Robert Fisk, during a tour of the United States, notices the inability of the media to call torture by its real name and deluded establishment figure "prevailing" in Iraq:
"It’s like living in a prism in New York and Washington these days. "Torture" is out. No one tortures in Iraq or Afghanistan or Guantanamo. What Americans do to their prisoners is "abuse" and there was a wonderful moment this week when Amy Goodman, who is every leftist’s dream, showed a clip from Pontecorvo’s wonderful 1965 movie The Battle of Algiers on her Democracy Now programme. 'Colonel Mathieu' - the film is semi-fictional - was shown explaining why torture was necessary to safeguard French lives. Then up popped Mr Bush’s real spokesman, Scott McClellan, to say that while he would not discuss interrogation methods, the primary aim of the administration was to safeguard American lives."
"It’s like living in a prism in New York and Washington these days. "Torture" is out. No one tortures in Iraq or Afghanistan or Guantanamo. What Americans do to their prisoners is "abuse" and there was a wonderful moment this week when Amy Goodman, who is every leftist’s dream, showed a clip from Pontecorvo’s wonderful 1965 movie The Battle of Algiers on her Democracy Now programme. 'Colonel Mathieu' - the film is semi-fictional - was shown explaining why torture was necessary to safeguard French lives. Then up popped Mr Bush’s real spokesman, Scott McClellan, to say that while he would not discuss interrogation methods, the primary aim of the administration was to safeguard American lives."
1 Comments:
Nothing like being the world's only superpower to dictate how countries act and whether non-Americans live or die.
Further, as AL describes, the US uses particular words to govern how people think. Chomsky was/is right on to the thought governed by available words concept.
This concept is not new. The Church has used it for years. Its just useful to warn people about it every so often.
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