Bush, the Nazis, and Torture
A provocative title, I know, but Andrew Sullivan had an extremely important post up the other day on the striking similarities between the Nazis’ interrogation techniques (or “methods of examination”) and those approved for use by Bush and his underlings (and approved, too, by many of his supporters). Make sure to read his entire post. Here are my comments:
The Germans call it verschärfte Vernehmung, which means “enhanced” or “intensified” or “sharpened” interrogation. Andrew includes a Gestapo directive that outlines when such interrogation may be use, on whom it may be used, why it may be used, and what methods may be applied. As Andrew explains, “[t]he methods… are indistinguishable from those described as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ by the president”. But he also notes that Bush has gone even further than the Nazis: “Also: the use of hypothermia, authorized by Bush and Rumsfeld, was initially forbidden. ‘Waterboarding’ was forbidden too, unlike that authorized by Bush.”
Of course, the Nazis went much further than this. The U.S. has, too, but not nearly as far, and so the comparison between Bush and the Nazis must be understood in context. Still, what Andrew shows is that “[t]he Nazi defense of the techniques is almost verbatim that of the Bush administration,” and he provides extensive evidence to show even more similarities, including the approved use of “stress positions,” “repeated beatings,” “[f]reezing prisoners to near-death,” and the “withholding of medicine and leaving wounded or sick prisoners alone in cells for days on end”.
The word “interrogation” is a euphemism. This is torture — and nothing less. It’s what went on in places like Dachau. More recently, it’s what’s been going on in U.S. detention facilities around the world as “authorized by Bush and Rumsfeld,” not to mention Cheney, Gonzales, and other officials, elected and unelected alike, and as supported by many Republicans in Congress and many mainstream conservatives, including prominent pundits, bloggers, and media personalities like Charles Krauthammer, Glenn Reynolds, and Rush Limbaugh. Here’s more from Andrew:
Critics will no doubt say I am accusing the Bush administration of being Hitler. I’m not. There is no comparison between the political system in Germany in 1937 and the U.S. in 2007. What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn’t-somehow-torture — “enhanced interrogation techniques” — is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.
No, I’m not suggesting capital punishment (and Andrew isn’t either, of course), which I’m against. But consider the historical context for what Bush is doing as president. That he has abused his authority to wield power like the Nazis, and with such arrogance and brutality, should be viewed as one of the defining elements of his presidency. If America is an empire in decline, and if there is, as I think there is, a sickness eating away at its soul, there can be little doubt that a symptom of that sickness and decline, one that is spreading the sickness and accelerating the decline, that is blocking any attempt at recovery and making everything so much worse, can be found at the very apex of government, in the White House and in the various corridors of power occupied by those who have turned Lincoln’s last, best hope into a savage instrument of oppression.
22 Responses to “Bush, the Nazis, and Torture”
That this is even a matter of debate is something I find highly disturbing. Most of the arguments for torture try to make it at least in part “well it’s not so bad because we’re doing it for good! We’re just using it on bad guys, we’re the good guys!”
I remember once, I think it was on CNN, I saw to juxtaposed polls. It was about the time of Abu Ghraib. One poll asked Americans whether they thought the use of torture was justified on detainees thought to be terrorists. Granted, a majority said no, but I seem to recall something shocking, like 25% said yes. A different poll asked Americans whether they thought Americans taken prisoner by the enemy could be justifiably tortured for information. The “no’s” rose to the high nighties at this point. I think many Americans just don’t realize how stunningly hypocritical this is seen as outside their borders.
To use an analogy, the Nazis were Ted Bundy at 30, while Bushco is little Teddy at 5, still just torturing insects and pets. But, the same defense rationales for bad behavior are there.
The lesson? Punishment. Slap little Teddy down hard, so that he learns what he did was wrong. Otherwise, don’t say there was nothing that could be done when you find a body in your backyard.
What horrifies me the most was the 2002 Torture Memo, defining torture as “organ failure, loss of bodily function and death”. Anything else didn’t qualify. And the memo’s author is the now in charge of the law of the land, where no one can manage to dislodge him.
