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A reader sends this link. Staggering. The term "enhanced interrogation" and many of the approved methods come from the Gestapo, no exaggeration.
Andrew Sullivan: "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 ... Also: the use of hypothermia, authorized by Bush and Rumsfeld, was initially forbidden. 'Waterboarding" was forbidden too, unlike that authorized by Bush. As time went on, historians have found that all the bureaucratic restrictions were eventually broken or abridged. ... "
