U.S. Media Says Torture is OK

By Eric on December 11, 2007

Whenever anyone from the Bush Administration says anything, regardless of whether they have the evidence to back it up, they can take comfort knowing that their trusted lapdogs in the U.S. media will report it as the whole, unadulterated truth. Yesterday, ABC News reported that John Kiriakou, leader of a CIA team that captured and waterboarded a crazy, schizophrenic al-Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah, revealed that he believes waterboarding to be torture, but necessary:

A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.

In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.

“The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate,” said Kiriakou in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News’ “World News With Charles Gibson” and “Nightline.”

“Well,” I said to myself, “we are a nation of laws, and the law says that torture is illegal.” And I went to bed thinking that I would wake up to see the traditional media finally ripping apart the Bush Administration. “Bush Administration Tortures” the papers would say, “Ex-CIA Agent admits government broke federal and international law.”

But those weren’t the headlines I saw this morning. No, the U.S. traditional media has accepted Kiriakou’s assertion that waterboarding provided valuable information on face value, and has given George Bush and his cronies a free pass to continue doing whatever they please–laws be damned!–for the next year.

MSNBC: Waterboarding ‘probably saved lives’

The Day: Ex-agent: Waterboarding got results

Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Waterboarding is torture but worked, ex-agent says

USA Today: Ex-spy describes waterboarding as torture, says it broke al-Qaeda figure in seconds

Bloomberg: Ex-CIA Agent Says Waterboarding May Be Torture, Yields Results

FOXNews: Report: CIA Agent Says Waterboarding is ‘Torture, But Necessary’

Baltimore Sun: Waterboarding worked wonders, ex-agent says

In every instance, the American media has pounced on the “success” of waterboarding without stopping to ask for any evidence of success other than the word of one former CIA agent. And the fact that it’s torture? Apparently that doesn’t matter to the U.S. traditional media as long as the Bush Administration says that it’s working.

For contrast, let’s look at some of this morning headlines from foreign media:

Sydney Morning Herald: Suspect was tortured, former CIA man says

Philippines Inquirer: Ex-CIA agent admits waterboarding, but calls it torture

Press TV: Ex-CIA agent admits waterboarding

The Australian: Ex-CIA agent admits suspect was tortured

The Daily Telegraph: Ex-CIA agent: We used torture and it worked

Outside of the U.S., the big news story of the day is that the government of the United States officially sanctions torture. Only the Daily Telegraph even mentions Kiriakou’s claims of success, and even then the connotation is drastically different. Compare “We used torture and it worked” with “We used torture but it worked.” Which of those sounds like reporting and which sounds like a pitiful defense?

It looks like most of the media outlets, domestic and foreign, and using the same text from a Washington Post/AFP story, but the similarities in the text only exaggerate the differences in the headlines. The media of this country are being put to shame by their foreign counterparts. Only the foreign press has the stones to report facts–that the the CIA admits to torture–in big, bold letters and leave the Administration’s unsubstantiated claims of success for the fine print. That’s real journalism, and it’s the biggest difference between the traditional media here and the traditional media abroad.

(Cross-posted at DailyKos)

Tags: Abu Zubaydah, George W. Bush, John Kiriakou, torture, traditional media, waterboarding

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There is 1 response to “U.S. Media Says Torture is OK”

1. [...] The other day, Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) played down waterboarding, saying that it’s just like swimming. Today, Sen. Bond decided to clarify his remarks, although he kept up the pretense that we aren’t actually using waterboarding even though everyone knows that we are. [...]

   —crazydrumguy | readblog | » Kit Bond Keeps Digging on Waterboarding on December 16, 2007 at 10:30 am