Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Parsing Miss Daisy

"The United States does not transport ... detainees from country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Now that is some skilled sophistry. Clear as the mud in a Ninth Ward tenement.


Did she say we don't torture? Ummmmm... no.

Did she say we don't transport detainees from one country to another? Uhhhh... nope.

Did she even say we don't transport detainees from one country to another in order to interrogate them? (tick, tick, tick...) No.

What she gave us is known among skilled rhetoriticans as a "negative pregnant"-- a hyper-specific denial that in effect admits guilt of the larger wrong.

And seeing through this nonsense was Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch: " They are claiming that they are not sending people to Syria because they consciously desire people to be tortured. But they know perfectly well that torture is standard operating procedure in these countries."

Update: Oh, and I almost forgot -- nice shoes.

3 Comments:

Blogger Catnapping said...

don't you mean nice jackboots?

;)

4:31 PM  
Blogger Eric Soderstrom said...

I did not bring $500 in cash to the partner conference in Las Vegas for the purpose of losing $100 at poker, $300 on Wheel of Fortune Slots and blowing the other $100 on buffets, cocktails, and T-shirts.

12:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If EVER needed renditioning...this psychopath along with the whole stinking, corrupt administration of chickehawks is at the top of the list!

5:30 AM  

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