re: #681 LudwigVanQuixote

Nonsense.

Waterboarding was one of the charges brought as an example of Japanese cruelty to our POWs look at article 54 and the testimony given. People can have more than one charge brought against them at a trial. It was certainly one of the charges.

Further, what about the courts martials in the Phillipines… Those certainly were specifically about it. We convicted our own men for doing it - in time of war, against irregular troops, who were captured on the battlefield . In otherwords, as far as UCMJ is concerned, we have already convicted our own people for doing these things to others who fit the same bill as these men.

Just nonesense.

This is what most disturbs me about this debate. That so many people support the use of torture, while all the while plugging their fingers in their ears and denying that we are actually torturing people. If someone wishes to acknowledge that waterboarding is torture, but that they still believe its use is justified, at least I would respect them for their intellectual honesty. Instead the debate simply turns into a denial that waterboarding is torture, then shifts into the “but it worked!” trope, and then finally to the last stage where they start screaming about how many innocent Americans the terrorists have killed.