Andrew Sullivan writes about the war crimes trial of Nazi officers for using "verschaerfte Vernehmung" (enhanced interrogation techniques). The formal description of "enhanced interrogation" included:
simplest rations (bread and water)
hard bed
dark cell
deprivation of sleep
exhaustion exercises,
but also the resort to blows with a stick (in case of more than 20 blows a doctor must be present).
As Sullivan points out:
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.
They beat sick prisoners, left them for days without medical attention, used cold baths, blows to the face and body. They used carefully calculated beatings, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, and hypothermia in their interrogations. Sound familiar?
Even the Nazi defenses to their prosecution sound familiar:
All three defendants appealed to the Supreme Court. Their appeal was based on the following arguments:
(a) That the acts of torture which the defendants had committed were permitted under International Law as reprisals against the illegal Military Organisation whose activities were at variance with International Law.
(b) That the acts were carried out on superior orders and that the defendants acted under duress.
(c) That the acts of torture in no case resulted in death. Most of the injuries inflicted were slight and did not result in permanent disablement.
Yet today all we have is "a door left open" to creating a bipartisan commission to investigate the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects. However, the current administration would prefer that the nation should just look ahead rather than focusing on the past. And "if and when there needs to be a further accounting" maybe Congress might get around to looking at ways to do that. Of course, any such "accounting" would have to be done "in a bipartisan fashion," (i.e., including members of the party responsible for the torture), by "people who are independent." Otherwise there would be no way to "build credibility with the public."
WTF?
As Sullivan says:
[W]hile modern Americans debate whether we can even use the word 'torture' with respect to these techniques, previous generations, closer to the reality of war and torture than we are, had no qualms.
The punishment for these crimes was the death penalty.