Josh Marshall has the tipoff to this CNN headline article
http://www.cnn.com/...
which states the following:
"John Ullyot, a spokesman for Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, said Monday that draft legislation was headed to Capitol Hill with "new language," for its proposal that would allow the CIA to continue alternative interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists. No details of the changes were announced."
Note the careful use of the language, "alternative interrogation techniques". Apparently it wouldn't be fair and balanced to use the word torture to describe near drowning of terror suspects. The reason? Because a faction of the government, the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal faction, says its not torture. And if the government says so, that's what is reported and how its framed.
Note that this rule does not apply to other countries, even when we are directly involved. For instance, in today's NY Times there is a headline declaring:
"Canadians Fault U.S. for Its Role in Torture Case"
Yes we have a role, and yes its torture, but note the follow up:
"A government panel exonerated a Canadian man of any ties to terrorism, four years after he was deported to Syria, where he was tortured"
Apparently, in brutal countries such as Syria, they actually torture suspects to get them to talk. Here in the good ol' US of A, we use "alternative interrogation techniques" or "tough techniques", which are intended to recall images of Law and Order episodes where an especially clever cop talks tough and gets a suspect to crack.
My point here is that we claim to be having a national debate over torture, but that kind of language is only to be found used accusingly or approvingly on the fringes of lefty and righty blogs, not in the mainstream media. It is the worst kind of Orwellian nightmare to watch a president declare torture to be simply "tough" (ie, 2+2=5) and then have the mass media parrot his line because yesterday, nearly drowning people was torture, today it's only tough, or better yet, an alternative.
So we are not actually having this debate and therefore, like everything else, whatever language comes out will likely be watered down enough to allow the CIA to do whatever they want and the madness will continue.
Let's face it folks, we are a nation of OJ Simpson jurors, overwhelmed by a tidal wave of information, unable to see the forest for the trees, and destined to come down on the wrong side of justice in violation of simple reason.
I wonder if there is an irony here in the spread of liberal "relativism" in education leading to an acceptance of uncertainty about simple facts and truisms. Wouldn't that be a kick in the head?