Paul Murray's weblog, with news you may have missed and my $0.02 worth on a number of topics.

"You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it."
- Art Buchwald

I bet you don't have a friend who's an acupuncturist

E-mail me: pmurray63 [at] hotmail.com (Be patient, I don't check it often.)

An inconvenient precedent. I haven't heard much talk about a column I found quite damning. "Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime" was written by a current judge and law professor who was a JAG in the Nevada National Guard.

The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government -- whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community -- has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

The examples he lists include:

• Japanese soldiers convicted of torture after WWII
  
• American soldiers convicted of torturing Filipino guerrillas during the Spanish-American war
  
• A Texas sheriff and three deputies convicted of violating the civil rights of prisoners
  
• And a successful civil case against the estate of Ferdinand Marcos

We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That's a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is -- as well as what it ought to be.

The law is supposed to be based on precedents. Apparently this administration finds this inconvenient.

Labels: Bush Administration, law, torture, waterboarding

posted by Paul Murray at 1:12 AM | permanent link |