dr. mengele lives...

Andrew Sullivan on time.com (June 24, 2006) has written a book review of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War of Terror by medical ethicist Dr. Stephen Miles. Miles writes from reviewing declassified documents about how Rumsfeld and crew have used military medical professionals to assist in the use of torture by advising on such things as hypothermia, nutritional intake and withdrawal, and sleep deprivation to name a few areas of guidance for effective interrogation.

It really brings to mind the Dr. Mengeles from Hitler's concentration camps. I'd like to say that I don't believe it is happening but with this administration and as Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitane said in The Lion in Winter, "In a world where carptenters get resurrected, anything is possible."

I certainly understand how Andrew can say in his review where...

"After a while, you get numb reading these stories. They read like accounts of a South American dictatorship, not an American presidency. But we learn one thing: once you allow the torture of prisoners for any reason, as this President did, the cancer spreads. In the end it spreads to healers as well, and turns them into accomplices to harm."

As in all things, we can become inured to repetitive news of anything. When we hear about the loss of life in Iraq, we expect it to happen and react coldly and with cynicism. When we hear that there was another drive-by shooting of a 4-year old, we shake our heads and play the game "Ain't it awful."

The saddest thing is that...

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-- George Santayana

And, of course, the future defense will be, "I was only following orders." Where have we heard that before?

just asking...