http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444273704577637430305876586.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
In 2005, as we noted at the time, Durbin took to the floor of the Senate and said this:
When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [in the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba]–I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
“On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . .. On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.”
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime–Pol Pot or others–that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.
The comparison is wildly over the top; using uncomfortable temperatures and loud music to extract intelligence from terrorists is in no way comparable to mass murder and torture of dissidents and other innocent people. As we wrote at the time: “We are fighting an enemy that murdered 3,000 innocent people on American soil 3½ years ago and would murder millions more if given the chance–and according to Dick Durbin, our soldiers are the Nazis.”
Having Durbin introduce the president at a support-the-troops-themed convention seems as odd as running John Kerry, who began his career slandering fellow veterans, as a “war hero.” Though to his credit, Durbin “offered a tearful apology” several days after his reductio ad Hitlerum, as the Washington Post noted. Kerry has yet to apologize, more than 40 years on.