<<Now we are making progress.
<<Who said waterboarding was illegal?>>
Since it was never authorized during WWII when the stakes were higher, the casualties far greater, and support for the war much more solid, you have a pretty good idea that it must have been considered illegal way back then.
The UN Convention on Torture etc. defines torture as any act by which severe pain or suffering whether physical or mental is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining . . . information . . . punishing . . . or intimidating . . . or coercing . . .
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Second Ed. , Torture is the act of inflicting excruciating pain . . . ; or extreme anguish of body or mind . . .
From Wikipedia on Torture
Municipal Law
States that ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture have a treaty obligation to include the provisions into municipal law. The laws of many states therefore formally prohibit torture. However, such de jure legal provisions are by no means a proof that, de facto, the signatory country does not use torture.
To prevent torture, many legal systems have a right against self-incrimination or explicitly prohibit undue force when dealing with suspects.
England abolished torture in about 1640 (except peine forte et dure which England only abolished in 1772), in Scotland in 1708, in Prussia in 1740, in Denmark around 1770, in Russia in 1801.[22][23]
The French 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, of constitutional value, prohibits submitting suspects to any hardship not necessary to secure his or her person. Statute law explicitly makes torture a crime. In addition, statute law prohibits the police or justice from interrogating suspects under oath.
The United States includes this protection in the fifth amendment to its federal constitution, which in turn serves as the basis of the Miranda warning, which law enforcement officers issue to individuals upon their arrest. Additionally, the US Constitution's eighth amendment forbids the use of "cruel and unusual punishments", which is widely interpreted as a prohibition of the use of torture. Finally, 18 U.S.C. ? 2340 [24] et seq. define and forbid torture outside the United States. United States law bans all torture in all places without exception.
This is pretty much of a no-brainer. That the torture memos were kept secret indicates there was some criminality to hide. That no other administration, despite the direst of temptations would touch it is another indication.
Waterboarding is a criminal act IMHO. It seems whoever has the power to rule has the power to define crime and it appears that America's current rulers have defined criminal acts in a way that lets them get away with waterboarding. Let me say that I don't think their moral sense is in any way superior to mine, and my moral sense tells me that waterboarding is NOT OK, that it is a capital crime, and that if I had the power to make the rules, guys like Bush, Cheney and his supporters would already have been executed for their crimes. As would whoever carried out their orders. If that takes a wholesale purge of the armed forces with firing squads working overtime and double time, so be it. The world would be a much better place afterwards.
