Thanks for that quote. Much appreciated.

Your cites are additional evidence that the NYT uses the word torture to describe actions by other countries, or when quoting other sources to characterize U.S. behavior as torture.

The paper and its reporters display ongoing "difficulty" in themselves characterizing U.S. actions as torture.

As for The New York Times, at this point, they don't even seem interested in pretending that they make these editorial judgments independently or with a pretense of objectivity.

You're wrong. 

The don't need to pretend, because they're actually doing it! With the 3 below, I've provided 10 examples of the Times using the word torture when discussing US actions. All since April 26, when they published the policy you quoted at the top of your piece. 

Did you bother to see of what you were saying was true? I found 10 examples, all using the search function on their home page. 

http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/capture-the-flag

But in the Bush years of sanctioned torture and war built on deceit, many Americans withdrew from overt displays of patriotism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/us/politics/13brfs-BUSHLAWYEROR_BRF.html

A federal judge has ruled that John Yoo, a former Bush administration lawyer who wrote crucial memorandums justifying harsh interrogation techniques, will have to answer in court to accusations that his work led to a prisoner’s being tortured and deprived of his constitutional rights.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/us/politics/07lawyers.html

In years of bitter public debate, the department has sometimes seemed like a black-and-white moral battleground over torture. The main authors of memorandums authorizing the methods — John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury — have been widely pilloried as facilitators of torture.

The paper and its reporters display ongoing "difficulty" in themselves characterizing U.S. actions as torture.

As I pointed out in my first post, the examples Glenn gives for the non-US torture are all attributed to others as well. They are not making that claim, but quoting or repeating the positions of others. Just as they have for US actions. 

There is no difference in their use of the word torture, no matter who was acting. They are following their policy; others may use the word, but they aren't making that judgement themselves.  

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/04/torture/permalink/238c192ed71f5351c540ce8473c0675f.html

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/04/torture/permalink/f99f1eb781ccccef8d0b1fe1115ebdd0.html

Glenn's article, however, ostensibly, is about the NYT's public editor's statement, and some confusion emerges for two reasons: one, the quotes that GG takes from Hoyt's piece, and Hoyt's own rather baffling contention that the NYT doesn't use the word torture in its news pages.

This is a sentence GG left out of the bite he took:

Until this month, what the Bush administration called “enhanced” interrogation techniques were “harsh” techniques in the news pages of The Times. Increasingly, they are “brutal.” (On the editorial page, they long ago added up to “torture.”)

But the real confusion comes in Hoyt's own contention that the

The Times is displeasing some who think “brutal” is just a timid euphemism for torture and their opponents who think “brutal” is too loaded.

Hoyt doesn't actually seem very aware that the NYT does use the word torture, though in cautiously and very infrequently in its news pages, as we both have shown. To be fair, GG is addressing Hoyt's excuse for not using the word torture--Hoyt's excuse should have been for not using the word frequently enough.

This paragraph shes a ray of light:

And why not, then, go all the way to torture? Jehl said that when the paper is discussing what is generally regarded as the most extreme interrogation method the C.I.A. used, waterboarding, “we’ve become more explicit in saying in a first reference that it’s a near-drowning technique” that Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and many other experts “have called torture.” But he said: “I have resisted using torture without qualification or to describe all the techniques.

I think the confusion comes from Hoyt's article, which is unclear really. He should have noted that the NYT uses the term, from time to time in its news pages, and he should have noted that a lot of the discussion comes from using the word to describe all of the actions without careful qualification--which is what seems to be the problem in a lot of other editorial decisions. GG should have noted the same, so as much as I love the guy, and as rarely as he makes mistakes, I have to respectfully say there's some errors here.

"On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly."

It turns out that Kiriakou was lying through his teeth.

He was not present for the interrogation of Zubaydah and Zubaydah didn't know anything of value. It is now acknowledged that the CIA had greatly over estimated his ranking in the AQ heirarchy.

They tortured one who was basically an innocent man or at most, involved on the very edges of AQ. He was a damned travel agent. He was waterboarded 83 times.

Oh NO!

Thats so much worst then ANYTHING Glenn wrote about! -

Come on: "THE NEW YORK TIMES"?!

And no plan there - like everywhere?! -

Thats truly devastating!

"Overturning the longstanding ban on corporate spending in elections for president and Congress would be a disaster for democracy."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05sun2.html

"With a little-noticed order last week, we fear the Supreme Court has set the stage for dismantling the longstanding ban on corporate spending in elections for president and Congress. If those restrictions are overturned, it would be a disaster for democracy."

...

"The case would have been easy to resolve on narrow grounds. Instead, the court declared that on Sept. 9 it would hear arguments on whether Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce — an important campaign finance precedent from 1990 — and parts of a more recent case should be overruled."

....

"The court’s new order is also deeply troubling procedurally..."

....

"The feverish pace is also disturbing...."

....

"It is a nightmare vision, but based on how the justices have come down in past cases, there may well be five votes for it to prevail."

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