Why no similar outrage or commenting on this?
NINE DAYS AFTER PHOTOS RELEASED, NETS AND TOP
PAPERS SILENT OVER AL-QAEDA TORTURE HOUSE
http://www.mrc.org/press/2007/press20070531.asp
We expect al queda to be animals, CO. I don’t want America to become just like them in some kind of bizarre competition to be the ultimate bottom-dweller.
Kim’s right. Terrorists are not known for civility. Democracies at least sometimes attempt it.
The excuse “we expect more from the United States” just doesn’t wash with me. And there’s also a kind of implied racism in it; like “Of course Arabs act like animals, that’s what we expect them to do. Why even debate it?”
In any case, from my blog:
[if we are going to have a productive debate on the subject, we have to maintain some level of porportionality. Comparing those alleged CIA techniques to insurgent tortures such as eye gouging, or drilling holes in the body is like comparing shoplifting to serial murder. Personally, I would like to prosecute both offenses when they occur. But where I put the majority of my attention shows where my priorities lie. I guess my priorities are very different from Mr. Sullivan's]
http://shieldofachilles.blogspot.com/2007/05/columnist-andrew-sullivan-is-at-it.html
Btw, Sullivan’s whole piece was a pathetic attempt at guilt by association with the Nazis. I guess he was worried that the Al Quada torture cell was going to actually divert the debate toward real torture, and we certainly need to nip that in the bud lest people start to imagine that the US is NOT our biggest enemy after all.
johnrohan,
Can’t we fight Al Qaeda and be mindful of human rights at the same time?
Terrorists don’t necessarily have to be Arabs, in this case they are. If it were Nazis- would you have an anti-German bias for noticing?
They have nothing to lose, no standards to hold up. We have everything to lose, including our reputation as a benevolent superpower that stands for the ideals we were founded on.
I think Sully writes it up rather well. No decent human being should be able to tolerate this kind of policy and it’s existance should be continuously trumpeted from every mountaintop. I love reading the responses of the “defenders of torture” as they resort to disingenious intellectual arguments and denial of just how one technique is worse than another. Like panties on the head are equivalent to being frozen to near death. They also never fail to invoke the “ticking time bomb” scenario. Pathetic.
Kim- you nailed John Rohan well. In fact, this tactic of seeing raciusm where none exists is itself a form of bias. Were we speaking of the IRA, wd there be Irish racism? How’bout White Power groups?
Race was not at issue- but tactics by differing political entities.
It doesn’t work when applied to Israel versus its evil, savage enemies, either.
What this is is just the latest opportunity for the anti-USA crowd to attack the USA and better still, for the anti-Bush crowd to attack Bush. Everyone else is aware of this and is not happy about it (nor about Iraq overall, as the 2006 election results show), but the neurotic and cheap attempts to push things as we see with the anti-Bush “Nazi” use (it is not the first time this has happened) is just more sad stuff from the Left, mainly.
Obviously, Klaus Barbie didn’t receive a copy of the Third Reich position paper that classified water torture as verboten. So much for the vaunted efficiency of the Nazi bureaucracy.
http://members.aol.com/voyl/barbie/3chapter.htm
“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah the anti-USA crowd to attack the USA blah, blah, blah, blah, blah the anti-Bush crowd to attack Bush. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah the neurotic and cheap attempts to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah the anti-Bush “Nazi†blah, blah, blah, blah, blah is just more sad stuff from the Left, blah.”
To quote my grandkid, “Yo… Dude… We know where you’re coming!”
Well, I guess Bush left himself open to unflattering comparisons when he allowed Abu Ghraib, secret renditions, torture, loss of habeas corpus, warrantless wiretapping, National Security Letters and a host of other abuses. I bash Bush because he richly deserves to be bashed, not because I’m anti-American, but because I’m pro-American.
Do you care more about some kid at your son’s school getting expelled for fighting, or about your own child getting expelled for fighting??? People who REALLY love their country want it to live up to the ideals it was founded on, not dragged through the mud because we have an idiot-in-chief, eh SteveK?
kritter,
Absolutely… !
