Sunday, October 07, 2007

Bloody, Just The Way I Like It

Interrogator: “How’s your steak?”

Siegfried: “Bloody, just the way I like it. Reminds me of happier times, in the Warsaw ghetto …”

The article is short on details about exactly what they were looking for, what they got, who their subjects were, so its hard to make any direct comparison to today’s scenarios.  I’d suggest interrogating German scientists, submariners and generals, many of whom recognized the war wasn’t going their way and many of whom had no great love for Hitler or the Nazis, might be somewhat different from interrogating suicidal Islamic terrorists.  However, I’d also suggest the apparently genteel program at Fort Hood doesn’t represent the totality of Allied practices re captured enemies in World War II, which though famously a “good war” also included summary executions of Japanese prisoners.  After they and/or their comrades were found to have tortured Americans to death.