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Japanese Were CONVICTED Of War Crimes For Waterboarding
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| Japanese Were CONVICTED Of War Crimes For Waterboarding
- Click HERE to go to the original thread with graphics
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| Ass Boil |
Quote:
We sentenced Japanese for this
By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published October 22, 2006
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Flanked by the panjandrums of shame and the dirty hands gang, including the current attorney general and the vice president, President Bush on Tuesday signed into law the Military Commissions Act, a law that will go down in history as an obscenity against liberty and decency.
No presidential signing statement accompanies this bill. Bush got the despotic powers he wanted, or as White House spokesman Tony Snow explained it: "They did a really good job this time," meaning that you don't have to confiscate power by rewriting a law when Congress hands it to you.
In touting the measure, Bush declared that the "CIA program" would now be allowed to continue and interrogators could return to performing "their duties to the fullest extent of the law." He presumably means that the CIA will once again be free to use reported techniques such as water-boarding - in which a prisoner is made to feel like he's drowning - or forcing shackled prisoners to stand in one place for 40 hours or more, or exposing naked prisoners to 50-degree temperatures and drenching them with cold water.
Bush was strident in asserting that the CIA chamber of horrors or "program" could be open for business again. But at the same time, the president gravely assured us: "The United States does not torture."
Interestingly, we weren't nearly as blithe about waterboarding when it happened to our own guys during World War II. Then, we considered it a war crime and a form of torture.
In "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts," Judge Evan Wallach of the U.S. Court of International Trade has documented the trials in which the United States used evidence of water-boarding as a basis for prosecutions. The article, still in draft form, will be published soon by the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.
Among the numerous examples, Wallach cites one involving four Japanese defendants who were tried before a U.S. military commission at Yokohama, Japan, in 1947 for their treatment of American and Allied prisoners. Wallach writes, in the case of United States of America vs. Hideji Nakamura, Yukio Asano, Seitara Hata and Takeo Kita, "water torture was among the acts alleged in the specifications ... and it loomed large in the evidence presented against them."
Hata, the camp doctor, was charged with war crimes stemming from the brutal mistreatment and torture of Morris Killough "by beating and kicking him (and) by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring water up his nostrils." Other American prisoners, including Thomas Armitage, received similar treatment, according to the allegations.
Armitage described his ordeal: "They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about 2 gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness."
Hata was sentenced to 25 years at hard labor, and the other defendants were convicted and given long stints at hard labor as well.
Wallach also found a 1983 case out of San Jacinto County, Texas, in which James Parker, the county sheriff, and three deputies were criminally charged for handcuffing suspects to chairs, draping towels over their faces and pouring water over the towel until a confession was elicited. One victim described the experience this way: "I thought I was going to be strangled to death. ... I couldn't breath."
The sheriff pleaded guilty and his deputies went to trial where they were convicted of civil rights violations. All received long prison sentences. U.S. District Judge James DeAnda told the former sheriff at sentencing, "The operation down there would embarrass the dictator of a country."
But not our president. He's just about as proud as can be of the "program," boasting about all the fine intelligence we've extracted from the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, while conveniently ignoring all the bad information that spilled out of him that sent our law enforcement on wild goose chases.
A former CIA insider suggests that the president has got it all wrong if he thinks CIA interrogators are looking for license to mistreat prisoners.
According to Fred Hitz, former CIA inspector general and veteran CIA operations officer: "There's nobody out there in the CIA that I can imagine who wants to be governed by a set of standards that is different from those in the Army Field Manual." Under that manual, abusive techniques are strictly barred.
So it's really the president and vice president and their minions who are pushing for interrogation techniques that Dr. Allen Keller, who directs a program for torture survivors in New York, calls "torture" and the infliction of "serious physical or mental pain and suffering."
Our leaders think the Military Commissions Act gives them the thumbs-up. But morality, common decency and history surely won't.
