But I'm not sure I agree. It is clear the Times is very careful with their word choice and in this particular instance they do not equate the tactics described with torture. Instead, they construct the sentence so it can be argued that torture is distinct and separate from "harsh interrogation" techniques such as sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, etc. Simply because the Times groups the term torture in the same sentence as those techniques does not mean they are trying to imply equivalence.

Of course, they conveniently do not describe what the alleged "torture" is, allowing them to avoid the charge of using a double standard being made here.

To me, this kind of writing resembles what you would see from an ethically challenged attorney.

This has been said so many times it has almost become repulsive. In addition to the media's inconsistent and clearly biased use of the term "torture" is their misleading description of what waterboarding is. Waterboarding is not "simulated drowning" as so often termed. It is drowning. It "makes them [prisoners] feel as if they were drowning" because the prisoners are, in fact drowning.

Waterboarding is not some trick that fools victims into thinking that they are drowning. It is a technique used to carefully drown victims.

The media's failure to convey even the most basic facts about torture leads to widespread ignorance of the public, and allows our leadership to continue dancing around and manipulating the realities of this issue.

I keep wondering why people don't protest. Where is the Left, or even the kinda-sorta-a-little-bit Leftish? The television and print media are clearly owned by the heavy-hitting military and financial interests in the country and there is no "debate" of any sort going on in public media on any given topic. Naturally, this makes it hard for anyone who actually protests to be heard; it simply wouldn't be covered by the media and so we (I mean "we" as in the liberal and Constitution-defending groups who would be inclined to protest) feel isolated and uncertain that the numbers are with us. The few who actively demand some sort of rigorous review of the conduct of our military, the gross wasteful spending of our military complex, and the continued draining of our money to favor a few financial plutocrats are painted as demented, silly, and anti-American.

So we come here to read Glenn and read a few other liberal blogs to satisfy ourselves that there are others like us out there. And we do find others here. Not many, really, but we are here. And yet...

How is it that there really aren't mass protests going on? For even if the MSM wouldn't cover such protests, we would find news of them here, or Daily Kos, or Truthdig, etc. The fact is, nobody is seriously protesting, as people did during Vietnam. And I wonder why. Just the bank bailouts should have brought everyone to the streets.

Maybe the public at large is very stupid and has been trained to only respond to the portion of discourse that requires the least thinking (i.e., I will believe anything anyone says because it is easier than thinking for myself) or maybe the culture itself has become so morally bankrupt that the neocons have actually acquired a real majority that we refuse to acknowledge (i.e., perhaps most Americans don't care whether or not we torture because most Americans are now bullies and perverts). I think these things are likely, but it still doesn't explain the lack of willpower evinced by the liberal groups. It's all willy-nilly and haphazard. So I wonder if the internet isn't the bone thrown to us - hey, even Obama reads Glenn; there now, happy? OK, so shut up about your lack of voice. Maybe we are fooled by this very technology into thinking we are heard, and by participating in blog comments we are lulled into feeling that WE HAVE DONE SOMETHING.

This is difficult to articulate, and I am not a good writer in any case, but what I'm trying to say is that maybe we are letting ourselves be marginalized.

So where will we go when the people in charge just shut down portions of the internet like they do in China? Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Chris Hedges, and Dennis Kucinich's Congressional webpage would be the first to go. It wouldn't serve for them to do that, and I don't believe that it would actually ever happen. No need - as long as we are happy HERE we will never be found on the streets waving signs.

I don't know what the answer is, given the point I made earlier that the media would just ignore protests in any case, but surely if the Iranians can brave their streets, we should be able to brave ours. Seriously, I don't know what the answer is and I'm asking if anyone else does.

But I'm not sure I agree. It is clear the Times is very careful with their word choice and in this particular instance they do not equate the tactics described with torture. Instead, they construct the sentence so it can be argued that torture is distinct and separate from "harsh interrogation" techniques such as sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, etc. Simply because the Times groups the term torture in the same sentence as those techniques does not mean they are trying to imply equivalence.

Of course, they conveniently do not describe what the alleged "torture" is, allowing them to avoid the charge of using a double standard being made here.

I see. So there are some secret, unspecified techniques that the Times didn't describe or even allude to. As you understand it, it's those extra-bad tactics -- the ones you fantasize that they mean -- which they are describing as "torture," not the ones they actually do name and describe.

To me, this kind of writing resembles what you would see from an ethically challenged attorney.

If you're talking about your "secret-unnamed-tactics-that-I-invented-in-my-head" defense of the NYT, I agree.

And it uses the word without equivocation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/opinion/09thu3.html?scp=17&sq=&st=nyt

April 9, 2009

Editorial

Medically Assisted Torture

There was a great deal to be troubled by in a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross documenting the kinds of torture and abuse inflicted on terrorism suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency. One disturbing footnote is that medical personnel were deeply involved in facilitating the abuses, which were intended to coerce suspects into providing intelligence....

...Various prisoners said they had been subjected to waterboarding, forced to stand for days with their arms shackled overhead, confined in small boxes, beaten and kicked, slammed repeatedly into walls, prevented from sleeping, deprived of solid food, forced to remain naked for weeks or months at a stretch, often in frigid cells and immersed in cold water. All were kept in continuous solitary confinement for their C.I.A. detention, ranging from 16 months to more than four years.

Medical personnel seem to have been involved mostly as facilitators rather than torturers or interrogators...

...Such activities violate the ethical codes of major health organizations, both national and international. The Red Cross called it “a gross breach of medical ethics” that in some cases “amounted to participation in torture and/or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

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May 7, 2009

Editorial

The Torture Debate: The Lawyers

It is encouraging to see the Obama team moving toward some accountability for the Bush administration lawyers who justified torture.

Wednesday’s Times reported that the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that the lawyers were guilty of serious lapses of judgment when they argued that detainees could be subjected to interrogation methods long banned by American law, military doctrine and international treaties.

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Editorial

The Torture Debate: The Missing Voices

Published: May 6, 2009

...It is unclear exactly when the torture began, and whether the procedures followed stayed within the limits set forth by the Bush legal team. That makes it all the more important for the Obama administration to let detainees’ voices be heard.

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There's more.