Yukio Asano and Torture

Little history lesson...came across this man in a comment section of an article and I had never heard of him. Im going to leave the link here for those interested. Its on historycommons.org for those afraid to click.

Yukio Link

In the aftermath of World War II, Japanese officer Yukio Asano is charged by a US war crimes tribunal for torturing a US civilian. Asano had used the technique of “waterboarding” on the prisoner (see 1800 and After). The civilian was strapped to a stretcher with his feet in the air and head towards the floor, and water was poured over his face, causing him to gasp for air until he agreed to talk. Asano is convicted and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. Other Japanese officers and soldiers are also tried and convicted of war crimes that include waterboarding US prisoners. “All of these trials elicited compelling descriptions of water torture from its victims, and resulted in severe punishment for its perpetrators,” reporter Evan Wallach will later write. In 2006, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), discussing allegations of US waterboarding of terror suspects, will say in regards to the Asano case, “We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II.

This is pretty much the entire entry in the link...I know ats frowns upon that but I really had to put this all in.

I find it interesting that he was charged with 15 years of hard labor for waterboarding and the usa has been doing far far worse. We can argue back and forth on whether waterboarding is torture or not...but the things in the recent report from the CIA is surely way past what this guy did.

America should be held accountable.

a reply to: rockpaperhammock

Yep, US mirroring old fascists with almost religious devotion. Read this:

www.theatlantic.com...

The phrase "Verschärfte Vernehmung" is German for "enhanced interrogation". Other translations include "intensified interrogation" or "sharpened interrogation". It's a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court.

So the exact phrase used by the Nazis is being used by the CIA, word for word, just as they began the "homeland" security after 9/11, mirroring Nazi language about the homeland. You shouldn't be surprised on reading that to see US foreign policy mimicing Japanese fascists.

Alex Jones has been a jerk on some things, but I have to credit him with one thing: introducing the idea of "cartoonish evil" into the public discourse. Its really the phrase that describes it all best - not modern fascism, but a strange cartoonish attempt to conform to fascist ideas coming from the top of the US. The difference between now and 1942 is that this cartoonish fascism is just too damn boring to illicit a big response. You can just look at it and see it will fail, all the attempts to justify it are like some boring bureaucratic attempts of people to get themselves registered on some fail list.

Or maybe that's the mind game to make us ignore it. However you look at it though, its strange and absurd.

a reply to: rockpaperhammock

Thanks for the history lesson.

Here is a link that specifies the charges against Asano.

Link


ETA: Torture...
...that is all