Tortured tautology

We can't say we weren't warned.

Kafka, Franz, The Trial, 1925
Lewis, Sinclair, It Can't Happen Here, 1934
Orwell, George, 1984, 1949
Bradbury, Ray, Fahrenheit 451, 1951
Moore, Alan, V for Vendetta, 1982 et. seq.

Eugene Robinson - Torture Is Torture - washingtonpost.com

I wish I could turn to cheerier matters, but I just can't get past this torture issue -- the fact that George W. Bush, the president of the United States of America, persists in demanding that Congress give him the right to torture anyone he considers a "high-value" terrorist suspect. The president of the United States. Interrogation by torture. This just can't be happening.

It's past time to stop mincing words. The Decider, or maybe we should now call him the Inquisitor, sticks to anodyne euphemisms. He speaks of "alternative" questioning techniques, and his umbrella term for the whole shop of horrors is "the program." Of course, he won't fully detail the methods that were used in the secret CIA prisons -- and who knows where else? -- but various sources have said they have included not just the infamous "waterboarding," which the administration apparently will reluctantly forswear, but also sleep deprivation, exposure to cold, bombardment with ear-splitting noise and other assaults that cause not just mental duress but physical agony. That is torture, and to call it anything else is a lie.

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