"To call something an 'enhanced interrogation technique' doesn't alter the fact that we thought it was torture when the Japanese used it on American prisoners, we thought it was torture when the North Koreans used it, we thought it was torture when the Soviets used it. You know, it's almost the moral equivalent of saying that rape is an enhanced seduction technique"
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Koppel’s genius here is the way he treats language as evidence, not decoration. “Enhanced interrogation technique” is bureaucratic Febreze: a phrase designed to deodorize an act the speaker already knows stinks. By lining up Japan, North Korea, and the Soviets, he forces a simple, uncomfortable continuity: we called it torture when our enemies did it; the only variable now is that we’re doing it. The comparison isn’t about history trivia, it’s about moral consistency under pressure.
The subtext is an accusation aimed at a particular post-9/11 American habit: if you rename something, you can re-permit it. Koppel is pushing against the national security vernacular that treats ethics as a PR problem to be managed. Notice the phrasing “we thought it was,” repeated like a drumbeat. It’s not “international law says,” not “the Geneva Conventions require.” He’s appealing to collective memory and ordinary moral vocabulary, implying the law is merely catching up to what we already understand.
Then he detonates the rape analogy, deliberately vulgar in a world where officials speak in sanitized syllables. It’s a rhetorical trap: if you accept the euphemism, you’re forced into absurdity. “Enhanced seduction” exposes what “enhanced interrogation” is doing - converting violence into technique, violation into procedure, the victim into a variable in a system. In the context of televised debate over waterboarding and black sites, Koppel isn’t just calling out torture. He’s calling out the corruption of public language that makes torture arguable.
The subtext is an accusation aimed at a particular post-9/11 American habit: if you rename something, you can re-permit it. Koppel is pushing against the national security vernacular that treats ethics as a PR problem to be managed. Notice the phrasing “we thought it was,” repeated like a drumbeat. It’s not “international law says,” not “the Geneva Conventions require.” He’s appealing to collective memory and ordinary moral vocabulary, implying the law is merely catching up to what we already understand.
Then he detonates the rape analogy, deliberately vulgar in a world where officials speak in sanitized syllables. It’s a rhetorical trap: if you accept the euphemism, you’re forced into absurdity. “Enhanced seduction” exposes what “enhanced interrogation” is doing - converting violence into technique, violation into procedure, the victim into a variable in a system. In the context of televised debate over waterboarding and black sites, Koppel isn’t just calling out torture. He’s calling out the corruption of public language that makes torture arguable.
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| Topic | Human Rights |
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