Unspeak blog: What to call legalized torture

[muriel_volestrangler]

Now that the Military Commissions Act – which authorizes the torture by US officials of prisoners so long as it does not result in serious “bodily injury” or non-transitory mental harm – has passed into law, there is a new standard euphemism for what it allows. It is tough. A BBC Radio news report yesterday referred fastidiously to “tough interrogation”. Newspapers are also referring to “tough interrogation” or “tough rules” or “tough methods” or “tough techniques”. As compared to previous talk of rough interrogation, this is a rhetorical refinement. It is particularly interesting for the possibility of a useful semantic leakage of the adjective. The usage “tough interrogation”, especially, may come to evoke an interrogation performed by tough men. And so the emphasis is handily switched from the suffering of those being tortured, about which it is uncomfortable to think too closely, to the moral robustness of those doing the torturing.
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http://unspeak.net/tough/

I think the way the BBC has covered the Military Commissions Act has been very bad. They quoted Bush freely, saying it "allowed the CIA to continue interrogating terrorists", without a challenge that what he means was it allows them to continue hurting suspected terrorists - and that 'information' obatined by torture can now be used to convict someone in an American court. They said nothing about habeas corpus, but instead said the bill "allowed the trial of suspects, such as the man suspected of masterminding September 11".