I don't remember problems like this with public radio when it was actually funded by the public. These days, I think most of the funding comes from corporations. Maybe we should start referring to it as NCR.

Alicia C Shepard

I am not shilling for NPR. I don't agree with its use of bureaucratic euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation techniques." But I am shilling for strong, credible journalism that is as objective as humanly possible. I am shilling for NPR to practice journalism

What an extraordinary thing to do? Is she torturing the word "shill" here or is she reducing "credible journalism" to the status of a Chinese Rolex knockoff?

Shill

A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer.

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

Good Constitutional lesson - thank you!

So it is against the law to torture - is it enforcable?

Do we have a working definition of torture with practical applications?

The word torture is vague as it stands alone.

What if torture was defined as to the motive behind certain psychological or threatened treatments? Then we might define torture as any type of treatment or suggestion designed to ascertain coveted information.

Such a definition would rule out interrogations of any kind and plea bargining.

Are threats considered torture? Can I threaten an individuals family if he doesn't cooperate? Or is that torture as well?

Is the application of physical pain the only incidence of torture?

Give me more enlightenment.

Since enhanced interogation covered areas as benign as isolation, and as harsh at water torture, is it appropriate to discuss the program as a whole using the term enhanced interogation and the individual techniques as torture when warranted.

As benign as isolation? Extreme isolation, which is isolation in which prisoners do not see sunlight, or isolation from human contact other than jailers and interrogators that lasts more than 30 days, is banned under the Geneva Conventions. It has been ruled torture by the Committee Against Torture, which functions in the role similar to the ICRC with respect to the Convention Against Torture (CAT).

People attempt suicide from isolation, it causes permanent psychological problems, including psychosis, PTSD, depression, and permanent loss of social abilities. The Human Rights Watch report, "Locked Up Alone" is a good place to find out you aren't up on your distinctions. The problem is that all activity in the brain is controlled by ion channels, and they need to be replaced and updated the same way your skin cells replace themselves. In the absence of the needed stimuli, it isn't too much of an exaggeration to say that the result is widespread microscopic brain damage.

True Diane Rehm's(sp?) show is not produced by NPR but they carry it and syndicate it nationally. Ms. Rehm, I guess courageously in comparison to NPR's policy, often refers to these things as toture and doesn't let her guests get away with trying to call it something else - I've heard her correct them when they try to use a euphemism. Those of her guests that insist on using a euphemism look petty, shallow, cowardly and dishonest next to Ms. Rehm. Has NPR tried to censure her?

For a while, Kevin Klose was president of NPR, from 1998 to 2008. According to Wikipedia,

"From 1994 to 1997, he served as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

Some criticized the choice of Kevin Klose to be the head of NPR because he "used to be the director of all major worldwide US government propaganda dissemination broadcast media including VOA, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti."

Seems NPR has some high level management experience with propaganda, of presenting the views of the US government in subtle and not so subtle ways. I believe that NPR has been used as a propaganda tool, and still is. If you go to DC, you will notice that the NPR headquarters building is a stone's throw from the Capitol and White House---it's not located in Kansas is my point, where independence might be possible.

When I used to listen to Voice of America via shortwave, there were segments where an authoritative sounding male voice would say 'the following represents the views of the United States Government.' NPR should be using this announcement too.

NPR and Anne Garrels have never given a good explanation of why her 2004 piece on Iranian influence in Iraq used information extracted from, as Anne described him, a bleeding and sobbing man in very bad shape - that is, tortured.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15655331

Glenn,

Thanks for all the work you're doing in bringing the NPR/torture issue to light and keeping it there so that all (well, the listeners at least) can see the inanity of NPR's position. You refer to the 2-sides to every a story paradigm as stenography journalism, although journalists fail at being good stenographers. The term that I've been using to describe that failed journalistic paradigm is "Dead Parrot Reporting", as in the Monte Python "dead parrot" sketch. As you probably know, the sketch includes a customer and a shop keeper arguing over whether a parrot is dead or not. To the audience it is obvious that the parrot is dead, the comedy is that there is even dispute over the status of an "ex-parrot." To the audience, it is obvious that the shopkeeper denies the truth. Yet in the case of the dead parrot sketch, "objective" reporters wouldn't report that the parrot is factually dead. Rather, "objective" reporters report that the two sides (customer and shopkeeper) disagree. The status of the parrot itself, the very basis for the dispute, is immaterial. Taking this to the current discussion about torture, Alicia Shepard and other "objective" reporters refuse to acknowledge or even focus on the issue of torture itself and whether or not it occurred (that's the parrot) and instead rather repeat what beltway Democrats and Republicans say. Sadly for us in this case, it is not a laughing matter; tragedy rather than comedy.

MP's Dead Parrot Sketch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218

-Squashua