New York Times Waterboarding And Torture Excuse 'Doesn't Hold Water': Greg Sargent

Washington Post:

By now you've heard about that surprising new Harvard study finding that news orgs that routinely called waterboarding "torture" for many years suddenly shifted away from the term after it became public that the Bush administration had sanctioned it.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[niws1]

06:44 PM on 07/02/2010

Ask yourself, would waterboarding be considered torture if it was being done to our own soldiers?

[WillofthePeople]

06:30 PM on 07/02/2010

How many people consent to the Obama administration refusing to prosecute Bush and his cohorts, an act of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE? If We the People tolerate obstruction of justice, aren't we consenting to war crimes?

Google "RIGHTtoCONSENT".

[TXfemmom]

03:50 PM on 07/02/2010

The Times excuse doesn't hold water. The stuff about not wanting to take sides on a political issue is asinine. Everything is political.

The job of the FREE and unbiased press is to TELL THE TRUTH. Waterboarding is torture. Permitting the Bush administration to intimidate them speaks volumes abou the Times. It also speaks volumes about the Bush administration and the ability of the far right to intimidate the press.

[MikePatronSaintofTruth]

03:44 PM on 07/02/2010

For years the NYT calls waterboarding "torture" until it is exposed (not by the NYT, by the way) that the United States is waterboarding. Suddenly waterboarding is no longer torture. Why? Because the NYT managing editor, Bill Keller was set to make millions off the invasion and subsequent American control of the oil fields of Iraq. . . and well, identifying what the USA was doing in Iraq as "torture" might possibly turn some people against the war, and good ol' Bill didn't want to upset the new oil stream that would be coming from Iraq. Well, Bill and all his friends and family in the oil business. Bet Cheney and Bush were happy to have Keller at the helm of the NYT during those WMD days when the NYT agreed not to run stories critical of the war . . . They all stand to make hundreds of millions over the next couple of decades. Much of what you read in the NYT has an angle that seeks to make money based on how people react to the stories.

[Pleroma]

03:28 PM on 07/02/2010

The New Yak Times has lost all credibility. Read it only for recipes these days.

[MachCrit]

03:28 PM on 07/02/2010

As a retired military officer and graduate of SERE training, I'm not naive in regards to interrogation techniques. Still, I'm gobsmacked that a significant fraction of Americans, mostly Conservative, completely disregard established precedence and current US and international accords in the matter of waterboarding as torture. Ten years ago, if a group of Americans were surveyed, probably 98% would have felt waterboarding, or any other form of torture, were barbaric and would never be practiced by the US. Sadly, it wasn't 9-11 that changed opinions, but a cynical admistration, aided by aberrant right wing ideology and a willing press.

[King Sluggo]

02:37 PM on 07/02/2010

Silly liberals should water board themselves-they seem to like it. Now for closers, why don't they try the Taliban's favorite method torture and see which one they prefer.

[bassface49]

03:11 PM on 07/02/2010

And ask our GI's if they like kicking down a door of someone who even if innocent, NOW, believes the United States is going to 'torture' him? If that person is 'armed', the GI casualties are 'on' YOU', Neo-Cons!
The thousands, maybe, millions of American lives that have been HISTORICALLY saved by OUR 'pre 9/11' anti-torture policies are the argument the model of the 'Conservative' destruction of American Values.
The ''tortures' being inflicted on George Washington's Troops was not the question to Washington, it was 'about' what America was made of.
and any insinuation that the 'Neo-Con Cabal' was smarter than George Washington is moronic.
Torture is a COWARDS tool.

[bassface49]

03:16 PM on 07/02/2010

(correction)
'The thousands, maybe, millions of American lives that have been HISTORICALLY saved by OUR 'pre 9/11' anti-torture policies, expose the 'Conservative' destruction of American Values.

[Carl Caroli]

02:35 PM on 07/02/2010

Any media organization that does not question our government is not one the people should be reading. If want fantasies, we can just read the white house press reports for ourselves, we don't need the major media companies falling all over themselves to suck up to the white house or any other political figure.

[marignymitch]

02:34 PM on 07/02/2010

I back NYT on this one. Must obey Dark Lord and ward, Junior.

[icandump]

02:29 PM on 07/02/2010

A few years back a someone notable declared waterboarding was NOT torture. He accepted a challenge to be waterboarded, subsequently declaring, EMPHATICALLY, that is WAS, indeed, torture!
Time to challenge the other deniers to a similar test! I will gladly supply enough water for the entire editorial board of the New York Times. Then lets see what they find to be "fit to print!" (Bet they use the word TORTURE again!)

[taddles]

02:05 PM on 07/02/2010

Where are all the right wing teabagging Bush apologists who decried for several years on this site that "Waterboarding isn't torture because the President said it wasn't". Why aren't they clamoring to post their drivel again about the efficacy of waterboarding and how many lives it saved and how useful and effective a torture technique it is.

The only good thing about righties is eventually they become worm food, other than that, they aren't worth waterboarding.

[taddles]

02:01 PM on 07/02/2010

The WaPo article just begs the question.....where were you 5-6 years ago and why weren't you making this argument when the Bush administration was torturing people.

[realpolitic]

01:56 PM on 07/02/2010

It is so sad the way the media kowtowed to the Bush administration. As Orwell knows when semantics began to change to define as words as the opposite of what they mean then totalitarianism has started its slow creep over the country. If the Bush administration had another term electrical shock would not be called torture, nor beatings and the New York Times would simply nod their heads in agreement.

[Pleroma]

03:30 PM on 07/02/2010

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were George W Bush's most powerful backers and protectors. He couldn't have done anything without their help.

[realpolitic]

07:01 PM on 07/02/2010

Can't agree with you there. The far right hates them both.

[MikePatronSaintofTruth]

03:49 PM on 07/02/2010

The corporate-owned media have self-interested reasons for "kow-towing" to the Bush administration. I'm not so sure the media was kow-towing. I think they simply went along for the ride.

[realpolitic]

07:00 PM on 07/02/2010

Yes, but going along is often kowtowing.

[bgood0822]

01:55 PM on 07/02/2010

Ya you can kill a defenceless unborn child, but don't you dare touch an individual that knows when, where and how the next attack is gonna kill Americans.

[MikePatronSaintofTruth]

03:50 PM on 07/02/2010

That's an utter fantasy. Never in the history of mankind has there been a situation such as the one you describe....except perhaps in your fantasy television world. Keep watching your paranoid reruns of "24".

[dancingstu]

01:48 PM on 07/02/2010

"If the president does it, that means it's not illegal." Richard Nixon, April 6, 1977

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." George W. Bush —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

[icandump]

02:30 PM on 07/02/2010

FANNED!

[marignymitch]

02:40 PM on 07/02/2010

Still haven't read the Constitution, I gather. Torture is illegal, sadistic and doesn't work. What part of that sentence eludes your understanding?

[dancingstu]

04:30 PM on 07/02/2010

Was this comment intended to be a response to someone else?