Amnesty International Wants Bush Prosecuted for Admitted Waterboarding

Conservative said:

Still waiting for you or anyone else to prove that Waterboarding was torture? Also waiting for an explanation as to if waterboarding was illegal why did Obama have to issue an executive order. Strike 3, you are out!

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Is water boarding only torture when some other nation does it say like Japan?

winston53660 said:

Is water boarding only torture when some other nation does it say like Japan?

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You have to remember that the Japanese were prosecuted for waterboarding U.S. soldiers captured in the field of battle in full uniform and being held as POW's. There's a difference.

MaggieD said:

You have to remember that the Japanese were prosecuted for waterboarding U.S. soldiers captured in the field of battle in full uniform and being held as POW's. There's a difference.

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So torture is not torture if the captive is not uniformed? What is it called then?

winston53660 said:

So torture is not torture if the captive is not uniformed? What is it called then?

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This thread started about Amnesty Intl wanting to prosecute Bush for war crimes. Terrorists are not protected by any International Treaty. Soldiers caught out of uniform are/were not protected by the Geneva Convention.

Under the Geneva Conventions, however, soldiers who fight out of uniform or commit atrocities – i.e., murder prisoners or target and kill noncombatants – may be sent before firing squads.

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http://www.warriorsfortruth.com/geneva-convention-rules.html

MaggieD said:

You have to remember that the Japanese were prosecuted for waterboarding U.S. soldiers captured in the field of battle in full uniform and being held as POW's. There's a difference.

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Not to a liberal who believes Islamic terrorists should be given the same legal rights as any other criminal. Notice they cannot respond to the question raised that if Waterboarding was illegal and torture why Obama had to issue an executive order making it illegal?

MaggieD said:

This thread started about Amnesty Intl wanting to prosecute Bush for war crimes. Terrorists are not protected by any International Treaty. Soldiers caught out of uniform are/were not protected by the Geneva Convention.

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Right, they were shot as spies.

Question to liberals: Is this a war crime?

Amnesty International has released images of a US-manufactured cruise missile that carried cluster munitions, apparently taken following an attack on an alleged al-Qa’ida training camp in Yemen that killed 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children.

Images of missile and cluster munitions point to US role in fatal attack in Yemen | Amnesty International

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Will you support trying Obama as a war criminal when he leaves office, or will you just content yourselves with being silent hypocrites?

Ahlevah said:

Question to liberals: Is this a war crime?



Will you support trying Obama as a war criminal when he leaves office, or will you just content yourselves with being silent hypocrites?

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Unfortunately there is a difference between Collateral Damage and wilful torture.

Every US president has innocent blood on their hands. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

They will all be held accountable if the god Conservatives profess exists.

MaggieD said:

This thread started about Amnesty Intl wanting to prosecute Bush for war crimes. Terrorists are not protected by any International Treaty. Soldiers caught out of uniform are/were not protected by the Geneva Convention.


Geneva Convention Rules on Al Queda

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The original article cites "international law" not the Geneva Convention.

Grant said:

SheWolf


Actually the Kurds were gassed by Saddam Hussein and eventually liberated by the American Forces, as authorized by George Bush, and the politicians who voted for the invasion of Iraq.



What are you suggesting here? That we create a state for them?

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Sorry.. but I don't really see what your responses have to do with my question.. Saddam tortured and killed many Kurds.

I am not suggesting we create a state for them.. I am suggesting that torturing somebody just because they:

1. Don't have a state, and
2. Are not in a military

Is a bad reason to torture somebody. Saddam did it to the Kurdish people and yet we look at him unfavourably for it.

Why should those two rules make it permissible to torture somebody?

Guy Incognito said:

He was acting in an official capacity when he committed the torture, but is now a private citizen and no longer immune as a head of state, thus he can be tried for the torture he had previously committed.

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So I could sneak into Gitmo, pour gasoline on a terrorist's nuts and light them on fire, and that would be ok?

Conservative said:

Hamdan was about the authority of Military Commissions and sought to ban them. The Courts ruled that Congress needed to authorize those commissions which they did in the fall of 2006. It had NOTHING to do with Waterboarding. Strike 2. Waterboarding Hamdan was not an issue because he wasn't Waterboarded.

Military Commissions Authorized
Waterboarding declared illegal in 2009 by an Executive Order

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source?

That is not what I am finding in the review.. and I am sure you know congress doesn't have the authority to reverse a Supreme Court Ruling.

If you read what I was not saying they made waterboarding illegal, I wasn't referring to the court saying the prisoners are protected under the Geneva Convention. Obviously, I even highlighted that part

winston53660 said:

The original article cites "international law" not the Geneva Convention.

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It doesn't cite international law at all. It merely uses the term. Where's a real citation? I'll leave it to you.

MaggieD said:

It doesn't cite international law at all. It merely uses the term. Where's a real citation? I'll leave it to you.

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Fine I'll say it this way....The original article says "international law" not "war crimes" and or the "Geneva Conventions"

FederalRepublic said:

Respectfully, US generals do not make law. Because some from the Viet Nam war declared it against their rules doesn't mean it's a war crime.

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yea.. four generals have no authority in the military or anything :roll:

FederalRepublic said:

Would it be better to try them and execute them, or let them go back home so that they can shoot at us again? Or is it better to simply hold them until this mess simmers down? One of those three options is better for all involved...

