Via Right-Thinking from the Left Coast a brilliant piece in the NYT by Andrew Sullivan on torture.

In typical Communist legalistic fashion, the N.K.V.D. rationalized its use of torture and pressure in the interrogation of prisoners of war. When it desired to use such methods against a prisoner or to obtain from him a propaganda statement or “confession,” it simply declared the prisoner a “war-crimes uspect” and informed him that, therefore, he was not subject to international rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

And in the UK there is this worrying development:

A new article reports that British psychiatrists are going to start emulating their disgraced Soviet-era colleagues who hospitalized and involuntary drugged dissidents under the pretense of treating mental illness. The British psychiatrist will be part of preventive detention teams on the watch for “terrorists” under every bed