U.S. counterterrorism euphemisms sanitized torture, rendition, and secret prisons.

Evidence

U.S. forces used “enhanced interrogation” methods that inflict severe pain and distress—methods that are especially controversial, because they border on torture, which is internationally banned. Outsourcing such interrogations to other countries was called “extraordinary rendition.” Secret prisons run by the CIA in foreign countries, outside U.S. legal jurisdiction, were dubbed “black sites.” These are but a few examples of euphemistic practices that will be analyzed in greater detail later in this chapter. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2148

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concrete terms: enhanced interrogation, extraordinary rendition, black sites—useful as a concise catalog of euphemism-as-moral-disengagement.
• ADDENDUM: Directly echoes the euphemism theme in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ about how language cloaks contested conduct.
• XREF: connects to: Rendition is typically unauthorized, unilateral, gluttonous, secret, and brazen — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 755; The euphemism ‘depleted’ masks uranium’s radioactive and chemical threat in munitions — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 603