The CIA "Wehrmacht"

"This former senior officer said there “seems to be a quiet conspiracy by rational people” at the agency to avoid involvement in some of the particularly nasty tactics being employed by the administration, especially "renditions"—the practice whereby the CIA sends terrorist suspects abroad to be questioned in Egypt, Syria, Uzbekistan, and other nations where the regimes are not squeamish about torturing detainees. My source, hardly a softie on the topic of terrorism, said of the split at the CIA: "There's an SS group within the agency that's willing to do anything and there's a Wehrmacht group that is saying, 'I'm not gonna touch this stuff'."

I don't like the comparison of the Wehrmacht and SS, to that of the competing forces within our government agencies. It's an old fallacy that the Nazi war crimes were primarily committed by the SS. While it's true that the SS could be counted upon to commit any despicable act at the drop of a hat, the Wehrmacht certainly committed its' fair share.

Aside from that bad analogy, the rest of the article points to some good news, namely that some of the very people tasked with committing the current set of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, are not simply remaining quiet and "just following orders", though most apparently still are. There hasn't been this much dissent since the heat of the Vietnam war. Now, if we can just get past talking, and start doing something.....