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A comment on US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program. Parent comment

Re:US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program by ceejayoz on Tuesday December 09, 2014 @01:01PM (#8724400)
> You know why the Secretary General, the UN's leader, is called that? Because he is a secretary for the people who actually have power.

Secretary is essentially another word for Minister, and NATO's Secretary-General is its supreme commander in wartime. The UN's leader is called the Secretary General because he is in essence its Prime Minister, not because you get confused between a Secretary and his/her secretaries...

Unless you think General Secretary Joseph Stalin was a powerless functionary, of course.

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Re:US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program by tormeh on Tuesday December 09, 2014 @02:11PM (#8724916)
>NATO's Secretary-General is its supreme commander in wartime

>The UN's leader is called the Secretary General because he is in essence its Prime Minister

Both are wrong and wildly imaginative.

>General Secretary Joseph Stalin

Yes, but there's also a historic reason behind that title. The leader (like Chairman Mao) of the Soviet Union was supposed to be a sort of secretary for the workers. "Soviet" actually means "council"; the "chairman" and "secretary" names are communist propagandaspeak to give the impression that the workers are the ones in charge.

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