"Verschärfte Vernehmung" - Bush Preferred Newspeak For Torture Coined By Nazi Party

[kpete]

"Enhanced interrogation", the Bush administration's preferred newspeak for torture, appears to have been coined by the Nazi Party in 1937.

There are way too many facile comparisons of whatever group or individual we dislike to Nazis. But when the shoe fits.

-- Josh Marshall
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014368.php

The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn't-somehow-torture - "enhanced interrogation techniques" - is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.

..............

The phrase "Verschärfte Vernehmung" is German for "enhanced interrogation". Other translations include "intensified interrogation" or "sharpened interrogation". It's a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court. The methods, as you can see above, are indistinguishable from those described as "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the president. As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan.



more at:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/verschfte_verne.html


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WASHINGTON, May 29 — As the Bush administration completes secret new rules governing interrogations, a group of experts advising the intelligence agencies are arguing that the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable.

President Bush has insisted that those secret “enhanced” techniques are crucial, and he is far from alone. The notion that turning up pressure and pain on a prisoner will produce valuable intelligence is a staple of popular culture from the television series “24” to the recent Republican presidential debate, where some candidates tried to outdo one another in vowing to get tough on captured terrorists. A 2005 Harvard study supported the selective use of “highly coercive” techniques.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/washington/30interrogate.html?hp

[rosesaylavee]

1. Damn them ...

if there is a hell, I hope they get to spend some time there.

K & R

[agingdem]

2. I've said this repeatedly...

the Bushies blueprint for "domination" is the Third Reich.