Bob Franken

Enhanced interrogation techniques, or even worse, EITs — why can’t they just say “torture” as the apologists try to pretend that the CIA and our post-9/11 leaders didn’t shame America? Instead, they come up with sterile terms to describe their monstrous policies.

Another one is the term that two psychologists created to describe the state of mind they wanted from U.S. captives subjected to that torture: “learned helplessness.” The intent of their brutal interrogation tactics was to create a belief by prisoners that it was pointless to withhold information, that there was no hope of doing anyth...