Enhancements

BOB GARFIELD: The U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights says that waterboarding is torture. The International Committee of the Red Cross have called what the U.S. did “torture.” Waterboarding is unambiguously in violation of the International Convention on Torture, which has been ratified by 140-some countries.

It seems to me that the only people who think it’s a debate are the Bush Administration, who are the culprits. So how does that constituent a debate?

ALICIA SHEPARD: Well, there are two sides to the issue. And I'm not sure, why is it so important to call something torture? You know, when you describe the technique, I think that sounds like torture to me. Isn't it the job of the news media to put the facts out there, to give as much detailed information and to put it in context?

BOB GARFIELD: I put it to you that embracing a euphemism for torture validates a political position. You’re trying to be apolitical but, in fact, to embrace terms like “harsh interrogation tactics” instead of calling a thing by its name, in effect, gives credence to the Bush Administration’s argument, does it not?

ALICIA SHEPARD: Yes, I think it does. I think using terms like “harsh interrogation tactics” or “enhanced interrogation techniques” does validate the Bush Administration. So that’s why I said why not just describe it. I think when you detail something and explain specifically what it is, then the public can decide.

Via Greenwald, I discovered this hilarious and embarrassing foray into damage-control, an ironic sort of circumlocutory question-begging non-response to the proposition that NPR embraces official euphemisms for various acts of official barbarism. The nonpartisan newsmedia has tied a more-and-more Gordian knot in trying to conceptualize itself as a totally neutral non-quantity, neither animal nor vegetable nor mineral, shapelessness motionless in void, forever in never, amen, ad infinitum. I am particularly fond of NPR Ombudsperson Alicia Shepard's notion that "when you detail something and explain specifically what it is, then the public can decide."

There is, of course, a long-established and perfectly usable means of discussing as-yet unproven accusations of wrongdoing, which is to append the crime with the adjective, alleged. Even if one were to accept that NPR's most fervent aim is to avoid prejudicing the, ahem, public, lest Joe Sixpack hastily reach a conclusion without all due deliberation, it would seem that the proper way to describe American torture in this manner, which would avoid both euphemism and the appearance of prejudgment. Oh well. What's fun about Gordian knots is not the tying, but the hacking to pieces later on.