And, if you add the word “from” to the end of my ‘grandkids quote’, the kid almost makes sense.
To Chris:
[Can’t we fight Al Qaeda and be mindful of human rights at the same time?]
Yes, in fact that’s exactly what I meant when I said “I would like to prosecute both offenses when they occur”. I never excused Bush for anything. But shouldn’t things like gouging out people’s eyes rate far higher attention than putting them in stress positions?
If you want to try to deny the double standards here and say all the extra attention is only because Americans are more concerned about what their own nation is doing, fair enough. But then you have to explain these facts:
1) Andrew Sullivan is not an American, he’s a Brit. (If he has become a US citizen, it doesn’t say it in his bio, nor on his wiki page).
2) Even outside the US, the world is far more obsessed with Abu Gharayb than with ongoing, state-sponsored terrorism going on in many Arab countries. Arab press still mention Abu Gharayb constantly.
3) The recent Al-Quaeda torture house story does affect Americans, since we found the house and these are the guys we are fighting in Iraq. But only CNN and Fox have reported this story. As of now CBS, NBC, and the NYT have totally ignored it. Andrew Sullivan made a grudging reference to it, but only after his readers complained (And he still led the piece with a running favorite of his, a picture of a bloody floor in Abu Gharayb prison).
4) What about Israel? Its not America. Yet the US press (and much of the rest of the world) report alleged human rights violations by them at a far greater rate than any other Middle Eastern nation.
You know, right now Iran is holding four Iranian-Americans hostage in Evin prison, and the press has scarcely mentioned this too. A few years ago, a Iranian-Canadian held in that prison was raped and tortured to death. I know its much more fun to pile on the Bush-bashing, but good Lord, don’t we have any real priorities here?
JR
http://shieldofachilles.blogspot.com
The topic being discussed is torture by the US. We can’t add postcripts about how AQ is worse and Pakistan is worse, etc after every comment.
My first priority is the moral stance of my own country. Rating other countries in comparison can only be an interesting sidelight and not relevant to every comment.
To the countrary, you seem to want to bury what the US is doing under any and every other topic. Ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.
My comment was for johnrohan
Its moral relativism , isn’t it? Pointing out that other countries are worse? I notice that conservatives use the same argument about global warming- China is worse, India is worse. We are supposed to be exhibiting moral leadership in the world- isn’t that what neoconservatives think?
Actually, moral relativism is the exact opposite; (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism) it involves essentially what you are doing here, excusing other cultures for their bad behaviour, by saying you can’t make judgements because certain behavior are not necessarily as “bad” in someone else’s society or culture.
Anyway, I’m not sure where the reading comprehension problem is here. I already said that war crimes anywhere should be punished and I made no excuses for Bush one way or the other. Nor did I say I’m a conservative (although that’s irrelevant in any case).
I’m just saying that when we see our 1,000th story on waterboarding (rehashed by using an old Nazi comparison as an excuse to talk about it again), but most of the major media outlets are still completely silent on a recently discovered Al-Qaeda torture house, something is dreadfully wrong.
And this IS relevant to this story. Andrew Sullivan’s incredible bias in this matter clouds the whole issue, and the timing of his piece was not entirely coincidental here either.
Unlike Andrew Sullivan (and probably Michael Stickings), I have some experience in this matter; I was once trained as an interrogator and have completed two tours in Iraq (You can check out my bio at my site if you wish). I have personally interrogated hundreds of Iraqis (most cooperative, but many not) and btw, I never once used torture in any form, or ever saw it being used.
http://shieldofachilles.blogspot.com
JR: ’4) What about Israel? Its not America. Yet the US press (and much of the rest of the world) report alleged human rights violations by them at a far greater rate than any other Middle Eastern nation.’
You give a good example of why the US is held to higher expectations, with this corollary. Israel is the only Mideast nation that pretends to be a democracy, when really it’s a theocracy- only a Jew can be PM. Yes, it’s a better place to live than Iran or Saudi Arabia, etc., but they set much lower bars for themselves.
BTW- pick up the latest copy of Discvover magazine for a fascinating article on Science & Islam.