Why Euphemisms?

Enhanced Interrogations? Aggressive Interrogations? Brutal Interrogations?

It appears that few if any members of the American print media can bring themeselves to use the word "torture" to describe the conduct of Americans towards our Muslum detainees. Certainly not the New York Times. Certainly not the Washington Post.

And why? Andrew Sullivan explained this as well as anyone when he said:

"The minute you use the English language in defense of torture, you disgust yourself. Language matters, as Orwell understood. It is the first thing to be dispensed with in the defense of the indefensible."

So, no matter how much pain and suffering we inflict on the Muslim detainees that we suspect - notice the key qualifier "suspect" - might - notice the key qualifier "might" - be involved in terrorism, it cannot rise to the level of "torture." This holds, even when a terrorism suspect dies as a result of our "enhanced interrogations," as over 100 men have.

We can tolerate the behavior - but not if we utter the appropriate description of it.

That's a fascinating feature of our moral psychology, don't you think?

Joe