Upchurch
Papa Funkosophy
And this proves your claim that Americans tortured Germans in WWII?
Waterboarding Rocks!
- Thread starter kallsop
- Start date
-
- Tags
- torture waterboarding
And this proves your claim that Americans tortured Germans in WWII?
BeAChooser
Banned
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2007
- Messages
- 11,716
Say Nova Land ... notice how everyone is so pointedly avoiding the contents of post #903? 
Dr Adequate
Banned
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2004
- Messages
- 17,766
You are, of course, lying about this.Say Nova Land ... notice how everyone is so pointedly avoiding the contents of post #903?
Again.
It's not as though it convinced anyone last time.
boloboffin
Unregistered
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2006
- Messages
- 4,986
Say Nova Land ... notice how everyone is so pointedly avoiding the contents of post #903?
BAC et al. in the reeducation camps after lights out:
BAC: #903!
(snickers)
BAC: #1205!
(snickers, some guffaws)
New Guy: #56!
(silence)
BAC: Some people don't know how to tell a joke.
Setting aside the tactics of OSS operatives for a moment,let's examine the accounts of American fighting forces in the Pacific Theater.
Does torture include the removal of body parts by American soldiers/marines while the enemy is still alive?
"[c]learly, the collection of body parts on a scale large enough to concern the military authorities had started as soon as the first living or dead Japanese bodies were encountered."
“Skull Trophies of the Pacific War: transgressive objects of remembrance” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, by Simon Harrison
p.827
Dr Adequate
Banned
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2004
- Messages
- 17,766
It would now seem that Cicero is claiming that Americans dismembered wounded Japanese soldiers for no purpose except the collection of trophies.
If he wishes to draw a parallel between this and waterboarding, I guess he may.
A'isha
Miss Schoolteacher
We should waterboard captured terrorists for information today because in WWII some US soldiers in the Pacific may or may not have taken body parts as "trophies" from dead and possibly living Japanese soldiers who weren't exactly prisoners and which worried American military authorities at the time it happened!
Truly, one cannot argue against such irrefutable logic.
Last edited:
Upchurch
Papa Funkosophy
And here I thought you didn't like using Wikipedia as a source. I would like to see the greater context, but I was unable to find the full article online and, specifically, the part quoted.
Horrible, yes, but of absolutely no bearing on your claim. I know you would love to set it aside that it might be forgotten. I've called BS on your claim and, thus far, you've done nothing to support it. Put up or shut up.
Last edited:
You are the one who has somehow interpreted this as a rationale for waterboarding the three detainees. I, on the other hand, have only tried to dispel the myth (one that is held dear by Upchurch and leftysergeant) that not all Americans conducted themselves according to the Geneva Convention in WWII.
BTW: I am not indicting these men for their actions in war. I understand that this is the nature of war and that Americans are not immune from it.
Cicero, while you're playing whack-a-mole with these purported WWII incidents (you being the mole of course, the facts being the hammer), I thought I'd note that a Japanese soldier went into the slammer for 15 years for war crimes consisting of waterboarding.
Dr Adequate
Banned
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2004
- Messages
- 17,766
Hmm ...
The collection of Japanese body parts began quite early in the war, prompting a September 1942 order for disciplinary action against such souvenir taking. Harrison concludes that, since this was the first real opportunity to take such items (the Battle of Guadalcanal), "[c]learly, the collection of body parts on a scale large enough to concern the military authorities had started as soon as the first living or dead Japanese bodies were encountered."
In a memorandum dated June 13, 1944, the US Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) asserted that “such atrocious and brutal policies,” in addition to being repugnant, were violations of the laws of war, and recommended the distribution to all commanders of a directive pointing out that "the maltreatment of enemy war dead was a blatant violation of the 1929 Geneva Convention on the sick and wounded, which provided that: After every engagement, the belligerent who remains in possession of the field shall take measures to search for wounded and the dead and to protect them from robbery and ill treatment.”
These practises were in addition also in violation of the unwritten customary rules of land warfare and could lead to the death penalty. The US Navy JAG mirrored that opinion one week later, and also added that “the atrocious conduct of which some US personnel were guilty could lead to retaliation by the Japanese which would be justified under international law”.
In a memorandum dated June 13, 1944, the US Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) asserted that “such atrocious and brutal policies,” in addition to being repugnant, were violations of the laws of war, and recommended the distribution to all commanders of a directive pointing out that "the maltreatment of enemy war dead was a blatant violation of the 1929 Geneva Convention on the sick and wounded, which provided that: After every engagement, the belligerent who remains in possession of the field shall take measures to search for wounded and the dead and to protect them from robbery and ill treatment.”
These practises were in addition also in violation of the unwritten customary rules of land warfare and could lead to the death penalty. The US Navy JAG mirrored that opinion one week later, and also added that “the atrocious conduct of which some US personnel were guilty could lead to retaliation by the Japanese which would be justified under international law”.
And this you wish to compare to waterboarding?
Fair enough.
Last edited:
A'isha
Miss Schoolteacher
Except that they aren't arguing that it never happened, but that it never happened as a matter of official policy...and even when things like that did happen against policy, it wasn't torturing prisoners ostensibly to extract information. In short, using these isolated examples of soldiers who did things totally unlike torturing prisoners for information against American policy during WWII has not a single, tiny little thing to do with your assertion in this thread that torturing prisoners for information ought to be American policy today.
It was a lot more than just one soldier, too.
Last edited:
Actually, he didn't serve 15 years.
"On March 7, 1950, MacArthur issued a directive that reduced the sentences by one-third for good behavior and authorized the parole of those who had received life sentences after fifteen years."
"By the end of 1958, all Japanese war criminals, including A-, B- and C-class were released from prison and politically rehabilitated."
A'isha
Miss Schoolteacher
Why am I getting a horrible, horrible sense of deja vu?
No kidding? It was not official policy to kill POW's, to take teeth out of mouths still using them, to use methods not outlined by the Geneva Convention for interrogations? No kidding? Really?
The Bush administration, with the official Okey Dokey of all government agiences, including members of the Congress, approved of the CIA's method of waterboarding on the three detainees to extract information. Who is denying this?
In your mind, this is light years more egregious than some attrocities committed by some Allied personnel during WWII. I don't happen to see it that way.
I do not assert that "torture" should be American policy. I also do not set American policy. Bush had the DoJ imprimatur of approval during his administration. President Obama has resinded that policy. Fine.
Last edited:
Because varwoche leaped before he looked?
Upchurch
Papa Funkosophy
You're so busy just arguing, you've lost track of what you are arguing against, haven't you?
Dr Adequate
Banned
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2004
- Messages
- 17,766
No-one, I think, has argued that waterboarding is "light-years more egregious" than what you have described.
You, on the other hand, appear to be drawing some sort of parallel between them.
Dr Adequate
Banned
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2004
- Messages
- 17,766
Ah, well, obviously that makes a huge difference.
A'isha
Miss Schoolteacher
You really, truly, honestly don't see the difference between torturing prisoners held in a secure location a hemisphere away from the war zone as a matter of official government policy, and soldiers on an active battlefield committing acts explicitly against stated government policy that they could be (and sometimes were) prosecuted for by that government?