Then read this, via Sullivan. He's been writing from time to time about a World War II-era "enhanced interrogation" prosecution - yes, that exact same phrase was used - in Norway against, you guessed it, the Nazi regime. Read the whole thing, but here's a quote from Andrew:
Notice how the Nazis ensured that doctors were present at all times so that they could monitor the captives' response to torture and make sure they didn't die or suffer visible permanent injuries that could embarrass the regime in public (see the Bradbury and Bybee memos for the Bush equivalent). Notice the careful measurement of how many times someone can be beaten (another Cheney innovation). And notice that we are not talking about waterboarding - something even the Nazis excluded from their "enhanced interrogation" methods.
This reminds me of my larger theory, which I may get around to presenting to you sometime, that I believe that Nazi analogies should be more permissible in today's political discourse than they are. Not personal comparisons of Politician X to Hitler, because Hitler remains a unique monster; but analogies to Nazi ideology and tactics, when accurate and appropriate.
We stay away from this because the immediate reflex of everybody, when they hear the word "Nazi," is: gas ovens. In this simplistic formulation, then, employing any Nazi analogy seems to mean that the employer is accusing someone of mass racial murder. But the Nazis did a lot of things besides that. If you read, for example, Adolf Hitler's basic stump speeches from the pivotal 1932 election, you'll see that he was often saying things - about the economy, let's say - that are perfectly within the bounds of acceptable political discourse even today. They're right wing, but within the bounds. I say this, obviously, not to make the point that Hitler's economic policies were grand, but to make the point that carefully drawn analogies ought to be fair game.
And in this case, the parallels appears to be striking. Nauseating.
