If you convict somebody of a war crime for using the water boarding technique's back in 1947, wouldn't that same technique be considered a crime
today?
What makes an interrogation technique a war crime 60 years ago but not now?
When higher-level al-Qaeda operatives were captured,
CIA interrogators sought
AUTHORITY to use
more coercive methods.
These were cleared not only at the White House but also by
the Justice Department and briefed to senior congressional officials,
according to a statement released last month by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Waterboarding was one of the approved
techniques.
I think it is just some peoples morals and sense of what's right and wrong are the only things that have changed!
Over
60 years ago, waterboarding was considered a war crime and the U.S. sentenced people (at least one) to 15 years of hard labor, but
now it's
LEGAL for the US to use this technique?
Passage last month of
military commissions legislation provided retroactive legal protection to those who carried out waterboarding
and other coercive interrogation techniques.
So, what about the people in the White House and the Justice department who
TOLD the interrogators that it was
LEGAL to use these techniques? Shouldn't they have known what stance the US government took on waterboarding back in 1947? If they had at
LEAST done a little homework on the subject, they should have
KNOWN that it
WAS considered a war crime even back
then?
Shouldn't THEY be the ones who should be held responsible for ALLOWING the technique to be used?
There's
GOT to be some accountability somewhere for allowing this illegal technique to be used in interrogations!
But alas, there probably won't be!
My how different the morals of
THIS administration is different than those back in 1947!
www.washingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)
[edit on 17/12/07 by Keyhole]
