Reading the report leaves me slack-jawed considering my own history. My great uncle was an officer of the Geheime Feldpolizei, a secret state security organizat

Reading the report leaves me slack-jawed considering my own history. My great uncle was an officer of the Geheime Feldpolizei, a secret state security organization developed to combat native resistance against Nazi occupation during WWII. His job was to infiltrate and destroy Maquis French and their supporters (the resistance). The means they used were mass betrayal, example executions, torture, even the wholesale destruction of entire villages. In 1946 he was charged with Crimes Against Humanity and sentenced as a war criminal by an allied tribunal consisting mostly of official American personnel. He deserved exactly what he got. What he did was utterly unconscionable even in a time of war. I cannot, however, imagine representatives of today's America having the same kind of tribunal against war criminals with the same kind of standing. It is now simply unimaginable in anything but lurid, obscene terms. Dark days indeed.