Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy Prevarications and Evasions

Abstract

My thanks to all those many people who have sustained and loved me no matter what: Francois, Jeremy, Elizabeth, and Ethan. I would also like to acknowledge Natalja Mortensen, Senior Editor, for her support of my work. Prevarication denotes a lie. However, the connotation of prevarication softens to a half-truth or convoluted falsehood. Prevarication is about using ambiguity, omissions, or evasion to bend the truth and to mislead. In 1823, Clarke wrote that prevarication is the giving of contradictory or inconsistent evidence, which affects the credibility of the evidence, though neither the extent of the witness’s falsehood, nor the precise points in which he has departed from the truth be capable of ascertainment. (Clarke 1823 as quoted in Schneider 2007: 316)