Water boarding may be torture, or it may be enhanced interrogation.

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In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning." The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas.

Oh please. That is a serious oversimplification of a law passed with the Patriot Act and a later law passed with the Protect America Act (with a yes vote from Barak Obama I might add). Both of which are perfectly constitutional. Provide me with the name and case number of an American citizen whose rights were abused under this law by Bush or Cheney personally and then we will talk.

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For a time, the USA PATRIOT Act allowed for agents to undertake "sneak and peek" searches.[51] Critics such as EPIC and the ACLU strongly criticized the law for violating the Fourth Amendment,[206] with the ACLU going so far as to release an advertisement condemning it and calling for it to be repealed.[207]

In 2004, FBI agents used this provision to search and secretly examine the home of Brandon Mayfield, who was wrongfully jailed for two weeks on suspicion of involvement in the Madrid train bombings. While the U.S. Government did publicly apologize to Mayfield and his family,[210] Mayfield took it further through the courts. On September 26, 2007, judge Ann Aiken found the law was, in fact, unconstitutional as the search was an unreasonable imposition on Mayfield and thus violated the Fourth Amendment.

Again here, it is you that do not understand the facts. As far as congressional approval, you may want to research Public Law 107-243, The Iraq Resolution. You may also want to look at the terms of the 1991 cease fire agreement that halted the first gulf war, and the Iraqi governments' serious noncompliance.

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The resolution authorized President Bush to use the Armed Forces of the United States "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" in order to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq."

International law Further information: United Nations Charter and International law Debate about the legality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq under international law centers around ambiguous language in parts of UN Resolution 1441 (2002).[45] The UN Charter prohibits any war unless it is out of self-defense or when it is sanctioned by the UN security council. If these requirements are not met international law describes it a war of aggression.

John Conyers, Robert Parry and Marjorie Cohn assert that the Iraq war was a violation of the U.N. Charter and as such a war of aggression (a crime against peace) and therefore a war crime.[52] Kofi Annan too has said the war in Iraq is an "illegal act that contravened the UN charter."[53] Some scholars, including Columbia law professor Michael Dorf, have argued that treaties are binding on the U.S. under international law.

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War of aggression From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search A war of aggression is a military conflict waged absent the justification of self-defense. Waging such a war of aggression is a crime under the customary international law. It is generally agreed by scholars in international law that the military actions of the Nazi regime in World War II in its search for so-called "Lebensraum" are characteristic of a war of aggression.

Face the facts. No one was out there intentionally lying to congress, particularly an upstanding patriot like Colin Powell. Much of what we suspected about Iraqi WMD turned out not to be the case...As far as manufacturing evidence, again show me evidence manufactured personally by or at the behest of Bush or Cheney and we will talk about breaking the law.

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A study coauthored by nonprofit, liberal journalism organization the Center for Public Integrity found that in the two years after September 11, 2001 the president and top administration officials had made 935 false statements, in an orchestrated public relations campaign to galvanize public opinion for the war, and that the press was largely complicit in its uncritical coverage of the reasons adduced for going to war."

Mabey because it does work?