A reader writes:
I was listening this morning to NPR discuss the Khmer Rouge trial. At one point they said, "Duch was often present during the brutal interrogations, where the detained were subjected to electric shock, mock drownings, and had their fingernails and toenails pulled out." Italics are mine. When I heard that, I thought, "I wonder if they are talking about waterboarding?" Then, sure enough, I read your post where you quote the AP.
NPR uses the word torture early in the story, but when it comes to description, we can't associate "waterboarding" with the word "torture", so now we call it "mock drowning". One news outlet calls it torture, and one calls it "brutal interrogation". Sad.
(Photo: A Cambodian nun lines up to attend the verdict in the trial of former Khmer Rouge prison chief of S-21, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, at the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in Phnom Penh on July 26, 2010. Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court is set to give its verdict on Duch, in a step towards justice for the 'Killing Fields' atrocities more than three decades ago. By Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images.)