WaPost Doesn’t Call Waterboarding ‘Torture’ Because ‘The Bush Administration Would Dispute That’

[babylonsister]

Priest: The Post Doesn’t Call Waterboarding ‘Torture’ Because ‘The Bush Administration Would Dispute That’


Last week, Washington Post reporter Paul Kane was asked in an online chat why his newspaper calls the Bush administration's terror detainee questioning methods "harsh interrogation" instead of "torture." "Aren't you guys continuing to catapult Bush-era propaganda when you use such NewSpeak euphemisms for what we all (finally) know was clearly torture?" the questioner asked. Not so, Kane went on to explain:

KANE: You can't call someone a convicted murderer until he/she has actually been convicted. Understand? Get it? The reason we say "alleged" murder and things like that is for our own legal protection. So we can't be sued for libel.

Yesterday, during a chat with the Post's Dana Priest, a questioner revisited the issue, specifically asking why the paper doesn't call waterboarding "torture." This time however, the questioner received a different (and somewhat shocking) answer. According to Priest, the Post doesn't call waterboarding "torture" because the Bush administration doesn't:

Q: If they are going to follow the analogy on reporting other criminal issues, why wouldn't reporters use the term "alleged torture" or "accused of torture"? Waterboarding is torture, no one disputes it. To substitute "harsh interrogation techniques' with regard to waterboarding is like saying "manslaughter" when the charge is "murder."

PRIEST: Not true. The Bush administration would dispute that waterboarding is torture. That's what the memos are all about. Torture is a crime. There is not a lot of case history to define torture.

Let's be clear, as the questioner noted, waterboarding is torture and torture is a crime under U.S. law (as Priest acknowledged). Prominent Republicans and Democrats -- from Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder -- all agree. In fact, the United States "convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war" after World War II.

:wow:

more...

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/01/post-waterboarding-torture/

[DebbieCDC]

1. The Post has become nothing more than a right wing rag

It's glory days of journalism are far behind it.

[The Magistrate]

3. True, Ma'am

[rateyes]

2. Not a lot of case history to define torture? WTF

Well, there is case history, as you noted to define WATERBOARDING AS TORTURE. Waterboarding is torture according to US law, and just because the Bush administration tried to REDEFINE torture so that they could practice it doesn't make waterboarding legal.

The CONGRESS gets to enact law. The COURTS get to interpret law. The EXECUTIVE is charged with ENFORCING the law, and they don't get to BREAK THE LAW in order to ENFORCE it---REGARDLESS OF THEIR FUCKING MOTIVES.

The ends do not justify the means in this country. NEVER HAS. And, if the present administration does not investigate and prosecute the previous administration for torture---it becomes just as guilty. The law requires an investigation. And, since we KNOW that waterboarding took place, it requaires PROSECUTION. That's part of the treaties we signed; and all treaties, according to the US Constitution, are part of the supreme law of the land.

Fuck the "Post."

[Echo In Light]

4. Then fuck Washington Post

[jtrockville]

5. So * admin can say "black is white" and reporters will nod in agreement?

My, what nice clothes the emperor is wearing!

[babylonsister]

6. Exactly - - still. nt

[Occam Bandage]

7. Not at all.

They'll simply refer to "black" and "white" as "controversial color values."

[Supersedeas]

8. Not a lot of history to define torture --- and not alot of history regarding Waterboarding!?!