Guantanamo’s deepening failure

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

The U.S. Defense Department specializes in euphemism. “Limited kinetic action” is a polite way of saying “war,” and “collateral damage” does not sound as blunt as “dead children.” When I was chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration, I was told not to say publicly that a detainee had “attempted suicide.” The government-approved term for the act was “self-injurious behavior.” I could not say “torture,” or as some called it, the “T-word." Instead, I had to say “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

The euphemism tradition remains alive and well in the Obama administration. The slogan “fairness, transparency, justice” is featured prominently throughout the military commissions’ new half-million-dollar website. The slogan even shows up when case document links lead to a notice saying the “document you are trying to access is currently undergoing a security review” and might be posted later if the government decides it is “publicly releasable.”

Salon.com > Morris Davis

Guantanamo’s deepening failure