GOP's rendition/torture strategy similar to others throughout history

[ck4829]

Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel considered the secret abduction and rendition to Germany of suspected Resistance members -- known as the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) Decree -- to be the worst order issued by Adolf Hitler for the Western-occupied territories of the Third Reich during World War II.

But the Fuehrer thought it would be effective in deterring sabotage, which often claimed innocent civilian lives, as well as those of German soldiers, officers and civilian occupation officials. So he decreed that, with the exception of those cases where guilt could be established beyond a doubt, presumably through torture, anyone arrested on suspicion of "endangering German security" was to be transferred to Germany under "cover of night."

"(T)he prisoners are to be transported to Germany secretly...," according to the directive issued by Keitel, then chief of the German High Command, in February 1942. "These measures will have a deterrent effect because (a) the prisoners will vanish without leaving a trace, (and) (b) no information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate."

"Effective intimidation," Keitel, who would be executed for war crimes in 1946, had written in an earlier directive, "can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminal and the population do not know his fate."

...

"Operation Condor."

The operation, which was conceived and effectively headed by Chilean President Augusto Pinochet, brought together the intelligence agencies of Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay, as well as Pinochet's own secret police chief, Manuel Contreras, in 1975. Although not a charter member, Brazil also participated.

Its purpose was to "enhance communications among each other and integrate tactical operations in tracking down, secretly detaining,
torturing, and terminating (the lives of) critics or suspected militants, who were often referred to as 'terrorists,'" according to Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the Washington-based National Security Archive (NSA).

"Agents from one nation would fly to another to participate in brutal interrogations at secret detention centers," Kornbluh wrote last week in the Chilean newspaper Siete. "Often the Condor victim would be secretly rendered back to his country of origin to another secret torture camp for further interrogation before being killed." As in occupied France, families would never be informed.

"The terrorist problem is general to the entire Southern Cone," Argentina's foreign minister, Adm. Cesar Gazetti, told then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1976, according to a secret U.S. document obtained by the NSA four years ago. "To combat
it, we are encouraging joint efforts to integrate with our neighbors."

...

Even some techniques are common, Kornbluh wrote in Siete. "Condor victims were submitted to what their Southern Cone torturers called 'the wet submarine,' while President George W. Bush has reportedly authorized 'waterboarding,' the CIA equivalent."

http://ins.onlinedemocracy.ca/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6460

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. The phrase "It seemed like a good idea at the time"

applies to all of bush's policy decisions.

[fasttense]

2. Just another parallel between Nazis and Neocons. It is astounding

how many practices right out of Hitler's strategy guide that the Neocons use. It is even more surprising that people fall for them still.

[northzax]

3. reminds me a bit of the guy this is talking about too-

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good...

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands....

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers....

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power....

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

now why would those words ring a bell? any 5th graders in the house?

[izzie]

4. What leaders have done to'save the state' is really some thing.

I think I will cry if I hear any one say 'I have not done anything' so these laws must be OK. Why can they not see it is who is in control of the law that is the scary part. Even in the late 1800 Bismarck used laws to shut down papers that said things he did not like. It is almost as if these people pick the problem up in the middle and not the start of it. One can under stand grabbing a man who has TNT with him but not the man walking down the street that said hi to that man. We are at the stage of picking up the man who said hi and taking all his rights away. This is what many countries do and we fuss about. We are back to the Red stuff where one can not even study the bad guys as it may mean you are with them. I have lived this before I am sure. The Reds are now Terrorist and we must hide under the beds. One crazy world.

[mhatrw]

5. Yes. We have traded in our system of justice for that of

Hitler, Stalin or Pinochet.