Spin Doctoring Torture
Published in Al-Watan
(Oman) on 15 December 2014
by Haitham al-Aidy (link to original)
(Oman) on 15 December 2014
by Haitham al-Aidy (link to original)
Translated from
by Jackson Allan.
Edited by Emily Chick.
With the publication of the Congress report on the methods of torture that the CIA adopted for interrogating detained subjects following the 9/11 attacks, the Arab and global media has been overrun by comments and analyses. They have all condemned the horrid methods, most of which we learned about years ago through the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, stories from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and leaks about overseas interrogations in Middle Eastern and Eastern European countries in what were then known as “flying prisons.”
But in discussing the report — of which only 500 of about 6,000 pages have been disclosed — the media has almost knowingly used it as a scalpel to perform cosmetic surgery on the American administration. By saying or implying that the mere discussion of the report and the acknowledgement of its contents is a triumph of the human values that America enjoys, and by giving the torturers the opportunity to defend their actions, the media truly is “spin doctoring”* the issue.
Spin doctoring can be summarized as intentionally explaining events and information that concern public opinion in a particular way, so that they conform to some course and help achieve some goal. This is a process planned and undertaken by those who have come to be known as publicity experts or “spin doctors.”
The word “spin” may have come to be used because it suggests that the truth being presented is inverted. The process differs from Black Propaganda because the latter uses lies. Spin doctoring relies on facts, but presents a distorted or muddled version of them to create the desired impression or effect. The foundation of this process is that of presenting bad news in a favorable way, and working as much as possible to appear compelled or as a victim in order to gain the sympathy of the masses.
When we review the media discussion about the congressional report, we see that the principles of spin doctoring largely apply.
President Obama is facing a clear failure to deal with terrorism and sharp criticism from the families of hostages killed by hostage-takers in failed rescue operations, the most recent of which, conducted by American forces in Yemen, resulted in the killing of two hostages, one American and the other South African. But Obama found in the report — which strongly condemns his Republican predecessor George Bush, Jr. — the opportunity he needs to improve his image as an opponent of torture, using flexible wording in the comment that the White House made. The White House press secretary’s first comment was that “the most important question is: Should we have done it? And the answer to that question is no.” Furthermore, the press secretary announced that Obama retains complete trust in the director of the CIA.
As for the CIA director himself, he defended his agency’s policies by saying, in an exceptional press conference broadcasted — for the first time in American history — live from the CIA’s headquarters, that whether some of the information obtained through “enhanced interrogation techniques” could have been obtained using “other means” is “unknowable.”
He also refused to use the term “torture,” saying “I will leave to others to how they might want to label those activities,” and indicating that the CIA operated in “uncharted territory” after the 9/11 attacks.
The term “other means” that the CIA director employed could certainly be used in the future as a new defense of the recently uncovered spying operations that America’s security and intelligence agencies conducted on mobile phones and email accounts.
Beyond the American administration, the comments from analysts and politicians are all praising “American democracy” for, in their view, acknowledging its mistakes and beginning to rectify them.
While America may want to revamp its image and defend, in its own way, what was revealed years ago to divert attention away from the torture practiced by those who claimed — and still claim — to be defenders of democracy and human rights, it is silly for us to be the tools with which it does that.
*Editor's note: Some of the original text which delves into explaining to an Arab audience what spin doctoring means has been omitted in order to adapt the article to an American audience.
But in discussing the report — of which only 500 of about 6,000 pages have been disclosed — the media has almost knowingly used it as a scalpel to perform cosmetic surgery on the American administration. By saying or implying that the mere discussion of the report and the acknowledgement of its contents is a triumph of the human values that America enjoys, and by giving the torturers the opportunity to defend their actions, the media truly is “spin doctoring”* the issue.
Spin doctoring can be summarized as intentionally explaining events and information that concern public opinion in a particular way, so that they conform to some course and help achieve some goal. This is a process planned and undertaken by those who have come to be known as publicity experts or “spin doctors.”
