The Eichmann defense...

Here's another blogger's comment on the involvement of doctors in torture:

The banality of evil indeed. The U.S. medical personnel interviewed by Bloche and Marks compartmentalize and then subordinate their individual conscience, professional ethics, and international laws to dictates of military service, and in their compartmentalization and subordination echoes the final plea of Adolf Eichmann:

I cannot recognize the verdict of guilty. . . . It was my misfortune to become entangled in these atrocities. But these misdeeds did not happen according to my wishes. It was not my wish to slay people. . . . Once again I would stress that I am guilty of having been obedient, having subordinated myself to my official duties and the obligations of war service and my oath of allegiance and my oath of office, and in addition, once the war started, there was also martial law. . . . I did not persecute Jews with avidity and passion. That is what the government did. . . . At that time obedience was demanded, just as in the future it will also be demanded of the subordinate. (emphasis added, "Eichmann's Final Plea")

That future that Eichmann predicted is here now -- or rather it has been with us always, invisible only to those who thought: "It Can't Happen Here."