Jun 23, 2009 -
Long, sorry -
Anyone who believes that NPR is a "liberal" media outlet -- and anyone who wants to understand the decay of American journalism -- should read this column by NPR's Ombudsman, Alicia C. Shepard, as she explains and justifies why NPR bars the use of the word "torture" to describe what the Bush administration did. Responding to what she calls "a slew of emails challenging NPR's policy of using the words 'harsh interrogation tactics' or 'enhanced interrogation techniques' to describe the treatment of terrorism suspects under the Bush administration," Shepard hauls out every trite and misleading bit of journalistic conventional wisdom to dismiss listeners' concerns and defend NPR's Orwellian practice (as I noted recently when writing about The New York Times' refusal to use the word "torture," NPR's compulsive use of Bush euphemisms has been a constant complaint of the excellent blog NPR Check).
- 1 Comment
Apr 22, 2009 -
Since the release of the so-called Torture Memos, there's been a lot of talk about interrogation lately. Former VP Cheney is asking that the rest of the memos be de-classified as well so we can see what some of the information we got out of detainees was - maybe something having to do with that foiled LA terror plot we heard a bit about from way back when? Who knows.
- 142 Comments
May 06, 2009 -
The Justice Department’s Torture Hypocrisy
Investigate Bush lawyers’ torture analysis one day, cite it favorably the next.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
The Obama Justice Department is engaged in the worst type of hypocrisy.
- 27 Comments
May 30, 2009 -
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
...During his speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute last week -- immediately on the heels of President Obama's address at the National Archives -- former Vice President Dick Cheney used the euphemism "enhanced interrogation" a full dozen times.
Smothering the reality of torture in euphemism of course has a political value, enabling its defenders to diminish the horror and possible illegality. It also gives partisans the opening they need to divert our attention by turning the future of the prison at Guantanamo Bay into a "wedge issue," as noted on the front page of Sunday's New York Times.
- 3 Comments
Apr 19, 2009 -
Attorney: Justice Memos Prove U.S. Did Not Torture
Attorney David Rivkin's argument disputes claims that the Department of Justice memos prove the Bush administration violated anti-torture laws.
FOXNews.com
At least one high-profile attorney says the declassified Department of Justice memos detailing interrogation techniques prove the U.S.
- 2 Comments
May 11, 2009 -
Obama's Tortured Logic
By Mark Hyman
President Barack Obama has declared the interrogation techniques U.S. officials used during what was referred to as an "increased pressure phase" to be torture. Obama announced his administration would not prosecute CIA officers who used the tactics, but he has left open the possibility of punishing those behind the memos including senior Bush Administration officials.
- 2 Comments
Apr 28, 2009 -
PUBLIC POST
**********************
Nine Questions the Left Needs to Answer About Torture
By Dennis Prager
Any human being with a functioning conscience or a decent heart loathes torture. Its exercise has been a blight on humanity. With this in mind, those who oppose what the Bush administration did to some terror suspects may be justified.
- 11 Comments
Dec 02, 2008 -
By Matthew Alexander/Washington Post
Sunday, November 30, 2008; B01
I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war.
- 4 Comments
May 12, 2009 -
Published on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 by The Daily Beast
by Paul Campos
An open letter to my fellow law professors:
Last summer, I took part in a conference at which John Yoo was participating on another panel. It was a large event, featuring dozens of talks, and I hadn't been aware that Yoo was speaking until the night before my talk.
Still, I felt a stab of conscience at the idea that I was, in my own very small way, helping to lend an aura of respectability to Professor Yoo and his ilk by continuing to play a part in a horrible charade.
- 9 Comments
Apr 22, 2009 -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
This week, President Obama reassured CIA agents that if they interrogated prisoners within the "four corners" of the legal authority given by the Bush administration then they needn't fear prosecution.
But a Senate report released on Tuesday night shows that those four corners were constructed AFTER the torture program had begun, and were set so that they would encompass the program, rather than the program being built within pre-established legal guidelines...
The report shows that there was strong opposition to those four corners -- established by Bush administration and justice department lawyers -- from the military, which argued that the behavior it purported to justify was illegal...
- 41 Comments