[Terror] Bush Wins Award From Educational Group
President George W. Bush, for the second year in a row, and his administration have been given the honor of receiving the 2004 Doublespeak Award from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Committee on Public Doublespeak. The citation, in full:
President George W. Bush has set a high standard for his team by the inspired invention of the phrase "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" (1) to describe what has yet to be seen. Further he has made clear the principle of democratic discussion: "[A]s you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say." (2) Bush also won for his creative use of language in public statements regarding the reasons why the United States needed to pursue war against Iraq--for unsubstantiated statements, for the lack of evidentiary support, and for the purported manipulation of intelligence data.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's description of the widespread torture at Abu Ghraib as "the excesses of human nature that humanity suffers" (3) was brilliantly mind-befuddling. The Secretary is well served by a Pentagon that erased terms like the Vietnam era "body bag" which became "human remains pouches" during the Gulf War and is now known as "transfer tubes," (4) the transfer of which are to be kept from media sight.
The Justice Department also deserves mention for its ingenious contributions to the cause of helping us not confront the shame of our government fostering torture. Jay S. Bybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel, advised that, in order to be considered torture, the pain inflicted on a prisoner "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." Leaving aside the problem of how to quantitatively measure human pain in this way, the memo advised that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogation" conducted against suspected terrorists.(5)
1George W. Bush, State of the Union Address. Washington, DC, January 20, 2004.
2George W. Bush, press conference. Washington, DC, October 28, 2003.
3Defense Department Town Hall Meeting, transcript of remarks by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Pentagon, Washington, DC, May 11, 2004.
4William Rivers Pitt, "Without Honor," truthout, November 10, 2003.
5Mike Allen and Dana Priest, "Memo on Torture Draws Focus to Bush," (The Washington Post), June 9, 2004.
President George W. Bush has set a high standard for his team by the inspired invention of the phrase "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" (1) to describe what has yet to be seen. Further he has made clear the principle of democratic discussion: "[A]s you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say." (2) Bush also won for his creative use of language in public statements regarding the reasons why the United States needed to pursue war against Iraq--for unsubstantiated statements, for the lack of evidentiary support, and for the purported manipulation of intelligence data.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's description of the widespread torture at Abu Ghraib as "the excesses of human nature that humanity suffers" (3) was brilliantly mind-befuddling. The Secretary is well served by a Pentagon that erased terms like the Vietnam era "body bag" which became "human remains pouches" during the Gulf War and is now known as "transfer tubes," (4) the transfer of which are to be kept from media sight.
The Justice Department also deserves mention for its ingenious contributions to the cause of helping us not confront the shame of our government fostering torture. Jay S. Bybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel, advised that, in order to be considered torture, the pain inflicted on a prisoner "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." Leaving aside the problem of how to quantitatively measure human pain in this way, the memo advised that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogation" conducted against suspected terrorists.(5)
1George W. Bush, State of the Union Address. Washington, DC, January 20, 2004.
2George W. Bush, press conference. Washington, DC, October 28, 2003.
3Defense Department Town Hall Meeting, transcript of remarks by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Pentagon, Washington, DC, May 11, 2004.
4William Rivers Pitt, "Without Honor," truthout, November 10, 2003.
5Mike Allen and Dana Priest, "Memo on Torture Draws Focus to Bush," (The Washington Post), June 9, 2004.
posted by Chris Hodge at 12:37 PM
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