Waterboarding as practised by US in...

Philippines - "It was then adapted by U.S. forces there at the start of the 20th century and, eventually, adopted by some police forces in the U.S."

Spanish-American War 'a U.S. soldier, Major Edwin Glenn, was suspended from command for one month and fined $50 for using "the water cure." In his review, the Army judge advocate said the charges constituted "resort to torture with a view to extort a confession." He recommended disapproval because "the US cannot afford to sanction the addition of torture."'

WW2 - the US charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a [b]...

Waterboarding as practised by US in...

Philippines - "It was then adapted by U.S. forces there at the start of the 20th century and, eventually, adopted by some police forces in the U.S."

Spanish-American War 'a U.S. soldier, Major Edwin Glenn, was suspended from command for one month and fined $50 for using "the water cure." In his review, the Army judge advocate said the charges constituted "resort to torture with a view to extort a confession." He recommended disapproval because "the US cannot afford to sanction the addition of torture."'

WW2 - the US charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour.

Vietnam - "On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a US soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption said the technique induced "a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk." The picture led to an Army investigation and, two months later, the court martial of the soldier.

Police - "In 1983, Texas Sheriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces, and pouring water on the cloth until they gave what the officers considered to be confessions. The sheriff and his deputies were all convicted and sentenced to four years in prison."


There's no evidence that either the Nazis or the Soviets used the technique

'Stephen Rickard, Washington director of the Open Society Institute, says that throughout the centuries, the justifications for using waterboarding have been remarkably consistent.

"Almost every time this comes along, people say, 'This is a new enemy, a new kind of war, and it requires new techniques,'" he says. "And there are always assu

Legal Affairs
A Victim's Description of Waterboarding

The most detailed descriptions come from eyewitness accounts and court records from wars past. The following is a transcript of the 1947 court proceedings in the trial of a World War II Japanese war criminal: Chinsaku Yuki. He was accused of the torture and murder of Philippine civilians, and ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

I was told by Yuki to take off all my clothes, so what I did was to take off my clothes as ordered. I was ordered to lay on a bench and Yuki tied my feet, hands and neck to that bench, lying with my face upward. Afte...

Legal Affairs
A Victim's Description of Waterboarding

The most detailed descriptions come from eyewitness accounts and court records from wars past. The following is a transcript of the 1947 court proceedings in the trial of a World War II Japanese war criminal: Chinsaku Yuki. He was accused of the torture and murder of Philippine civilians, and ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

I was told by Yuki to take off all my clothes, so what I did was to take off my clothes as ordered. I was ordered to lay on a bench and Yuki tied my feet, hands and neck to that bench, lying with my face upward. After I was tied to the bench, Yuki placed some cloth on my face. And then with water from the faucet, they poured on me until I became unconscious. He repeated that four or five times.

No sir, on my face, until I became unconscious. We were lying that way, with some cloth on my face, and then Yuki poured water on my face continuously.

I, for a time, lost consciousness. I found my consciousness came back again and found Yuki was sitting on my stomach. And then I vomited the water from my stomach, and the consciousness came back again for me.

From my mouth and all openings of my face ... and then Yuki would repeat the same treatment and the same procedure to me until I became unconscious again.

Around four or five times, from two o'clock up to four o'clock in the afternoon. When I was not able to endure his punishment which I received, I told a lie to Yuki ... . I could not really show anything to Yuki, because I was really lying just to stop the torture.

Not so painful, but one becomes unconscious — like drowning in the water.

Source: Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 2007

The recipient was a civilian seemed to be the point? Well so are the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. If there were POWs then it would NOT be a WAR CRIME but as Bush says they are not POWs then it is a WAR CRIME.

The 'detainees' at Guantanamo Bay are not simply 'civilians'. They are classified as some thing different alltogether- 'unlawful combatants'.

Article 4 defines prisoners of war to include:

The treatment of prisoners who do not fall into the categories described in Article 4 has led to the current controversy regarding the Bush Administration's interpretation of "unlawful combatants"...

