War Criminal?

[DeletedUser]

hoho, now you stepped in a stinky pile of gross misrepresentation. Military use of "torture" is under written consent (inclusive of JAG supervised psychiatric eval) and for the express purpose of training soldiers/operatives to be aware of, and gain experience in, the potential treatment one might be subjected to as a POW. It is "not" for the purposes of applying said techniques on POWs - military, civilian or otherwise.

The U.S. Army Field Manual on Interrogation (FM 34-52, published in 1992) was quite clear (enacted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and was reciprocatively based on WW2's General Order - the Code of U.S. Fighting Forces). The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 reaffirmed FM 34-52 and required all personnel to abide by it. Unfortunately Rumsfeld modified the manual shortly thereafter and added an unpublished section including "enhanced interrogation techniques." Nine months later the U.S. Army replaced the "tampered" version of FM 34-52 with FM 2-22.3, which firmly restricted (disallowed) the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and tortures, including waterboarding.

As to the laws, just a few are:
Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions (1949)
Article 16 of the U.N. Convention Against Torture (1987)
Article 93 of the UCMJ (Cruelty & Maltreatment - 1950)
Article 128 of the UCMJ (Assault - 1950)
Article 134 of the UCMJ (Communicating a Threat- 1950)
Assault/Battery (every U.S. State and Protectorate)

There is also ample evidence to tack on Articles 78, 80, 81 & 82 of the UCMJ

And then there's the civil penalties authorized by the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, which does a pretty good job of indicating torture (inclusive of waterboarding, as presented in case studies) as a crime.

As to your meaningless rambles about the 1960's, the crimes in question occurred between 2003 and 2008. Therefore it doesn't mean jack squat what "may" have been allowed in the 1960's (although i'm sure you would be hard pressed to find any support for your contentions, particularly considering the precedence of convictions after WW2 and during the Vietnam War, as I previously posted in this thread and which stand as clear contradiction to your erroneous assertions).

Finally, as this is about Bush Jr., even after all the additional stipulations were imposed, between 2007-2008, Bush authorized the continued use of waterboarding to detainees.

((apologies for not being more throrough, as there is quite a bit of additional pertinent info, but i'm limited to memory, an iPhone and the limits of two-thumb typing))

 

[DeletedUser]

So lets see what has been made law concerning torture.

The UN convention against torture states in articlle 1.1 "Any 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. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."

The Geneva conventions simply says torture is prohibited leaving the definition of torture open to discussion. Even if we retroactivly apply the UNCAT definition of torture, you have to establish that waterboarding created severe pain or suffering whether physical or mental in order for it to be included as torture in an act on it's own.

So let's look at US law, the only US law concerning torture. It should be noted that US law was not created until 2008 and codified until 2010- Well after the fact.
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from— (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or


There is more, but note how the threat of imminent death was added in addition to severe mental or physical pain. This indicates that the legislation thought that waterboarding was not covered by sever pain alone.

But it gets even better. The US signed the fourth convention in 1955 or so, in 1961, the US CIA and Military hand books included interrogation techniques that they approved of as legal that included waterboarding. The exclusion to this was that military training manuals kept a notation stating that it was often unproductive and lead to false or misleading information being extracted. This is well known by the international community who has had no problem with it until recently.

Well, no, at least not if you follow that so called international law you are championing when it is convenient. The third convention states that only people carrying arms in the open who are wearing a uniform or marking separating them from the civilian population, with an organized command structure and follow the rules of war are military afforded prisoner of war status.

(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

The US holds a irrevocable seat on the security council as one of the 5 or 7 members with complete veto power. While in theory, you might be right that the UN can impart sanctions through the security council, it's not likely it would ever happen to the US unless it voluntarily waived it's veto power and no other country with veto power used theirs to stop it. Russia and England are two countries that would likely stop any attempts at isolating the US. Germany is possibly another country that could do it but I'm not sure of their veto status without looking it up.

Your link at the end, has a few fatal flaws which you make too. It talked about US law concerning torture and yes, US law does prohibit waterboarding, but it did not do that until after the fact. Waterboarding is completely illegal right now under US law, but was not even addressed at the time. The closest it was address was in the United State Military Code of Justice which is sort of a separate law for the military in which it was outlawed in 2006. Torture itself was not defined in US law outside the ratification of the Geneva convention which says severe pain not threat of death as US law now states since 2008-2010. This is akin to the state changing the law so you can only get a drivers license at age 21 then attempting to prosecute you for every time since you were 16 and had your license that you drove before the law was passed. And of course we have constitutional protections against that.



Military law did not outlaw torture-specifically waterboarding as torture until 2006. But please do not think an attorney general's or advocate general's opinions on the law are infallible or much more then opinions when the law doesn't clearly state it. We have ample evidence through failed prosecution that they can and have been wrong at times. This is especially the case when they all the sudden form an opinion of existing law that is counter to previous interpretations.

So... physical, or mental anguish... have you ever been tortured? Have you ever drowned? Pain, no matter what form it is, when applied to another person for the sole reason to punish or get answers out of them is torture. Reread the Geneva Convention.

 

[DeletedUser]

Gitmo itself is not illegal. The detainees held there are not considered prisoners of war so your sob story about a 15 year old terrorist doesn't count.

While I'm aware you're having a debate with Chac and not me, I see it appropriate to correct you. There are, indeed, prisoners of war in Gitmo. As has been clearly indicated, prisoners taken during the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, that are Iraqi or Afghani, are prisoners of war. This has already been affirmed and is not an issue of contention.

Now if the US was to ratify the the 1977 protocals of the Geneva Convention, you might be right in more ways then one, but this issue is moot as it has already been hammered out in US courts under the Rasul v. Bush and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld rulings and subsequent military commissions act past into law by the 2006 congress.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 was determined, on many fronts, to be unconstitutional/illegal. In particular, and what you are referring to, the suspension of Habeas Corpus (in the 2006 MCA) is no longer in effect, as it was deemed unconstitutional/illegal. In addition, MCA of 2006 is mostly an ex-post facto law, and thus easily contestable and deemed inapplicable on cases in which the actions occurred prior to October 2006.

I also find it interesting how you didn't present the cases of Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, which were consolidated into a single case and was heard in 2007. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendants, allowing habeas corpus rights to alien unlawful/enemy combatants, and thus entitling them to the protections as presented in the Geneva Conventions.

In other words, the MCA of 2006 only intervened in a few legal cases before it was largely struck down as unconstitutional/illegal. As such, the cases previously tried (including the two you presented) could, theoretically (but not necessarily technically), be appealed and reversed.