Would it be better to, say, describe the technique and then say some call it torture? I do not think enhanced interrogation techniques is acceptable either. That's why I come down on describing the technique and adding that some call it torture

This evasion, which Shepard repeats over and over again in each of her appearances, is simply incoherent.

NPR is not grinding its narration to a halt every time the subject comes up. They do not say "President Obama again today defended his Administration's decision to withhold memos about prisoners left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees throughout which time the prisoner is doused with cold water, prisoners bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet with cellophane wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him causing extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, if uninterrupted, death..."

They just say "enhanced interrogation techniques."

I almost wish I believed in Hell, in hopes that there'd be a special circle reserved for such people as Alicia Shepard.

NOTHING in this world EVER gets done of any worth that was not instigated by malcontents

Thomas Paine, Frederick Douglass, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King and ann archy.

hee hee hee, ha ha ha, ak ak ak, LOL EOF

just gives them more to bloviate about

Just as cockroaches can live for days on the residual protein in a human fingerprint, so too can our friends turn a single scornful remark into a veritable War and Peace of crank-yankery.

a fictional and over-simplified worldview that you cling to much in the same way that a hardcore religious fanatic subscribes to their own

It's the fear of doubt, Eris. People who have an understanding of the world informed by actual experience are unthreatened by opposing viewpoints, and so don't react with such anger and hatred.

People who rely on blind faith for their views, though - the religious fanatic, the hardcore True Believer - have the most to lose if challenged, and so will lash out if you say anything that contradicts their views.

Needless to say, you're not going to make any progress in debate with that sort...

Thanks for your courteous and well-reasoned reply.

The irony for me is that I'm far closer to your vision of the world than that of ondelette, though in addition to having the U.S, pull its troops out immediately, I'd also have it pay massive, massive reparations to the people of Afghanistan. But I cringe to see your arguments - if your multiple sequential "and another thing" ad hominem comments are worthy of the name.

The problem, of course, is that you can't make an intelligent critique of American empire, because you're not intellectually curious enough to do any study on the subject. Reading is for "super smart" eggheads like ondelette. You've figured out that it sounds good to say "America is bad," and then nothing's left to do but attack, ad hominem, anyone who says differently. I can understand the choice: it's easy, convenient, and you can name-drop people like Chomsky and Tariq Ali as if you understood their critiques.

I believe the U.S. can't unshit the bed, and that pretty much every choice going forward will cause great death and destruction. On balance, I think America's only moral choice is to exit immediately, and make herculean efforts to ameliorate what devastation may follow. But I don't say this blithely, because any deaths that follow will also be on America's butcher's bill. I just think that staying involved is more morally perilous.

I stopped when it became clear you were not interested in anything remotely resembling an intelligent dialogue.

Again, and for the last time, I'm not going to help you maintain the fiction that you are interested in a rational exchange of ideas.

You may have the last word.

I explained to you, in your blog comments, why I thought further communication was pointless. The fact that you didn't even bother to read my justification - whether or not you agree with it - is aperfect example why I will not help you pretend that you have any interest in dialogue.

You are, as I have said before, the iPod Shuffle of UT. You are a one-way rant machine. Our only purpose in your world is to click "next," so you can write another screed.

Folks, stop using "waterboarding", call it what it is: simulated drowning!

In reality, it's actual drowning: the process is simply stopped short of death.

Your broader point, however, remains.

Now, I'll concede that euphemisms can be used to manipulate ideas and opinion [and as an aside I'll note that it's never anyone in this thread that seems to be taken in by those euphemisms...] but in any event they're not the primary or even the secondary tool.

I don't know how one would quantify a tactic as "primary or... secondary," but I maintain that the manipulation of language is one of the main methods to control debate. Again, this strikes me as fairly obvious.

I know you didn't like the reference to your countryman Eric Blair, but why do you suppose his novel Nineteen eighty-four prominently featured the use of language as a means of mind control?

Missing in the discussion of your frustration with NPR's ombudsperson is the tightly defined neutrality of her role.

An ombudsman is specifically supposed to be an advocate for the listeners, not neutral and certainly not an advocate for management.

An ombudsman (English plural: conventionally ombudsmen) is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some external constituency while representing the broad scope of constituent interests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman