Criticizing is easier than self-criticism

Now we all know why it's never the United States, but the rest of the world that engages in torture. It's simply because the US doesn't call it torture, it calls it enhanced interrogation techniques, or EIT.

But no matter how much nicer it sounds, EIT is heinous and brutal torture as the Tuesday release of a Senate report on interrogations conducted by the CIA makes clear.

In fact, the US is very adept at using such euphemisms and obfuscation, and not just for torture. For instance, some American and Australian pundits launched a crusade against China's cyberpolicy and practice during a seminar at the Brookings Institution on Tuesday.

In defending the cyberespionage conducted by the US National Security Agency on foreign companies such as Petrobras of Brazil, James Mulvenon, vice-president of the Intelligence Division of the Defense Group Inc, said it was for national security purposes and not to give the information to individual US companies.

This was clearly not what Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff believed when she said that if proved, this would be tantamount to industrial espionage and have no security justification.

Even if the US government does not give the stolen information to US companies, it could use it to its advantage in decision-making. The same is true of the NSA hacking into China's telecom equipment giant Huawei Technologies and Chinese universities as revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

After Snowden's disclosures, few countries will want the US to dominate the rule-making for global cybersecurity. However, that does not mean the US, with its superpower mentality, is truly willing or ready to listen to others and willing to let others participate in this process, especially those with differing views.