I’m trying to understand why Dick Durbin had to apologize for his remarks comparing the atrocities at Gitmo to those of the Nazis, Soviets, or other despotic regimes. Judging from the reaction of conservatives, you’d think that the Nazis and Soviets were invading forces from distant worlds, without a drop of humanity. But they were human, just like us. And humans are capable of doing some astonishingly cruel things to each other. American history is replete with enough examples of our own capacity for cruelty to disabuse us of any notion that we are an exclusively virtuous people. Durbin wasn’t calling our soldiers Nazis, but he was pointing out that they are engaging in behavior that is morally reprehensible. And if that makes some people uncomfortable, that’s their problem.
