clipped from: www.newint.org   
Disguise and deny
Tom MorrisAnyone investigating reports of torture before the nineteenth century would have had a pretty easy time of it. That's because a good many religions and states practised torture as official policy, out in the open without any embarrassment.
Since then, however, a thick fog of shame has come to surround its use, and ever-more elaborate legal prohibitions have evolved. Now governments that practise torture often do so behind elaborate charades of secrecy, denial and hypocrisy.
Torturers and their bureaucrats during the Argentine military dictatorship (1976-83) seldom referred to 'torture' as such. Instead we heard of 'interrogation', 'intensive therapy', 'persuasion' or simply 'work', with torture rooms referred to as 'operating theatres'. Euphemistic references to 'excesses' and 'certain methods' fill Argentine Government reports into its own violence.