Letters to the Editor

The still-growing NPR "torture" controversy The media outlet's use of Bush euphemisms sparks a much-needed debate on journalistic standards. Glenn Greenwald [2009-07-02]

• The banality of evil

  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.

  -- Paul Daniel Ash
  [Read Paul Daniel Ash's other letters]
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