It was posted on Tuesday, but since I just read it this evening I thought I'd share. "It" in this case is
a blog entry by Andrew Sullivan in which he exactingly compares the "enhanced interrogation" techniques practiced by the US military under the Bush Administration, and similar-to-identical tactics practiced by the Gestapo under Adolph Hitler. It would appear to be an instant violation of Godwin's Law... but not if it's true? A short excerpt:
The phrase "Verschärfte Vernehmung" is German for "enhanced interrogation". Other translations include "intensified interrogation" or "sharpened interrogation". It's a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court. The methods, as you can see above, are indistinguishable from those described as "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the president. As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan.
Also: the use of hypothermia, authorized by Bush and Rumsfeld, was initially forbidden. 'Waterboarding" was forbidden too, unlike that authorized by Bush. As time went on, historians have found that all the bureaucratic restrictions were eventually broken or abridged. Once you start torturing, it has a life of its own.
Sullivan is obviously doing some cherry-picking with his quotes and is framing his argument to fit the event, but hey, that's what blogging or making an argument is all about. In any event, it's pretty striking that the methods and justifications of "torture" by the current US Administration are virtually identical to the methods and justifications of torture practiced by the Nazis, especially given that Nazi guards who did these things and the superiors who gave them their orders were eventually sentenced to death by various war crimes tribunals.
I found Sullivan's argument fairly devastating, (assuming you're the type of person who is horrified, rather than encouraged, by parallels between current US policies and those of Nazi Germany) and after reading it I skimmed the trackbacks, wondering how the other pro-Bush/torture bloggers would attempt to criticize or minimize it. Nit picking seems to be the method of choice, or else the old chestnut, "Yeah, but terrorists are even worse than we are." That one seems to resonate amongst the wingnuts, which confuses me. Isn't the whole point that we (Americans) are supposed to be
better, morally and politically, than the evildoers we're busily engaged in an epic struggle against?
I didn't follow that many of the trackbacks, but I did
check out this one, which was amusing enough to motivate this blog entry. It's by the Confederate Yankee, a blogger I've never before heard of/read, and I'll just quote his opening line.
Saint Andie isn't calling the Bush Administration Hitler...
...because the phrase War Criminals and Nazis is much more fitting.
Let's begin at the end of Andie "Patron Saint of the Man Pooter" Sullivan's article.
If you're confused by that, let me explain. Sullivan is an openly gay male, and besides that unpardonable sin, he has further alienated the right wing by being a conservative who strongly supported Bush's Iraq Attack in the beginning, before growing disillusioned and turning against it after seeing the light a couple of years ago. So obviously wingnuts like the ConYank here are predisposed to disagree with anything Sullivan says (now), and to practice character assassination, but seriously... "patron saint of the man pooter?" I'll admit that I would have found that relatively amusing when I was like, fourteen, but to see that now, on a political blog intended for adult consumption, is just embarrassing. I guess all of ConYank's regular readers are as homophobic as he is and take this sort of thing in stride, but can he possibly imagine any newcomer to his blog seeing that sort of adolescent stupidity and not disregarding anything else in his post?
If you're going to slip in
ad hominem homophobia, is it too much to ask that you do it with some intelligence? Maybe that would be way over the head of ConYank's audience, but a decent writer would feel obligated to do it anyway. Quote one of Sullivan's opinions and say something like, "But given Sullivan's preference for the wrong end of the male digestive tract..." Or work it in with some subtlety; ConYank's opening line almost does it by accident, "...let's begin at the end of Sullivan's article." he says. All he had to do was add, "since we all know that's where Andy likes it best!" and bang, he's made a joke, reminded his readers that Sullivan is a sodomite, and worked his readership's base prejudices all in one quick line.
What do we have to do to get some quality insinuation and innuendo from the lunatic war-mongering fringe? Yank out their fingernails?
Labels: homophobia, iraq, war
