Bush's torturers follow where the Nazis led

Andrew Sullivan points out that the Bushies have everything but the goose step down:

George Orwell would have been impressed by the phrase “enhanced interrogation technique”. By relying on it, the White House spokesman last week was able to say with a straight face that the administration strongly opposed torture and that “any procedures they use are tough, safe, necessary and lawful”.

So is “enhanced interrogation” torture? One way to answer this question is to examine history. The phrase has a lineage. Verschärfte Verneh-mung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the “third degree”. It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation.

Old George Orwell had it right, just 25 years off on the date. (Although in all fairness Reagan set the whole thing in motion with phrases like “peace keeper missiles”.