[Last modified October 22, 2006, 01:51:23]
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/22/C..._Japanese.shtml |
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| Oz |
| does anyone in their right mind think the CIA actually follows any laws while torturing - just sayin' :D |
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| Ass Boil |
| "laws" are meaningless to this administration |
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| Crazytree |
| I think you've already posted this one and we debated it at length. |
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| Ass Boil |
Quote: Originally posted by Crazytree
I think you've already posted this one and we debated it at length. |
This is a new article. In the other thread I had to dig up the info myself... I thought this got a little more specific. Plus, that was before Herr Bush actually signed the bill. I want the apologists to comprehend what he turned this country into. |
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| harley-davidson |
| i stopped at my watering hole last night for a beer,was talking to some older gentlemen about politics,these guys were republican to the core...and they didn't agree with any fucking thing bush is doing or has done,make no mistake the people in charge right now are not true republicans,they are neo-con chicken-hawks,at any rate these guys are going across party lines to make a change,most of the repubs i've talked to are not happy right now,ive been talking to alot of people the lasty few months,opinion seems to be pretty uniform |
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| Ass Boil |
| I hope you are right about that, HD... I know there are alot of good Republicans left... |
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| harley-davidson |
Quote: (post #7)
I hope you are right about that, HD... I know there are alot of good Republicans left...(post #7) |
bush is no republican,but i hope i'm right as well,but i hope you guys get out there and talk to people,i don't mean argue ,just talk,inform people whats going on,i haven't had one person not listen to the numbers of dept ect that bush has us in...spread the word here at sfn and everywhere |
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| FatesWebb |
| What I think is crazy, is how everyone is making a big deal out of the fact that "we" waterboarded someone, when we also sodomized someones kid in front of them. Is this not a diversion, from the sadistic shit that we did? like murder, and raping children??? I am not saying waterboarding isnt torture, but it is surely not the worst we did.... |
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| Stonewall |
Quote: Originally posted by FatesWebb
What I think is crazy, is how everyone is making a big deal out of the fact that "we" waterboarded someone, when we also sodomized someones kid in front of them. Is this not a diversion, from the sadistic shit that we did? like murder, and raping children??? I am not saying waterboarding isnt torture, but it is surely not the worst we did.... |
When you say "we" who do you mean? That Muslims sodomized and murdered? Raped Children? We all know what happens when Muslims capture those who they percieve as the enemy. |
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| Crazytree |
Quote: Originally posted by Ass Boil
This is a new article. In the other thread I had to dig up the info myself... I thought this got a little more specific. Plus, that was before Herr Bush actually signed the bill. I want the apologists to comprehend what he turned this country into. |
gotcha. |
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| FatesWebb |
Quote: Originally posted by Stonewall
When you say "we" who do you mean? That Muslims sodomized and murdered? Raped Children? We all know what happens when Muslims capture those who they percieve as the enemy. |
THE AMERICANS THE US ARMY/US CONTRACTORS.
WE as IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE LAND OF THE FREE. |
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| FatesWebb |
Quote: Originally posted by Stonewall
When you say "we" who do you mean? That Muslims sodomized and murdered? Raped Children? We all know what happens when Muslims capture those who they percieve as the enemy. |
according to Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba's official US Army report http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001/ and subsequent videos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/14/193750/666 seen by reporter Seymour Hersh, The United States raped children in front of their mothers, as a form of torture, this was APPROVED BY DONALD RUMSFELD. |
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| FatesWebb |
"RUMSFELD: There are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman.
MIKLASZEWSKI: U.S. military officials tell NBC News, the unreleased images, show American soldiers severely beating one Iraqi prisoner to near death; apparently, raping an Iraqi female prisoner; acting inappropriately with a dead body; and Iraqi guards apparently videotaped by U.S. soldiers raping young boys.
SEN. LINDSAY GRAHAM ®, SOUTH CAROLINA: We`re talking about rape and murder here, we`re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience, we`re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.
MIKLASZEWSKI: Senator Carl Levin raised questions about one photo which appeared to show the abuse of prisoners may not be random, but part of routine operations.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: That the conduct we were witnessing and watching was not aberrant conduct of a few individuals, but part of an organized and conscious process to extract information. " |
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