[scottw]

The American left has hit a new low by trivializing genuine war crimes through likening them to the discomfort inflicted by water boarding. Since the release of the "torture" memos this mantra has been repeated by liberals: we convicted and executed Japanese War criminals for water boarding so the Bush Administration has to be brought to justice.

this document from the actual trials; "Japanese Methods of Prisoner of War Interrogation."


" The victim's stomach is filled with water from a hose placed in the throat. A plank is then placed across the distended stomach, and Japanese, one on each end, then ' see-saw' thus forcing out the water from the stomach. Many of the victims die under this torture."


"The victim's thumbs are tied together and he is hitched by them to a motor car which proceeds to pull him around in a circle until he falls exhausted. This is repeated at two-or three day intervals."


Prisoners were made to beat each other, half rations for "special PWs (Army Air Corp)," beheadings? The liberal strategy of moral equivalence employed but only when it serves their political goals.

To make it even worse, the Japanese visited these atrocities, and worse, not just on captured military personnel, but on the civilian population as well. With regard to civilians, the whole purpose of this torture, often mass torture, was punitive. It was completely different from the coercive stress techniques used here to elicit information from people aiming to cause mass "man caused disasters.