Internal Military Documents Refer to Detainee Treatment as Torture

7 Responses to Internal Military Documents Refer to Detainee Treatment as Torture

1. q says:

   4/24/2009 at 9:53 pm

   http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/correction-we-actually-did-execute-j

   U.S. actually executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding.

   Jim, I’m not sure how far you can take this not that I don’t favor investigation, but are the politicians in congress who didn’t object war criminals too? Supposedly Pelosi knew that they were doing wat boarding along with probably just as many dems as republicans early in 2000.

   If we wanted to prosecute across the board, we could end up with the entire congress in jail minus a few individuals.

   Reply
   • Jim says:

     4/25/2009 at 8:18 am

     No, they wouldn’t be “war criminals,” since they weren’t direct participants in the war and the laws of war would not apply there. Nancy Pelosi is not the Commander in Chief. She’s not part of the Executive Branch. If suddenly Nancy Pelosi gained executive powers to run the government in contravention of the law, then yes, she would be a criminal under US Code 18 Section 2340.

     If Pelosi knew about waterboarding and didn’t act to stop it, she should resign from the House and live forever with the impaled heads of newts stuck on her precious, richy-rich lawn to remind her of her hubris.

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     • qs says:

       4/25/2009 at 5:21 pm

       Jim,

       Well don’t you think the average layman (or even some congressman) wasn’t classifying “water-boarding” in their head as torture necessarily so do you really put congressman who supported in the same league as the nazis?

       Just asking because there were all these talking points such as we did this to our navi seals during the SERN training so it must not be too bad type thing. Once people classifying water-boarding in their heads as torture, then they decide it’s not ok, but as long as the CIA and Bush and the media etc are all telling them this is stadnard procedure and the same thing our special forces go through, I think people without a firm grasp of legal opinions and historical context aren’t really so much to blame as you say they are (like Nancy Pelosi who knew about the water-boarding.)

       Reply
2. Tom says:

   4/25/2009 at 9:35 am

   Mr. Obama may have to change his position on this if he’s going to keep his base and appease the huge public outcry for prosecution of Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Yoo, Feith, maybe even Powell, but certainly Condi Rice too.

   As more and more information gets “de-classified” (like we don’t have a right to know what our government is doing in our name) the pressure will only increase on this.

   Reply
3. Jim says:

   4/25/2009 at 9:49 am

   Don’t forget Jay Bybee — the man who wrote torture memos is now a federal judge, still in a position of government power. He’s trying to do an image makeover now, expressing regret about his memo. You see, he says, nobody understands the enormous pressure he was under, in a plum government job, sitting at his desk, writing memos justifying the smashing of people’s heads against walls and their repeated drownings. The poor dear.

   Reply
4. qs says:

   4/25/2009 at 5:28 pm

   Jim,

   Someone asked me if it was true we killed 100 of the detainees? Do you have any information on that or if it’s true?

   Reply
   • Jim says:

     4/25/2009 at 9:02 pm

     No information on that.

     Reply