enhanced interrogation techniques
Euphemistic torture methods
Enhanced interrogation techniques is a euphemism for torture methods used during questioning of prisoners.
The phrase emerged in U.S. government discourse after 2001 to describe practices like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and stress positions applied to suspected terrorists.
The clinical language obscures the brutality: The CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques included simulated drowning.
Critics argue the term exists precisely to avoid legal prohibitions against torture.
- tormentsCauses severe distress
- war on terrorCampaign against militant violence
- ticking time bombLooming inevitable disaster
- national securitySafeguarding a country's interests
- extraordinary renditionClandestine cross-border detainee transfer
water torture · hooding · forced disappearance · Geneva Conventions · war crimes tribunals · solitary confinement · slapping · walling · human rights violations · cold exposure · sleep deprivation · sexual assault · sensory deprivation · beatings · Guantanamo Bay · electric shocks · isolation · Abu Ghraib
enhanced interrogation techniquestorture
Deliberate infliction of suffering
abuse · prisoner abuse · cruel treatment · waterboarding · brutality
enhance, enhanced, enhances, enhancing, enhancement, enhancements, unenhanced, interrogate, interrogated