Andrew Sullivan highlights a steaming pile of hypocrisy over at the New York Times:

Here we have it in broad daylight: the New York Times’ cowardice in the face of its own government. In an obit today, the editors manage to use the word “torture”. It’s in an obit. The obit runs:

Col. Harold E. Fischer Jr., an American fighter pilot who was routinely tortured in a Chinese prison during and after the Korean War, becoming — along with three other American airmen held at the same prison — a symbol and victim of cold war tension, died in Las Vegas on April 30. He was 83 and lived in Las Vegas. The cause was complications of back surgery, his son Kurt said.

From April 1953 through May 1955, Colonel Fischer — then an Air Force captain — was held at a prison outside Mukden, Manchuria. For most of that time, he was kept in a dark, damp cell with no bed and no opening except a slot in the door through which a bowl of food could be pushed. Much of the time he was handcuffed. Hour after hour, a high-frequency whistle pierced the air.

After a short mock trial in Beijing on May 24, 1955, Captain Fischer and the other pilots — Lt. Col. Edwin L. Heller, First Lt. Lyle W. Cameron and First Lt. Roland W. Parks — were found guilty of violating Chinese territory by flying across the border while on missions over North Korea. Under duress, Captain Fischer had falsely confessed to participating in germ warfare.

You will notice how the NYT defines torture when it comes to foreign governments – isolation, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation. Much milder than anything the US did to one of its own citizens, Jose Padilla. But the parallel is almost perfect: these are, after all, the exact Chinese Communist techniques that were reverse engineered from the SERE program. So you have a perfect demonstration of the NYT’s double-standard. If Chinese do it to Americans, it’s torture; if Americans do it to an American, it’s “harsh interrogation.” Does Jill Abramson really expect us to take this lying down?

Following on his post above, Sullivan writes an email to the Times to express his shock at their not following company policy:

Mr. Hevesi, I was dismayed to see in your obit of Col. Fischer the description of his detention in a Chinese prison as ‘torture’. As I’m sure you’re aware, there is a debate throughout our country as to which interrogation techniques constitutes torture.

What you may not be aware of is that your paper has already declared its position in that debate: Undecided. I will refer you to Clark Hoyt’s April piece titled ‘Telling the Brutal Truth’, in which Washington editor Doug Jehl was quoted saying “I have resisted using torture without qualification or to describe all the techniques. Exactly what constitutes torture…hasn’t been resolved by a court.” He then added “On what basis should a newspaper render its own verdict, short of charges being filed or a legal judgment rendered?”

Your article made no mention as to whether Col. Fischer’s interrogator, Chong, was either charged or convicted of torture. As such, in order to help the Times retain its’ consistency, I request that you change every instance of ‘prisoner’ in your article to ‘enemy combatant’ and change ‘torture’ to ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’. I’d also think it to be prudent if you could also expand the scope of the obit to better flesh out the background of Chong, the interrogator. Perhaps describe the pressure he was under from his superiors to produce intelligence about germ warfare from Col. Fischer as a way to explain his heavy-handedness.

To my mind, it seems like the Times hasn’t fully appreciated how the torture debate has shifted. Most of the serious people in the GOP have shifted away from the question of “Did we torture?” and are now pushing the question “Did torture work?” This is analogous to a criminal defendant shifting their defense from “I didn’t kill that guy” to “Well, I killed him but he was calling me names!”

As a final thought, I think we need to dream up a new-and-improved euphemism squad. If “torture” is going to be “enhanced interrogation technique”, why stop there? Let’s change “murder” to “enhanced life-ending procedure” and “robbery” to “harsh property acquisition mechanism”.