It's one of the signature features of the totalitarian apparatus -- cognitive dissonance. It's what enabled, for example, members of the Einsatzgruppen to beli

It's one of the signature features of the totalitarian apparatus -- cognitive dissonance. It's what enabled, for example, members of the Einsatzgruppen to believe that it was OK to shoot young children at the front of the ravines and pits, because they'd be "better off" without their mothers to raise them. Not exactly congruent to what the CIA's operatives have been doing. But still, there's that mechanism of the brain saying, "This isn't really hurting them, so it's OK if I participate in it."