Auschwitz and the Banality of Evil

DovBear points to this disturbing article and slideshow in today's New York Times. Recently donated photographs reveal the Nazi officers of Auschwitz relaxing in their off time -- enjoying a sing-a-long, lighting a Christmas tree, smiling and looking completely carefree. They look like, as DB titled his post, "ordinary people."

Torture and the Nazis

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. --Edmund Burke (maybe)

Andrew Sullivan. Please read before commenting.

Excerpt:

Critics will no doubt say I am accusing the Bush administration of being Hitler. I'm not. There is no comparison between the political system in Germany in 1937 and the U.S. in 2007. What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn't-somehow-torture - "enhanced interrogation techniques" - is 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.