The recipient was a civilian seemed to be the point? Well so are the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. If there were POWs then it would NOT be a WAR CRIME but as Bush says they are not POWs then it is a WAR CRIME.

The 'detainees' at Guantanamo Bay are not simply 'civilians'. They are classified as some thing different alltogether- 'unlawful combatants'.

Article 4 defines prisoners of war to include:

The treatment of prisoners who do not fall into the categories described in Article 4 has led to the current controversy regarding the Bush Administration's interpretation of "unlawful combatants". The assumption that such a category as unlawful combatant exists is not contradicted by the findings by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Celebici Judgment. The judgement quoted the 1958 ICRC commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention: Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. Furthermore, "There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law,"[1] because in the opinion of the ICRC "If civilians directly engage in hostilities, they are considered 'unlawful' or 'unprivileged' combatants or belligerents (the treaties of humanitarian law do not expressly contain these terms). They may be prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action".[2][3]

I believed that the article by NPR was abundantly clear and that I had quote sufficient for any reasonable comprehension.

"In the war crimes tribunals that followed Japan's defeat in World War II, the issue of waterboarding was sometimes raised. In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

"'All of these trials elicited compelling descriptions of water torture from its victims, and resulted in severe punishment for its perpetrators,' writes Evan Wallach in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law."

It is totally clear. It was bec...

I believed that the article by NPR was abundantly clear and that I had quote sufficient for any reasonable comprehension.

"In the war crimes tribunals that followed Japan's defeat in World War II, the issue of waterboarding was sometimes raised. In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

"'All of these trials elicited compelling descriptions of water torture from its victims, and resulted in severe punishment for its perpetrators,' writes Evan Wallach in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law."

It is totally clear. It was because the tortured was a CIVILIAN and not a POW that Asano was tried as a war criminal. As Bush claims the detainees are not POWs then it follows that their torture is a WAR CRIME as in Asao's case. Then there is...

"The following is a transcript of the 1947 court proceedings in the trial of a World War II Japanese war criminal: Chinsaku Yuki. He was accused of the torture and murder of Philippine civilians, and ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison."


So if the detainees hadn't received this NEW all American title of "Unlawful Combatants" from Bush then torturing them would not have been a WAR CRIME!

It'll be great fun soon watching the Bush&Co bunch evade the trailing lawyers with their subpoenas for these and other war crimes. Might Rummy end up in the same cave as bin? Can you imagine Rummy and bin together....

Water torture is considered a war crime, against both US and international law; in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The fact that the US Senate is on the verge of approving an Attorney General who says he's unsure about this is a disgrace; most of our politicians are a disgrace; it seems they don't want to stand up for anything even though the sentiments of the people are clear, in the last elections, in polls, and in predictions of the next elections.

Unfortunately (to say the least), throwing words at Bush and his White House warmongers is like tossing paper airplanes against a brick wall. The warmongering machine just keeps rolling on.

Unfortunately (to say the least) this is prett...

Water torture is considered a war crime, against both US and international law; in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The fact that the US Senate is on the verge of approving an Attorney General who says he's unsure about this is a disgrace; most of our politicians are a disgrace; it seems they don't want to stand up for anything even though the sentiments of the people are clear, in the last elections, in polls, and in predictions of the next elections.

Unfortunately (to say the least), throwing words at Bush and his White House warmongers is like tossing paper airplanes against a brick wall. The warmongering machine just keeps rolling on.

Unfortunately (to say the least) this is pretty common. Pakistan and former Burma are just two current examples in the news; there are hundreds of others. History is full of thousands of examples where 'might makes right,' where the military or the Establishment can, literally, get away with murder and/or the murder of democracy.

I don't know how the US can survive this 'episode,' of its history and continue to hang onto it's illusions of itself being a 'good guy,' beacon of freedom, force for good, voice of democracy, etc. -- perhaps that might be the one good thing to come out of this.

We need to elect better leaders. Hopefully that can still be done.

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