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| New York Times Building, NYC (Photo by Alexander Torrenegra) |
When is torture, "torture" in The New York Times? When it's purportedly done by someone the US government disapproves of, says Justin Doolittle.
After years of agonizing over nomenclature, it seems the good folks at The New York Times are finally done equivocating and will now refer to torture as "torture." With the release of photographic evidence showing heinous torture in Syria, purportedly committed by the Assad regime in its network of secret prisons, the Times' journalists and editors called a spade a spade: In two recent news articles on the story, published on January 22 and 23, euphemisms such as "enhanced interrogation techniques" and "harsh methods" are nowhere to be found, and "torture" is peppered throughout.
By sheer coincidence, of course, The Times has found its voice on torture only when it's discovered to have been committed by an official enemy. As of July 2013, the last time the issue of US torture was covered in the news section, the paper was still holding on to the exquisitely Orwellian "enhanced interrogation techniques," i.e., the official propaganda line of the US Government since 9/11.
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