NY Times: Evidence of Pro-Bush Bias?

"Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting" analyzes a recent NY Times piece, that seems unable to call torture by this name. Do they want to spare Bush ugly facts, or do they use the gloves for the Army?

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The New York Times, revealing the interrogation techniques the CIA is using against Al-Qaeda suspects, seemed unable to find a source who would call torture by its proper name.

The May 13 article, headlined "Harsh CIA Methods Cited in Top Qaeda Interrogation," described "coercive interrogation methods" endorsed by the CIA and the Justice Department, including hooding, food and light deprivation, withholding medications, and "a technique known as 'water boarding,' in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown."

The article took pains to explain why, according to U.S. officials, such techniques do not constitute torture: (...) The implication is that only interrogation methods that cause serious physical harm would be real and not simulated torture.

The article quoted no one who said that the CIA methods described were, in fact, torture. Yet it would have been easy to find human rights experts who would describe them as such. (…) Amnesty International U.S.A. (www.amnestyusa.org) names "submersion into water almost to the point of suffocation" as a form of torture, and emphasizes that torture "can be psychological, including threats, deceit, humiliation, insults, sleep deprivation, blindfolding, isolation, mock executions...and the withholding of medication or personal items."

The article (…)did not quote the definition of "torture" under international law, contained in the 1984 Convention Against Torture, which makes it clear that psychological as well as physical methods of coercion are prohibited. According to the Convention, "torture" is:
"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

Noting the Convention's reference to "consent or acquiescence" would have been helpful in evaluating the claims made by officials in the article that the U.S. can skirt prohibitions on torture if detainees are formally in the custody of another country. In fact, the Convention Against Torture, which the U.S. signed in 1994, explicitly prohibits sending a person anywhere "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture."

By relying solely on administration officials to define what torture is and what the U.S. government's legal obligations are, the New York Times failed to provide the context necessary for readers to make an informed judgment.

Someone isn't reading enough Daily Howler. :)

Our Press Corps is a joke!

Perhaps that is the reason the thread dropped so quickly...