06/14/2005: "Sex, Torture, and the Definition Game"

"I did not have sex with that woman!", President Clinton told a national television audience. President William Clinton is an attorney. Attorneys think definitions are important. As we all know now, the President was trying to rely upon a definitional distinction between the act of sexual intercourse ("sex," according to his definition, in which he claimed he had not engaged with "that woman") and other kinds of male-female body combinations. The basis of his assertion was that certain other kinds of male-female body combinations don't involve actual intercourse and therefore definitionally aren't "sex" – even though they involve sexual feelings and certain physical reactions (I'm thinking stains on the blue dress here).

President Clinton was playing a version of what I call the Definition Game. The Definition Game isn't new. Indeed, the principles behind the Definition Game were explained long ago by Lewis Carroll in – appropriately enough -- Alice in Wonderland:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is, " said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

The rules are simple: invent a new definition for a word, and then use it with confidence as though the word has always meant just what you are using it to mean. Politicians lose the Game when we citizens notice that the game is being played. And they win when they manage to slip it by us.

President Clinton lost the Definition Game. Like art novices standing perplexed before nonrepresentational art, the nation's citizens might not be able to define "sex," but could tell it when he saw it. And, the citizens decided, stained blue dresses count.

But why, nearly a decade later, am I bringing us back to that unpleasant time in America? Because our leaders are now playing the "Definition Game" again, with much more success. This time, the subject of the Definition Game is torture.

During the early phases of the Iraq war, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales approved a definition of torture which provided that only "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death" constitute torture punishable by law.

Remember all that about bamboo sticks under the finger-nails from the Korean War? Apparently not torture. Chinese water torture – those little drops of water hitting one's scalp, slowly, drop after drop after drop, day after day after day. Apparently not torture. It should have been named "Chinese water massage" apparently. Or perhaps merely included under the category of "daily water rations."

Then, just one week before the start of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Gonzales's nomination for the post of Attorney General, the formal definition of torture changed from the one approved by Gonzales. In the new memo, Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin said torture may include mere physical suffering or lasting mental anguish. That definition certainly sounds a lot more reasonable. But that revised definition is five months old. Why bring it up now?

Because five months later, we're still playing the Definition Game with torture. You've perhaps heard about the Amnesty International report, which branded the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as "the gulag of our time." In the typical muddle-headedness of our media, almost all news reports one reads about the Report focus on the word "gulag" and the retorts by President Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld which claim the "gulag" label is absurd. But missing from national press coverage was this critical point: the Amnesty International report accused the United States of creating "a new lexicon for abuse and torture."

That is, Amnesty International said that the United States is trying to claim it isn't torturing anyone, by redefining torture, using instead such names as "environmental manipulation, stress positions and sensory manipulation."

Playing the Definition Game is dangerous. Because words are important. And our use of them convinces not only others – but more insidiously, it can convince even the players of the Game. This happened with President Clinton: I think he honestly thought he hadn't had "sex" with Ms. Lewinsky. And President Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld, having played the Definition Game to avoid bad publicity for their policies on torture, have ended up (I believe) convincing themselves.

Folks, this is serious stuff. It isn't just about how we treat our enemies. It is also about how our enemies treat us. Go back and read the press reports of the first beheadings in Iraq: you'll find that the beheadings came only after the news of our torturing the Iraqi prisoners became public.

But the risks of playing the Definition Game by redefining torture are much more serious than risking the well-being of the prisoners held by our enemies. We risk our national identity – who we are as a people. I have always thought of the United States as the guys with the white hats. So have most of us. But now I fear that we as a nation are wearing hats no longer white, but instead a grim shade of darkening grey. To save us from terrorist attacks, our leaders are restricting our liberties, and expanding the powers of the military to use interrogation methods on our prisoners that we'd all think of as torture if they were used on us.

Is that justified because it is for our safety? In the fight against terrorism, we risk being our own biggest enemy.