Cut the Crap: It’s Torture

Published at 06:36 on 20 April 2018

Buried in an article about the Senate majority leader’s waning power is a paragraph that probably slipped by the radar of all too many:

The same routine is playing out on the nomination of Gina Haspel, the deputy CIA director, to replace Pompeo. Most Democrats have voiced opposition, before she has even had a hearing, and Paul also intends to vote no because of her role in harsh interrogations during the Bush administration.

“Harsh interrogations?” Get it straight: it’s torture. T-O-R-T-U-R-E. There’s already a perfectly good English word that perfectly describes how the Bush II regime ordered some of its prisoners treated. No need to waste ink or pixels on some longer neologism.

Torture is torture and torture is wrong no matter who does it. It doesn’t cease to be torture or to be a moral abomination just because the USA and not some foreign power happens to be the one doing it.

Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
— George Orwell

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