The word “spin” may have come to be used because it suggests that the truth being presented is inverted. The process differs from Black Propaganda because the latter uses lies. Spin doctoring relies on facts, but presents a distorted or muddled version of them to create the desired impression or effect. The foundation of this process is that of presenting bad news in a favorable way, and working as much as possible to appear compelled or as a victim in order to gain the sympathy of the masses.
When we review the media discussion about the congressional report, we see that the principles of spin doctoring largely apply.
President Obama is facing a clear failure to deal with terrorism and sharp criticism from the families of hostages killed by hostage-takers in failed rescue operations, the most recent of which, conducted by American forces in Yemen, resulted in the killing of two hostages, one American and the other South African. But Obama found in the report — which strongly condemns his Republican predecessor George Bush, Jr. — the opportunity he needs to improve his image as an opponent of torture, using flexible wording in the comment that the White House made. The White House press secretary’s first comment was that “the most important question is: Should we have done it? And the answer to that question is no.” Furthermore, the press secretary announced that Obama retains complete trust in the director of the CIA.
As for the CIA director himself, he defended his agency’s policies by saying, in an exceptional press conference broadcasted — for the first time in American history — live from the CIA’s headquarters, that whether some of the information obtained through “enhanced interrogation techniques” could have been obtained using “other means” is “unknowable.”
He also refused to use the term “torture,” saying “I will leave to others to how they might want to label those activities,” and indicating that the CIA operated in “uncharted territory” after the 9/11 attacks.
The term “other means” that the CIA director employed could certainly be used in the future as a new defense of the recently uncovered spying operations that America’s security and intelligence agencies conducted on mobile phones and email accounts.
Beyond the American administration, the comments from analysts and politicians are all praising “American democracy” for, in their view, acknowledging its mistakes and beginning to rectify them.
While America may want to revamp its image and defend, in its own way, what was revealed years ago to divert attention away from the torture practiced by those who claimed — and still claim — to be defenders of democracy and human rights, it is silly for us to be the tools with which it does that.
*Editor's note: Some of the original text which delves into explaining to an Arab audience what spin doctoring means has been omitted in order to adapt the article to an American audience.
As a citizen of the United States and a democratic Socialist I am aware of this odious art of ” spin doctoring ” news embarrassing to our ruling class. Many of our capitalist politicians are just corrupt, bought and sold lawyers. They went to ELITE colleges-like Harvard, Yale, Princeton- to learn how to champion a rotten cause: the interests of the American plutocracy- in the majestic halls of Congress. All that expensive Ivy League education devoted not to a dedicated search for Truth but to the devil’s trade of clever lying.
These vile ” leaders of the people ” are ever ready with mere sound bite words and phrases which only serve to stupefy public opinion: FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, the AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE , OUR MERITOCRACY, the WISDOM OF THE MARKET, a SOCIETY of LAW . EQUAL OPPORTUNITY to SUCCEED .
Of course, if you do not SUCCEED by bourgeois, philistine values, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Even a modest liberal effort to check the greed of the American capitalist class is a signal for alarm: No more BIG BROTHER interference in our sacrosanct profit system !
The Evil Face the American plutocracy shows the world in its invasion and occupation of foreign nations ( for example, the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ) it now shows to angry Afro-Americans protesting police brutality here in the streets of the nation, recently in the streets Washington, D.C .
I would love to see a president like FDR come to power to deal with all this unacceptable inequality and injustice. But it just may be that our ruling class is now hopelessly decadent.
A study of history points to the Great French Revolution of 1789. To the much maligned Russian Revolution of 1917.
Read the front pages of the New York Times covering that momentous uprising in Czarist Russia. The bourgeois journalists had to admit that Lenin ” was perhaps the greatest revolutionary of all time “.
That HOPE for a better world did not collapse with the end of the old Soviet Union.
( http://radicalrons.blogspot.com/