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It depends on their crimes and what they are guilty of.. but they should get a trial before they are executed. I wouldn't have a problem with executing them either

SheWolf said:

It depends on their crimes and what they are guilty of.. but they should get a trial before they are executed. I wouldn't have a problem with executing them either

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I think you've actually hit on what I have a problem with. These people haven't been given any sort of due process to find them "terrorists."

Conservative said:

Still waiting for you or anyone else to prove that Waterboarding was torture? Also waiting for an explanation as to if waterboarding was illegal why did Obama have to issue an executive order. Strike 3, you are out!

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:lamo

Why did Bush make an executive order against torture, but leave out waterboarding? And why was his citation to condemn torture in that order so controversial given the facts??

SheWolf said:

It depends on their crimes and what they are guilty of.. but they should get a trial before they are executed. I wouldn't have a problem with executing them either

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What would you say if we captured a half-dozen alleged insurgents accused of spying (including an American citizen), convened a military tribunal that immediately sentenced them to death, and shot them all, just one month after being captured?

SheWolf said:

:lamo

Why did Bush make an executive order against torture, but leave out waterboarding? And why was his citation to condemn torture in that order so controversial given the facts??

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Why did every other President before Obama not issue an executive order to ban waterboarding? Because waterboarding, while now expressly illegal, was not illegal before that executive order.

MaggieD said:

You have to remember that the Japanese were prosecuted for waterboarding U.S. soldiers captured in the field of battle in full uniform and being held as POW's. There's a difference.

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It's a good idea to point out that these Japanese criminals did far more than just waterboarding.

MaggieD said:

This thread started about Amnesty Intl wanting to prosecute Bush for war crimes. Terrorists are not protected by any International Treaty. Soldiers caught out of uniform are/were not protected by the Geneva Convention.


Geneva Convention Rules on Al Queda

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I am sorry.. I don't buy this argument and you're getting from a website that is biased. Do you have another source?

My problem with this is we have considered it war crimes when other countries have tortured combatants who were not in the military, and did not belong to sovereign countries..

History is full of so many examples.. look at the history of Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina.. apartheid South Africa tortured Nelson Mendela and many others under those facts, the USSR also tortured and killed people under those facts, Saddam Hussein and the Kurdish people..

I had this conversation with somebody else, and I think this justification is disgusting.. because it can potentially justify torturing any people in the world fighting an oppressive government.

I also hate the stateless component to this argument.. You know what oppressive governments like USSR, Nazi Germany, and first settlers in America who committed genocide against natives did? They refused to recognize the people they tortured's statehood. The USSR said that the people under them weren't nationals of Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc. anymore.. those countries were gone. If you wanted your sovereign independence back and you did so much as to protest publicly, you were send off to a gulag or mowed down with bullets and tanks.

The USSR was abusive and did violate human rights.. South Africa, Saddam Hussein, etc. etc. We have always felt that way as a nation and as a international community.

Jetboogieman said:

Unfortunately there is a difference between Collateral Damage and wilful torture.

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If you fire a missile into a building knowing there is a considerable number of women and children there who are likely to be killed, is that still "collateral damage," as in an "unintended consequence":

“A military strike of this kind against alleged militants without an attempt to detain them is at the very least unlawful. The fact that so many of the victims were actually women and children indicates that the attack was in fact grossly irresponsible, particularly given the likely use of cluster munitions,” said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Images of missile and cluster munitions point to US role in fatal attack in Yemen | Amnesty International

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If it is "unlawful," which is more unlawful and more worthy of prosecution? A case where a president ordered the torture of three terrorists, or a case where the president ordered an assassination knowing that a large number of women and children either were or likely were present?

SheWolf said:

I am sorry.. I don't buy this argument and you're getting from a website that is biased. Do you have another source?

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The United States has traditionally been in the forefront of efforts to codify and improve the international rules of humanitarian law in armed conflict, with the objective of giving the greatest possible protection to victims of such conflicts, consistent with legitimate military requirements.

...

I have at the same time concluded that the United States cannot ratify a second agreement on the law of armed conflict negotiated during the same period. I am referring to Protocol I additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which would revise the rules applicable to international armed conflicts.

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Another provision would grant combatant status to irregular forces even if they do not satisfy the traditional requirements to distinguish themselves from the civilian population and otherwise comply with the laws of war. This would endanger civilians among whom terrorists and other irregulars attempt to conceal themselves. ... Finally, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have also concluded that a number of the provisions of the Protocol are militarily unacceptable.

It is unfortunate that Protocol I must be rejected. We would have preferred to ratify such a convention, which as I said contains certain sound elements.

...

The repudiation of Protocol I is one additional step, at the ideological level so important to terrorist organizations, to deny these groups legitimacy as international actors.

Ronald Reagan
The White House,
January 29, 1987

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Protocol I has never been ratified by the Congress of the United States.

Reagan Rejected Terrorist Geneva Conventions | Sweetness & Light

Ahlevah said:

If you fire a missile into a building knowing there is a considerable number of women and children there who are likely to be killed, is that still "collateral damage," as in an "unintended consequence":

If it is "unlawful," which is more unlawful and more worthy of prosecution? A case where a president ordered the torture of three terrorists, or a case where the president ordered an assassination knowing that a large number of women and children either were or likely were present?

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The Geneva Convention expressly addresses that all bets are off if the enemy is shielding, as an example, it's munitions storage facility in the midst of a civilian population. Or its troops in close proximity to a hospital. We do a better job that any nation on earth in our attempts to protect civilian populations. All the while, our enemies are killing civilians like freakin' flies.