For all of the Republicans’ many, many flaws, they’re generally quite adept at manipulating language. A program to allow warrantless searches on Americans becomes the “terrorist surveillance program.” A policy that allows more pollution becomes the “clean skies initiative.” A withdrawal policy in Iraq becomes “cut and run.”
And as Andrew Sullivan explained yesterday, torture becomes “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
I’m not sure where exactly this came from, but George Tenet seems to have been the tipping point. But it’s important to note that Tenet has a very personal interest in lying about torture. After all, he will be subject to war crime charges if he concedes that he authorized it. But in his rewording, he has also, it seems to me, conceded something very important. He was clearly concerned that the term “coercive” in the newspeak phrase “coercive interrogation techniques” could be legal peril. It implies physical or mental pressure so severe it renders any choice to cooperate moot. It implies, inevitably, “severe mental or physical pain or suffering,” in order to extract information. That is the only relevant legal and moral criterion for torture. Is the information coerced, i.e. is the physical or mental suffering so severe that the victim has no choice but to tell the torturers what the want to hear? If it is, it’s torture, under American and international law. And Tenet is a criminal.
Abuse of common English is one of the hallmarks of political mischief. I don’t think any journalist should let a politician off the hook on this one. Words matter.
They do, indeed. And where do the words “enhanced interrogation techniques” come from? According to one of Andrew’s readers: from the Gestapo.
