Sorry: No Middle Ground On Whether To Use Word “Torture”
The video of that student grilling Condoleezza Rice that everyone’s talking about gives me an excuse to take another crack at explaining what I think is a key point in the torture debate:
The refusal of many big news orgs to call waterboarding and other enhanced techniques “torture” does not represent some kind of middle ground between the Bush administration’s claim that the techniques aren’t torture, and its critics’ claim that they are. It represents support for the Bush position.
Here’s what Condi Rice had to say to that student:
STUDENT: 500,000 died in World War II, and yet we did not torture the prisoners of war.
RICE: And we didn’t torture anybody here either. Alright?
STUDENT: We tortured them in Guantanamo Bay.
RICE: No, no dear, you’re wrong. Alright. You’re wrong. We did not torture anyone.
The Bush position is not simply, “waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques aren’t torture.” Rather, it’s “we did not engage in torture.” Torture is illegal under international law. If you don’t call the techniques torture, and instead call them “enhanced interrogation,” you are not coming down somewhere between Bush and torture critics. You are supporting the position that Rice took here: “We did not torture.”
This is not a debate solely about semantics. It’s about actual acts committed in the real world — about who did what and when. You can’t take the position that the Bush administration might have tortured, because it’s an established fact that waterboarding and other techniques were used. Either they constitute torture, or they don’t. Either the Bushies tortured, or they didn’t. If you don’t call the techniques torture, your position is that the Bushies didn’t torture — their position.
People are free to take which ever side they want, obviously, but the simple fact is that there’s no middle ground here.
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You are absolutely right, Greg.
I remember when the GOP was the party of right and wrong and there was no in between for them. We were accused of moral relativism, which the right argued was all diversity was about, which is misunderstanding diversity. But they misunderstand every damn thing; I just can’t figure out if it’s on purpose -
Be that as it may, torture is torture is torture is wrong is wrong is wrong.
And that’s all there is to that. Waterboarding is defined as torture and it is illegal.
So why not just eliminate the semantic confusion and call it waterboarding? or other specific techniques? At some point whether waterboarding is torture or not becomes a tedious exercise in language. It still violates the Convention on Torture. We still didn’t do it in WWII. It’s still illegal. And it doesn’t work.
“At some point whether waterboarding is torture or not becomes a tedious exercise in language. It still violates the Convention on Torture. We still didn’t do it in WWII. It’s still illegal. And it doesn’t work.”
A-yuh! I think we executed Japanese for waterboarding after WWII.
Obama called it enhanced interrogation techniques during the presser but he seemed to pause for a moment while saying it as if he wanted to say torture. Of course we’ll never know.
mike, I think Obama is using their terminology although he clearly states waterboarding is torture, because if he said that word he would have to prosecute. I think it is clear he is hesitant to do so, especially right now. So he plays into their games in public but in private releases the memos that may ultimately force prosecutions. It is a strange line he is walking.
I used to respect Condi because I appreciated that she and Colin Powell were not divisive. She has publicly thrown her support and confidence behind this new administration and I still appreciate. It shows she knows on some level that the Bush administration did torture especially since she has never used her voice to contradict Obama like Cheney has.
Still, I guess you can’t really reward someone for not being Cheney, that is the lowest bar to set. I am glad to see evidence accumulating against her on film. Maybe one day she will be put on trial. But these videos may be featured in a museum documenting the abuses of the Bush administration.
“o he plays into their games in public but in private releases the memos that may ultimately force prosecutions. It is a strange line he is walking.”
I think so too – I think it’s a very strange line he’s walking and I do believe he’s walking it. I think he wants prosecutions but he doesn’t want to spearhead the thing, he wants to stay out of it if he can and really, the president should stay out of it. This is up to the AG and/or Congress, not Obama. But I get the strangest vibe from this whole thing – he doesn’t do things for no reason and he released those memos and he didn’t wait around to do it. He just released them. Surely he knew – I knew he knew – what the response was going to be. I think he wanted this response, but I’m making guesses here – though I think they are educated by what I know about Obama.
Should have read: “Iknow he knew…”
Heh. Ironic, isn’t it?
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What set Condi apart from Rummy and Dickwad Cheney (and Wolfowitz, and Addington, and…) was that she was sane. Feckless and substantially evil, but not nearly as deluded.
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mike
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Uhmmm President Obama specifically said waterboarding was torture. The Bush administration has acknowledged that they ordered waterboarding. Hell Cheney says it proudly. There is no getting around the fact that A + B = C. Namely if the Bush administration ordered waterboarding and waterboarding is torture then the Bush administration sanctioned torture. It is what it is.
