In ALL the wars America has fought and believe me there are many

[Winterblues]

we have NEVER resorted to torturing our captives until Cheney. Why did he feel it was necessary to resort to the despicable activity now? Was the USA more threatened now than when the Japanese declared war upon us and invaded our soil? Somehow we managed to endure and actually "win" our wars without resorting to torture. Water boarding was considered torture by the USA when it prosecuted Japanese Officers for it after WW II. What exactly were the differences between what the Japanese did to our soldiers, which we found so disturbing, to what we are doing to captives. Were our soldiers permanently physically injured by what the Japanese did? That seems to be their justification at the moment. No physical harm so not torture. Did the Japanese water boarding require cutting off an ear or pulling out fingernails? What physical harm was done to our soldiers? We were disturbed enough by what the Japanese did that we tried them and executed them for waterboarding...

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. I'm 99.99% sure that we have tortured in the past. nt

[Winterblues]

2. Officially? Sanctioned by the Administration? Name the war that occurred.

:shrug:

[librechik]

4. that is the essence--sure, incidents happened--but it was never our POLICY

and our presidenets and leaders all condemned it until Cheney.They are trying to incriminate us by declaring it US policy; and that we are being "political" ie partisan by condemning it. We must destroy that sick idea.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. With a press release? No. Officially sanctioned? Yes.

I wasn't particularly thinking of war. CIA. FBI. Police departments...

[Echo In Light]

11. "Plausible Deniability."

[pnutbutr]

3. the Japanese

would include beatings and also punching or jumping on the victims stomach after it was full of water.

[Winterblues]

6. We include "walling" and "sensory deprivation" with an insect or two...

:shrug:

[riverdeep]

10. The Japanese did much much more than that.

The Japanese routinely executed prisoners of war on a whim; they beat, tortured, decapitated, and even cannibalized prisoners of war.

The Australians troops were horrified to find that the Japanese had been eating both the wounded and dead Australians who had been left behind on the previous day. Corporal Bill Hedges describes the ghastly scene:

"The Japanese had cannibalised our wounded and dead soldiers..We found them with meat stripped off their legs and half-cooked meat in the Japanese dishes (pots)".

One of Corporal Hedges closest comrades was among the butchered bodies. He said:

"I was heartily disgusted and disappointed to see my good friend lying there, with the flesh stripped off his arms and legs; his uniform torn off him."

Shortly afterwards, the Australian corporal was appalled to discover that the Japanese had not resorted to cannibalism because of starvation. He said:

"We found dumps with rice and a lot of tinned food. So they weren't starving and having to eat flesh because they were hungry."

http://www.users.bigpond.com/battleforAustralia/JapWarCrimes/TenWarCrimes/Murder_Cannibalism_Kokoda.html

There was also a little thing called The Bataan Death March. The General most directly responsible was executed after the war.

That was just some of the stuff done to us or our allies, what they did to the people of the nations they conquered is almost unimaginable. If you have a strong stomach, or are a sadist, look up 'Nanking'. The Japanese military engaged in an orgy of rape, brutal killing and torture of civilians that lasted for weeks and yielded somewhere between 200,000 and 370,000 victims. You can find images of rows of heads, of infants piled up after being bayoneted, of children after rape, torture and death, of villagers in the act of digging the holes where they will be buried alive...and on and on.

While Germany had Dr. Josef Mengele, Japan had Shiro Ishii, head of the Unit 731. This was where civilians and prisoners were gathered for experimentation. The experimentation included:

-vivisections being performed on live, unanesthetized vicims
-victims being placed in a pressure chamber until they exploded from the inside
-being set on by flame throwers
-being infected by various plagues and diseases and checked to see how the disease progressed
-being hung upside down to see how long it would take to die
-being exposed to extreme cold to develop frostbite and then gangrene

After the war, the US played a pivotal role in covering up all of this in exchange for the data this unit produced, just like the US did with the Nazis, even incorporating the Nazis into the various government programs (Operation Paperclip) and the space program.

Most Americans are well aware of the things that Germany did during the war, but not nearly as many know about the Japanese. Make no mistake, the Japanese were beyond brutal, and the things we might have done to them don't even begin to compare. They don't even begin to compare AT ALL. Thank God they were stopped.

[SpiralHawk]

5. George Washington specifically forbade torture, and encouraged his soldiers

to treat their war prisoners humanely -- as they would like to be treated.

Not that the Golden Rule -- articulated long ago by Christ and other spiritual avatars -- means anything to Republicon Homelanders with their perverted wide-stance 'family values'

[HereSince1628]

8. Toture, American Style...

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2007/12/16/torture_american_style/

[Uncle Joe]

9. Because Cheney/Bush were sadistic cowards coming to power via corrupt means, thus

they never had legitimate connection or relation to the people; either American or world wide any more than a historical, King, Queen, Dictator or head of religion did when they felt their dysfunctional structure of power shake from a seismic challenge.

Cheney/Bush never believed in the American People, our values or our history in dealing with threat, in that sense, they never had faith. They always saw them selves as apart from everyone else whether by religious or socio-economic means.

In short, my own belief is that it was primarily socio-economic exclusion, their own fearful natures and the weakened, corrupted manner in which they came to power that warped their view in wielding it, leading to Addington's theory of the "Unitary Executive" which became their fig leaf for promoting torture.

"Why did he feel it was necessary to resort to the despicable activity now?"