CIA Interrogations Learned From NAZIs

I am part of the post-WWII baby boom and grew up hearing about Nazi torture techniques. I heard about North Korean torture, and had friends who experienced North Vietnamese and Viet Cong terror. Today we are awaiting a Congressional report about our own government using techniques derived from some of the most popular torture/interrogation techniques of these infamous enemies of our Nation and the effect on principles at the very core of our American ideals.

As we await the release of this report the debate seems to center on whether or not the CIA  lied to Congress under oath while testifying about the use of torture techniques by the CIA. We need to remember that the mentality of agencies such as the CIA centers on the belief that the actions of the agency, almost always shrouded in secrecy, are for the purpose of protecting our nation and its principles. The members of the CIA are used to living a lie on a daily basis in order to achieve their goals. This does not justify lying to Congress, it explains it.

Many details of the program will probably never be known. There are probably secret operations from the Revolutionary war that will never be known, and many secret operations from the War Between the States will likely never be revealed. The number of secrets from WWII is probably beyond count, and there are certainly ongoing secrets from Vietnam and more recent operations. But the use of torture techniques by our agencies should not be part of those secrets.

I originally wrote this article for a client who decided that it did did not fit what he wanted .  Since I originally wrote it, the report has been released and Senator John McCain has commented on torture, a subject he is particularly qualified to comment on. He and I agree on one thing: when we stooped to this level, we handed
a victory to the Islamisist terrorists hell-bent on destroying the American way of life. The fact that the NAZIs were right wingers and many Republicans thought that Hitler wasn't such a bad guy until they saw the insides of camps such as Auswitz-Birkenau explains how this took place on the watch of Bush and Cheney. I want to mention that Senator McCain is a Republican, and some other Republicans also have criticized the use of these techniques.  The CIA has had past indiscretions, particularly during the Nixon and Regan administrations.