Today on Flashpoints, the American Psychological Association responds to allegations of providing cover for the CIA’s torture program. Then we continue our coverage of Haiti amid the continuing controversy surrounding parliamentary elections and reports of protests against what’s being called an electoral coup. Finally, we continue Flashpoints coverage of the Vatican’s attempt to thrust Spanish missionary Junipero Serra into sainthood despite evidence of his participation in human right abuses against indigenous people in California
Why does this interviewer use “detainee” without any qualification to refer to prisoners held by the United States when a “detainee” is somebody held “in detention” after regular school hours as punishment for having failed to turn in homework assignments? Why does this interviewer casually and repeatedly refer to “enhanced interrogation” techniques with only minimal qualification (as equivalent to torture). The repeated use of these euphemisms (even after the qualification of the second one) serves only to further the purpose for which these euphemisms were originally created by the Bush administration: To minimize, in listeners’ eyes, the fact that illegal imprisonment was involved and illegal torture was carried out. He’s a willing stooge for the Bush administration’s Machiavellian manipulation of thought through manipulation of language. Is this conscious on his part, I wonder?