“Feckless and substantially evil, but not nearly as deluded.”
I always knew she was evil. She’d take a bullet for Commander CooCoo – she’s a kind of Eva Braun. You can’t serve evil and come off clean yourself. Two words: Albert Speer.
Greg, thank you for making this point so clear. Can someone now tell the likes of NPR who now refer to the memos as “torture memos,” but then IN EVERY SINGLE REPORT go on to use euphemisms like, “enhanced interrogation techniques,” “harsh procedures,” or my favorite, “what some people might call torture.”
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Just last week their intelligence reporter, Mary Louise Kelly, gave a breathless ode to the Bushies by having on 3 defenders of their program in a single segment. She did not provide even one voice of opposition, but referred to those who call it “torture” as the “hard left.”
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GRRRR…..this kind of thing drives me crazy. And you are absolutely right to note that this is not about having it both ways. It’s about demonstrating support for a particular (Bush) opinion.
That’s why, every chance I get, I call it Torture. And I describe as Torturers anyone who authorized, designed, “legalized” etc.
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We can’t control what others say. Thus we need to say it so much and so often that it sneaks into the public discourse.
God it’s lovely to see you, TheraP! You’re one of my favorite people.
“mike
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Uhmmm President Obama specifically said waterboarding was torture.”
I know, but if you listen to the presser again, he at one point, called what the U.S. was using was enhanced interrogation techniques, which I thought was very odd. And, as I stated, he seemed to have paused when he said that, as if contemplating using harsher words.
I suppose he was correct in saying that if he was indeed referring to the overall interrogations taking place. Not all of the techniques were torture unless I’m mistaken. Only the waterboarding can be classed as torture. So, I suppose if the discussion is specifically about waterboarding, torture would be the appropriate term to use. If not, then both enhanced interrogation techniques and torture should be used.
Wonder when waterboarding will become a common enough word to be included in Google spell check.
blaa…no spaces….sorry
mike
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He was walking the fine line of not explicitly saying the Bush administration committed a crime which would have touched off a media feeding frenzy and still saying what was done was a crime. I think he threaded the needle pretty well if he doesn’t want more of an outcry for criminal investigations. If he said the Bush Administration sanctioned torture there would be no way to walk that back and criminal investigations would HAVE to happen.
sgwhite – “If he said the Bush Administration sanctioned torture there would be no way to walk that back and criminal investigations would HAVE to happen.”
I basically agree, but for this – the president saying so one way or the other still doesn’t determine whether or not it is so, one way or the other. That’s still up to the AG, really. I agree in real terms with what you’re saying, but I also think Obama is making a distinction without a difference and he knows it. And I’m saying it really doesn’t matter in the end whether he makes that distinction, because waterboarding is torture and torture is illegal and that’s up to the AG, a jury, and/or Congress. It’s not the president’s call, really. Though in real terms it would make a difference what he said publicly, I agree.
Tena
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It is a very romanticized notion that the AG works independently and this will all be his call. But thats not the way the real world works. Its a good way for President Obama to have cover on this issue but you have only to look at the political prosecutions that took place under Bush such as the Gov of I believe Alabama who was targeted to realize that the DOJ can be directed by the President. If President Obama wants a prosecution to happen then it probably will, but on the flip side if he really doesn’t want this to go anywhere it won’t. You can’t really expect that someone who is appointed by the President to Att General and serves at his pleasure isn’t at least somewhat also controlled by the President. It is what it is.
SG – Ask Bill Clinton about Janet Reno. It despends who the president and AG are.
As I mentioned on another thread, once Obama uses the words “waterboarding”, “torture”, “Bush Administration”, and “illegal” in the same sentence, he has officially, on the record, irrefutably connected the dots. But as long as he keeps the words isolated, no one can quote him directly as saying that. Word games? Sure, but it’s nothing new.
Some examples of middle ground phrasing:
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“methods widely considered to be torture”
“methods that were historically prosecuted as war crimes”
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etc.
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In other words, it is possible for a media org to stop short of categorically describing the methods as torture, while still not appearing to embrace the view that they are not torture either.
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I do hear your point that e.g. “alleged torture” doesn’t really work since that makes it sound like it’s disputed whether the waterboarding, homicides, etc. took place, whereas really the dispute is about whether such acts were torture (which for godsakes they were, but that’s a separate point).
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Just saying.