About us Login Get email updates
Quick Clip
Print

Hayes claims "everybody, with unanimity" in media calls EITs "torture" -- not NY Times, according to public editor

June 21, 2009 12:37 pm ET

From the June 21 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday:

Please upgrade your flash player. The video for this item requires a newer version of Flash Player. If you are unable to install flash you can download a QuickTime version of the video.

EMBED

From New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt's April 25 column:

And why not, then, go all the way to torture? [Times editor in the Washington bureau, Douglas] Jehl said that when the paper is discussing what is generally regarded as the most extreme interrogation method the C.I.A. used, waterboarding, "we've become more explicit in saying in a first reference that it's a near-drowning technique" that Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and many other experts "have called torture." But he said: "I have resisted using torture without qualification or to describe all the techniques. Exactly what constitutes torture continues to be a matter of debate and hasn't been resolved by a court. This president and this attorney general say waterboarding is torture, but the previous president and attorney general said it is not. On what basis should a newspaper render its own verdict, short of charges being filed or a legal judgment rendered?" Jehl argued for precision and caution. I agree.

Expand All Expand 1st Level Collapse All Add Comment
    • Author by LuvLuLu (June 21, 2009 1:51 pm ET)
      6  
      Hayes acts like there is some doubt or some disagreement among reasonable people about whether or not waterboarding is torture, and therefore that's why he disingenuously says that everyone in the media says that it is torture. He's complaining that they've bought into a left wing talking point.

      It's not a left wing talking point though. Just because the Bush Administration tried to change the definition of torture to allow them to waterboard people, it doesn't mean they actually got to change the definition of torture. Twisting a definition to fit your political philosophy doesn't really change the definition of a word!

      There is no reasonable debate that can be had over facts. Everyone can have their own opinion, but not their own facts. Waterboarding, near-drowning of one's enemy to make them fear their own death and therefore discontinue resisting interrogation, is torture. That's a fact. Most in the media have stopped buying into the Bush Adminstration's deceit about waterboarding, and that's why most in the media now call it torture instead of the euphemistic 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniaues".
      Report Abuse
    • Author by overmars jr. (June 21, 2009 5:19 pm ET)
      4  
      Time for Hayes to sit across from Jesse Ventura.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by Edison (June 22, 2009 7:54 am ET)
      2  
      Hayes is either ignorant of, or intentionally omitted the mention of, the prosecutions in US military courts over the Japanese waterboarding our soldiers during WWII. The United States military has officially considered waterboarding torture since the Spanish-American war. The precedent was set then, and has been upheld and enforced, ..right up until the Bush administration decided it wasn't torture anymore.

      It seems to me the NY Times enjoys injecting its own opinion into the news, so why pull punches on this?

      Either way, Hayes betrays his own ignorance.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by Bad News (June 22, 2009 9:12 am ET)
         
      Torture is wrong.


      Mr. News
      Report Abuse
    • Author by latanza (June 22, 2009 11:53 am ET)
         
      Firstly lets not branch into selective amnesia with the barbaric treatment that Americans have consistently shown over conquered subjects. By this, the concern is the racial element and motivation behind the means. There has not been justified security and information behind the decision. If it were pertinent to the lives of a Nation, I think I would truly revert to it personally but not as an umbrella policy. This seems to go with power and control, back to the days of the Gladiator wars of the Romans and Jews. The process is torture if the acts reside in the doctrine of race and unfairly measured by neccessity. It is not torture is a subject has been extremely martially and unequivicably conditioned to resist all other means and time is of the essence for civilization to continue. Never say Never. These acts seem to come from a race and cultural standpoint and that is why they are torture methods and not intelligence tactics. ANYWAY, the proof is where there was no clear confirmation of methods given to the board who sanctions them and the fact that there was not full diclosure of the collective information gathered. THis was sanctioned serial sadism which effects large numbers of military and government personnel when at war and this is what has to be avoided.
      Report Abuse