Waterboarding Historically Controversial, page 1

Waterboarding Historically Controversial

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in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the

If you convict somebody of a war crime for using the water boarding technique's back in 1947, wouldn't that same technique be considered a crime today?

What makes an interrogation technique a war crime 60 years ago but not now?

When higher-level al-Qaeda operatives were captured, CIA interrogators sought AUTHORITY to use more coercive methods.

These were cleared not only at the White House but also by the Justice Department and briefed to senior congressional officials, according to a statement released last month by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Waterboarding was one of the approved techniques.

I think it is just some peoples morals and sense of what's right and wrong are the only things that have changed!

Over 60 years ago, waterboarding was considered a war crime and the U.S. sentenced people (at least one) to 15 years of hard labor, but now it's LEGAL for the US to use this technique?

Passage last month of military commissions legislation provided retroactive legal protection to those who carried out waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques.

So, what about the people in the White House and the Justice department who TOLD the interrogators that it was LEGAL to use these techniques? Shouldn't they have known what stance the US government took on waterboarding back in 1947? If they had at LEAST done a little homework on the subject, they should have KNOWN that it WAS considered a war crime even back then? Shouldn't THEY be the ones who should be held responsible for ALLOWING the technique to be used?

There's GOT to be some accountability somewhere for allowing this illegal technique to be used in interrogations!

But alas, there probably won't be!

My how different the morals of THIS administration is different than those back in 1947!

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[edit on 17/12/07 by Keyhole]