"But there have been many news reports that water-boarding has been used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is one of the major al Qaeda figures that we have in U.S. custody"
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The sentence is built like a legal affidavit, and that’s the tell. Jane Mayer doesn’t assert; she catalogs. “There have been many news reports” is a journalist’s pressure valve, a careful attribution that both protects her and indicts the system she’s describing. The phrasing signals: the story is already out there, circulating in the semi-official realm where everyone “knows” but no one wants to own the claim. It’s a way of documenting a public secret.
The most loaded word is the most bureaucratic one: “used.” Waterboarding isn’t “done,” “ordered,” or “authorized”; it’s “used,” as if it were an instrument in a toolkit. That clinical verb drains the practice of its moral heat, which is precisely why it lands. Mayer lets the euphemism hang in the air long enough for readers to feel the violence it’s trying to launder.
Context matters: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is name-brand terrorism, a figure whose notoriety is routinely invoked to justify extraordinary measures. By specifying him, Mayer is invoking the state’s strongest rhetorical shield: if it happened to him, many will shrug. Her sentence quietly tests that shrug. It asks whether the public’s appetite for security has turned so elastic that the taboo against torture can be managed through passive voice, media attribution, and the soothing phrase “in U.S. custody” - a reminder that whatever he’s accused of, the government is the actor with power, procedure, and responsibility.
The intent isn’t to sensationalize; it’s to pin down how democracies normalize brutality: not with a single proclamation, but with careful language that makes the unthinkable sound like policy.
The most loaded word is the most bureaucratic one: “used.” Waterboarding isn’t “done,” “ordered,” or “authorized”; it’s “used,” as if it were an instrument in a toolkit. That clinical verb drains the practice of its moral heat, which is precisely why it lands. Mayer lets the euphemism hang in the air long enough for readers to feel the violence it’s trying to launder.
Context matters: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is name-brand terrorism, a figure whose notoriety is routinely invoked to justify extraordinary measures. By specifying him, Mayer is invoking the state’s strongest rhetorical shield: if it happened to him, many will shrug. Her sentence quietly tests that shrug. It asks whether the public’s appetite for security has turned so elastic that the taboo against torture can be managed through passive voice, media attribution, and the soothing phrase “in U.S. custody” - a reminder that whatever he’s accused of, the government is the actor with power, procedure, and responsibility.
The intent isn’t to sensationalize; it’s to pin down how democracies normalize brutality: not with a single proclamation, but with careful language that makes the unthinkable sound like policy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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