So, the law point. Now, I'm not a US lawyer but I do know that in the US it's possible to sue for pretty much anything. Theoretically, therefore, it may well be possible to sue NPR for defamation for saying that certain individuals engaged in "torture". Whether that's a practical risk or not, I don't know, but I do know that a lawyers' job in that arena is to minimise risk for their client and so that's where my suspicion comes from. As I said, it's only a suspicion but it is founded on personal experience.

-- homeruk

As a journalist, writing for the Washington Post, Dan Froomkin used the word "Torture" on a regular basis. Do you know of any evidence that there was ever even an attempt to sue him or the Washington Post?

So when Bob Herbert calls it torture from the editorial pages of the NYT, and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC does the same, it doesn't matter, and when NPR does it will? Even Obama has called waterboarding by it's name.

Obama said he was comfortable with his decision to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techiques used at Guantánamo Bay and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) secret detention centres around the world under his predecessor George Bush.

It wasn't my intention to claim Bob Herbert, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, or NPR were the arbiters of when something is torture or not. In fact from what Jonathan Turley claimed, the Red Cross would hold this title. When the Red Cross calls something torture, it is torture. And that's what they did in fact do in the report they wrote. So the issue of whether we committed torture has already been settled. It's just that no one has been prosecuted for committing it yet except a few like Grainer and England.

The reason torture isn't settled for organizations like NPR and Fox News, et al is because Obama has failed to lead on this subject. And in fact I would claim he has mostly done things to undermine and muddy up the discussion of this issue and block investigations of it.

So one of the primary reasons we are still having to debate the "labeling of torture" with the likes of NPR and others is because Obama himself has been almost absent on this topic and isn't leading at all, So I also don't blame "the lawyers" either even if Obama is one. If you want to see a firm and final exclamation point put on this topic, Obama could have done this a long time ago. If Obama had claimed our country committed serious war crimes and that he would hold everyone accountable who was involved in committing these crimes, do you really think NPR would still be calling all of these practices"enhanced interrogation techniques?" But what did Obama do instead? He went to the CIA and told them that none would be charged with any crimes. He also refused to release the torture photos. He also has been trying to get cases dismissed that involve us torturing and renditioning people. So despite the fact that he called waterboarding torture, this wasn't nearly enough. In fact I would argue it focused the media's attention on debating whether waterboarding was torture ignoring much more serious acts of torture we did commit that lead to death or serious disfigurement of detainees.

There is little doubt in my mind that either of us if we had been President could have put an end to this debate so the only people left defending torture would have been the lunatic fringe of the right - the worst of the neocons and Cheney.

Once a prosecutor was told by this Administration to investigate torture as a war crime, that's how most Americans would be labeling these acts.

2. the labels point. How can I put this coherently because obviously I've not done a good job so far...calling something by a euphemism does not alter the fundamental nature of that "thing". By definition that's what a euphemism is.

Not sure what your last sentence adds to the party but as you say yourself your not very coherent. If you try not drinking till after twelve that might help.

But about this matter of euphemism. Its true that at first they don't alter the underlying nature of the thing they are used to describe. But they are pernicious and essentially evil. I say that because in my view to use language deliberately to obscure or distort meaning is evil. But they are in the first instance used in order that the user hopes he and the reader can avoid facing full on what is being talked about. They can also be used to avoid responsibility and minimise a wrong. Whilst at first people might hear the the euphemism and see the underlying truth simultaneously over time and regularity of usage the mind starts to not bother and the false term becomes if not the real term a self serving erzatz version of the same.

Classic example is our old favourite, "collateral damage." Mostly used not for civvy use but for absolving fighting personal of any nagging doubts when they have a job to do which invariably entails taking actions which once again result in "collateral damage."

Here is another one I like very much. According to the Australian Colonel and Condi Rice's fancy man whose name I have currently forgotten, Counter Insurgency ops like hitting Afghan villages and destroying peoples lives whose lives are anyway destroyed can be now be considered as, wait for it..."Armed Social Work."

Euphemisms, like strong under currents and whirl pools are best avoided when rafting the rapids of language and meaning.

I have never understood why the simple quoting of dead (or alive, for that matter) authors lends any credibility to any point.

You probably say that to everyone who quotes the Constitution as well, don't you?

Why bother? The Constitution can be dispensed with simply by pointing out that it was written in the past.

I'd have a shred of sympathy for homeruk's view if it weren't for the fact that such an enormous segment of the USA is completely and totally MISINFORMED about what our government is doing.

The terminology may not be terribly important to all of us who recognize and ADMIT that we kidnapped thousands of guys, most of whom were innocent of any "terrorist acts," and imprisoned them and tortured them for YEARS.

But I suspect that "all of us" is a pretty small group. I know I meet folks on a near-daily basis who still don't know that we've got a minimum of 25 "tortured to death" prisoners documented and admitted by military records.

Lots of folks also don't know that the majority of our prisoners/torture-victims are believed by many of the officials who are holding them to be innocent of any wrongdoing.

So given the pathetic state of American discourse and education on these issues, I humbly submit that it is CRITICALLY important that every major media outlet do its part to get "the real story" out, even if it is depressing and reflects poorly on "The USA" as a nation.

The stakes are too high to overlook this stuff. If we were talking about sports, I wouldn't care. But we're talking about a country that purports to be a representative democracy with a Constitution that defines our national values.

Our behavior is way out of line with our claimed values, and many many people haven't yet realized or admitted this.

That's a terrible situation. We're never going to get anywhere if NPR (and everyone else) plays along with the "out of sight, out of mind" strategy being employed by our government mouthpieces.

If it is the case that the majority of Americans are in favor of torturing prisoners, and holding people without charge, and destroying their minds through extended sensory deprivation and isolation, so be it. Let's get the story out there so we KNOW where this country really stands.