The White House said a senator's comparison of American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis, Soviet gulags and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was reprehensible and a disservice to those serving in the military.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said it is "beyond belief'' that Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin would compare treatment of dangerous enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay to the death of millions of innocent people by oppressive regimes.

``Our men and women in uniform go out of their way to treat detainees humanely, and they go out of their way to uphold the values and the laws that we hold so dear in this country,'' McClellan said.

It's not beyond belief that American personnel should have-encouraged by the current Attorney General-should leave their charges exposed to freezing temps, treat them like poseable action porn figures, and attach wires to their genitals. It's not worthy of comment that most of those incarcerated have not had a chance to communicate with their families or a lawyer- that the bounties on them lead to uncomfortable questions about why they were captured in the first place, and that some have died while being detained.+

If you're going to indulge your PNAC cronies in a systematic attempt to control, humiliate and destroy members of a specific race and/or religious group** borrowing from the Nazis , or the Soviets or yes, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge then stop whining/blustering when someone points out that your models, well, stinketh of human rights violations.

In other words, to the Bushies, the problem isn't doing sacrilege, kidnapping possibly innocent Muslims, rewriting "quaint" international treaties, and ignoring the requirements of basic human decency much less the rules of democracy you're ostensibly trying to export.

The problem is talking about the fact that you're doing it.

The sad thing is, the Bushies have good reason to think we are this stupid.

Let's disabuse them of the notion.

_{* Too bad we have to go across the pond to see American politics reported with a critical eye in the bastions of traditional journalism, but there it is.
+Included in the report from Human Rights Watch were several suicide attempts, and I'd expect more if the Bush Administration has its way.
 ** Yeah, yeah, I know, we're looking for terrorists. Not very successfully for casting such a wide freakin' net. I feel safer already.}

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