Now playing: Electrelane - To The East
via FoxyTunes Last Wednesday I was driving to a friend's house for dinner. It was after 6PM as I had just left work. NPR was playing their news segment. The reporter was discussing the CIA's destruction of videotapes documenting the torture of terrorist suspects. Except the reporter couldn't, or wouldn't use the term "torture". Instead, the reporter called these actions "stringent interrogation".
Why would he do such a thing? Some thoughts come to mind. Perhaps he was in line politically with the tools that performed the torture. Perhaps he was bought and paid for by the administration or the CIA. Whatever the reason it was a terrible euphemism and something he should be taken to task for by his employers. Indeed, in a less generous mood, I'd suggest strapping the jerk to a stiff board and stringently interrogating him for an hour to see if he had the same opinion afterwards.
NPR is often derailed as being a voice of liberal opinions. This is laughable at best. Over the years they have prostrated themselves to the Republican leadership in order to demonstrate their moderation. Heck, this was the network that featured William F. Buckley's programs (for which, I must note, I am grateful, though I often disagreed with the man)! He's hardly a liberal. However, if the editors there are going to bend over so far that they allow a euphemism like "stringent interrogation" into a report rather than call it for what it was - torture - then they might as well throw in the towel because they aren't worth sinking any more taxpayer dollars into their coffers than I would ABC, CBS, or NBC. There's a difference between seeking moderation in a report and the bald faced apologetic lying of the sort that Judith Miller used to employ.
The quote from the reporter went along the lines of:
An investigation was announced today by members of Congress who say that they want to look into the CIA's role in the alleged destruction of videotapes which purport to show stringent interrogations of terrorist suspects.
Good grief.
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Now playing: Cluster - James
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1 comment:
Couldn't agree more. Language is a powerful tool (duh!) and they have surrendered to the neocons on a lot of critical issues.
It's amazing how many sheep have bought the notion that anything to the left of as Attila the Hun reeks of far left liberal extremism. Here's to hoping that Corporate lawyers and conservatives are considered bad, and trial lawyers and liberals are considered good. It's been long enough that anyone supporting corporate hegemony is considered divine.
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