>You don't seem to understand precedent. The Japanese soldiers were enemies.. >In an actual trial, good lawyers would say that courts may only consider the >cases of other US personnel who were charged with committing similar crimes >while carrying out their duties. That leaves the Spanish-American War case >and the Vietnam case, but not the WWII case. Precedent clearly shows that US >personnel are treated on a different legal basis than enemies.
By your logic then it, torture, ethnic cleansing and genocide would be OK as long as its done by our people. And if its done by a declared enemy, execute the bastard. What a wonderful case of "Do as I say not as I do." However the Japanese were supposedly tried for war crimes. Not for being an enemy. Moreover these crimes are against the US Criminal Code and the various military justice codes. Additionally you don't have to go back a century for precident, rather in the Vietname war personnel were court marshaled over a waterboarding incident: "Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago. A photograph that appeared in The Washington Post of a U.S. soldier involved in water boarding a North Vietnamese prisoner in 1968 led to that soldier's severe punishment. "The soldier who participated in water torture in January 1968 was court-martialed within one month after the photos appeared in The Washington Post, and he was drummed out of the Army," recounted Darius Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College. " http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1356870 Moreover waterboarding can be considered a war crime. Under international law, waterboarding is torture â and thus a war crime: *Article 1 of The United Nations Convention Against Torture âwhich the United States ratified in 1994- defines torture as: âAny act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.â http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html There is no doubt that waterboarding carried out by our government constitutes excruciating mental and physical pain intentionally inflicted in order to intimidate and gain information. It is clearly torture. The Convention Against Torture also makes clear that there are no exceptions â âwhether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergencyâ in which a country may practice torture (Article 2) and that it is illegal for an individual nation to pass laws legalizing torture (Article 4). But if there were somehow any doubt⦠On February 7, 2008 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour officially declared that waterboarding is torture. She added that those who violate the UN Convention Against Torture should be prosecuted as war criminals. http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKN0852061620080208 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:296044 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
