There are some disturbing stories in the news this week that broaden the boundaries of U.S. involvement in torture. First, the Red Cross found in a secret report that U.S. treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay is "tantamount to torture". I was eerily reminded of the ICRC's report about Iraqi detainees, which also used the "tantamount" phrasing in condemning the situation at Abu Ghraib and other prisons. Predictably, today's Times article doesn't place the Guantánamo report in any kind of context relative to the earlier Abu Ghraib reports; but at least it's there, and we can track it down online if we have to.
The other story came from the Boston Globe, which reported on a Massachusetts law firm that allegedly owns an airplane used to fly terrorists suspects to countries not so squeamish about torturing them for information. The practice goes by the notably Orwellian moniker "extraordinary rendition". Surprisingly, "rendition" isn't a new practice: at least 70 took place before September 11th, according to the article.
Now, what is striking in the Times article is the way in which it uses an ambiguity in the word "tantamount" to soften the charges the Red Cross is making. The key sentence in the lead paragraph:
The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Now, notice how "tantamount to torture" is placed in scare quotes, as if the reporter is trying to place it under question. Then in the next paragraph it's reported that "the handling of prisoners ... amounted to torture" (italics added). The headline of the piece, "Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo", further distorts and muddies the actual claims made in the report. These hedgings soften the blow of acknowledging the central fact in the Red Cross reports: that the U.S. government, in several places and at different times, actively encourages and practices torture.
That journalists and politicians hide behind softening rhetorical tricks is hardly surprising. But it is illuminating: just as they use words like "rendition" to hide our real involvement in torture, they seize on distancing terms like "tantamount to torture" to reframe the issue from one of torture to one of mere abuse.
This resonates nicely with what Mike Whitney, writing for Counterpunch, has to say about American media coverage of the Fallujah invasion:
American journalists have demonstrated that they are not journalists at all, but an essential component of the military apparatus. They have merged seamlessly with their army units, presenting a story-line that is consistent with the objectives of the American occupation.
And as part and parcel of the entertainment/public relations industry, journalists were complicit with the way in which elections now happen: as waves of advertising campaigns. Here's Noam Chomsky on that issue:
As usual, the electoral campaigns were run by the PR industry, which in its regular vocation sells toothpaste, life-style drugs, automobiles, and other commodities. Its guiding principle is deceit. Its task is to undermine the "free markets" we are taught to revere: mythical entities in which informed consumers make rational choices. In such scarcely imaginable systems, businesses would provide information about their products: cheap, easy, simple. But it is hardly a secret that they do nothing of the sort. Rather, they seek to delude consumers to choose their product over some virtually identical one.
Somehow, those who framed this past election managed to keep Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo entirely out of the scope of discussion. These topics were just nowhere to be found, outside of a few articles in The Nation and other lefty sources. The PR industry that drives our electoral system knows its job well, and frames everything to its maximum advantage. Sometimes, it can keep the scariest stories at bay.
It's up to us to keep reminding ourselves that it was our government that made that Iraqi stand on the box with electrodes on his hands. And if the Red Cross report on Guantánamo is to be trusted, the Abu Ghraib situation was hardly an unusual case. I find it disillusioning that the highest levels of our government are directing this, supporting it, and in many cases getting promoted for their policies encouraging torture. What's even more disillusioning is that our media doesn't seem to care.