system
Torture occurs every hour of every day
From the viciously physical, to the malignantly mental.
And, as always
It will be ignored by those who now profess repugnance at “the sins of the past.”
Eric
WashPo should stop torturing its readers with obfuscation.
Sena
Doug Latimer makes an important point in the above comment regarding state sponsored torture by politicians and private sector interests: “Whether by proxies abroad, or within our own “criminal justice” system”.
Proxies abroad refers to the ongoing rendition program by the US, and ” ‘criminal justice’ system” refers to the torturous conditions found throughout the prison and jail industries in the US. These topics are not in the narrow spectrum of discussion by a so-called ‘elite’ newspaper like the Washington Post.
Padremellyrn
@Eric, I am seriously thinking that it is a Masochistic relationship the readers have with such Media.
Glenn
I’ll believe it’s not torture when “enhanced interrogation techniques” are used to insure that the Director of National Intelligence is forthcoming in his next testimony before Congress.
michael e
Yes Im following this.Im tea party down the line and I feel…IT WAS TORTURE.All tapes,films etc should be released to the American public.After all,it was done in our name.On our dime.I have never doubted its effectiveness.Every man breaks sooner or later.Ask McCain about his NVA hosts..Look at Nazi Gestapo methods.What I do doubt is that this is what America should be.So now let us see what was done in our name.Let us decide.And by God if laws were broken let heads roll.The single ugliest thing Bush and this country did in those times was to become part of the gestapo methodology.We need a complete airing out of this.I have no problem with the films or transcripts being dedacted for security.But beyond that we the people own those records.
Bruce
If the mere thought of it tortures you; It’s TORTURE!
Padremellyrn
I have never doubted its effectiveness.Every man breaks sooner or later.
And that is why it doesn’t work, because if you torture a man correctly, he will admit that he is actually the snake from the Garden and that he personally gave the apple to that blonde. Or that your actually a martian and came from the planet Claire. Or whatever you want to hear; They will tell you that.
And that is why it doesn’t work because by time you break them, and then shift the pile of garbage they spew, you have already missed the most important stuff. Every Psy-ops worth their salt will tell you the same, better to treat them with kindness and catch them off guard. Torture is only for revenge, not for information.
michael e
Well Padre yes and no.I see you point but most people do break.The gestapo would usually(usually I say) get what they needed to the point that being in the underground had a short life expectancy in France.But lets not get into it.It is too horrible.And it does not matter in the end why you do it.If you do it then that is who you are.And that is NOT who we are.And what really bugs me is the deniability built in.First they say it was necessary.Next they say it was not torture.To me,I see it this way.Let there be no deniability.If we catch a man who knows where a nuke is set to go off in a day….then the president should be there.Ordering the torture himself.And it should be filmed.No deniability.Complete responsibility accepted by those involved.You want to swim in this filth ,then swim.But by God no cover ups.