The Workday Liberal

I hate it when people on either side of the political divide bring out the the heavy handed Nazi label. Tossing that label out there just stops debate. You can not expect the other side to listen or respond intelligently after being tarred with that label. For example, Rush Limbaugh long ago gave up any hope of holding an intelligent conversation with any self respecting feminist, by repeatedly invoking the appellation of feminazi.

But by golly, you can not ignore the eerie echoes from the practices of the Nazi's in regards to their interrogation of prisoners, and this administrations allowances for detainees interrogation in the so called war on terror.

Andrew Sullivan has the document proof that the same techniques which led to death penalty convictions from the Nuremberg trials have been authorized by President Bush. In fact the name for these techniques are identical in translation from German to English... they and we both calling it "enhanced interrogation" rather than torture.

In fact the Germans banned techniques which the Bush administration has allowed, because the methods were too harsh. Also the internal controls on who could be tortured were explicit, with each case being taken to regional commanders who authorized the ill treatment of the detainee. It seems that the Bush administration told everybody the gloves were off, and many detainees around the world were abused by low level grunts with no oversight.

Not only that, but the legal justifications currently being given for enhanced interrogation in the so called war on terror are exactly echoed by the defense in the Nuremberg trials. The people being tortured were not covered by the Geneva conventions as they were not uniformed combatants. The enhanced interrogations had to be conducted in order to save lives (the Nazi's had their own ticking time bombs), and so on.

I find it entirely unacceptable that the people leading this nation in a global struggle of freedom and democracy against intolerance and extremism have taken their cues from the monsters of history. It is appalling that the lessons the Bush administration have learned from the Nuremberg trials are the most effective arguments to use in a torture defense.