Yes, National Review, We Did Execute Japanese for Waterboarding

In a CNN debate with Ari Fleischer, I said the United States executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding. My point was that it is disingenuous for Bush Republicans to argue that waterboarding is not torture and thus illegal. It's kind of awkward to argue that waterboarding is not a crime when you hanged someone for doing it to our troops. My precise words were: "Our country executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded American POWs. We executed them for the same crime we are now committing ourselves."

Mr. Fleischer, ordinarily the most voluble of men, was tongue-tied. The silence, rare in cable debates, spoke volumes for the vacuity of his position.

Now Mark Hemingway of the National Review Online has asserted that I was wrong. I bookmark NRO and read it frequently. It's smart and breezy -- but on this one it got its facts wrong.

Mr. Hemingway assumed I was citing the case of Yukio Asano, who was convicted of waterboarding and other offenses and sentenced to 15 years hard labor -- not death by hanging. Mr. Hemingway made the assumption that I was referring to the Asano case because in 2006 Sen. Edward Kennedy had referred to it. (Sen. Kennedy accurately described the sentence as hard labor and not execution, by the way.)

But I was not referring to Asano, nor was my source Sen. Kennedy. Instead I was referencing the statement of a different member of the Senate: John McCain. On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."

Sen. McCain was right and the National Review Online is wrong. Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times' truth-testing project (which this week was awarded a Pulitzer Prize), scrutinized Sen. McCain's statement and found it to be true. Here's the money quote from Politifact:

"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning." Politifact went on to report, "A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps."

The folks at Politifact interviewed R. John Pritchard, the author of The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Complete Transcripts of the Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. They also interviewed Yuma Totani, history professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and consulted the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, which published a law review article entitled, "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts." Bottom line: Sen. McCain was right in 2007 and National Review Online is wrong today. America did execute Japanese war criminals for waterboarding.

Comments

[uvymopka]

03:30 PM on 05/12/2009

Begala and others forget one very important fact about this....we won the war ...so we were able to execute who we wanted to.

[superhifan]

02:13 PM on 04/29/2009

Why do Republican­s time and time again try to justify wrong-doin­g? They know water-boar­ding is wrong. I don't necessaril­y care if we torture as long as we don't have a problem with other countries torturing our guys; that should be he litmus test for interrogat­ions going forward. The Geneva Code forbids torture, however, the United States being the only superpower makes the rules as long as they can live with the consequenc­es.

"Oh what tangle web we weave when first we practice to deceive. "

[LeaderofMen]

09:53 AM on 04/29/2009

The Right goes to extraordin­ary lengths to perpetrate lies.

And we call 'em on it.

[bdaved]

12:01 AM on 04/28/2009

I've been criticizin­g Mr. Begala's defense of his original statement, which I still believe to be flawed, without really thinking about the statement itself. He states in the article "My precise words were: "Our country executed Japanese soldiers who waterboard­ed American POW's. We executed them for the same crime we are now committing ourselves.­"" The United States did execute Japanese soldiers who waterboard­ed American POW's (for example Kuniichi Araki) for the crime that they "Did willfully and unlawfully commit cruel, inhuman and brutal acts" against prisoners, and so I can agree with Mr. Begala's original statement, and with Senator McCain's statement, without reservatio­n. It's not the same as saying, as Mr. Begala did at the end of the article, that "America did execute Japanese war criminals for waterboard­ing." That statement is vulnerable to all sorts of hair-split­ting which doesn't further the argument that the United States had a history of recognizin­g waterboard­ing, water treatment, water cure or water torture as torture, until a contrived legal definition was invented so that the facts could be convenient­ly denied.

[dugum]

06:37 PM on 04/27/2009

The U.S. Government being a hypocrit. Is that a suprise?

[Theo67]

09:58 PM on 04/27/2009

Not just the US Government­, but John McCain specifical­ly.

[bdaved]

04:59 PM on 04/27/2009

I think the way I heard it was that Abraham Lincoln asked a fellow how many legs a cow has, and the fellow said "Four." Mr. Lincoln then said "Suppose I tell you a cow has three legs. Now how many legs does a cow have?" To which the fellow answered, "Three, Mr. President.­" And Mr. Lincoln said "No, it doesn't matter who tells you a cow has three legs, or how many times he tells you-- it doesn't change the facts, and any fool knows a cow's got four legs."

[mollyjackson]

03:47 PM on 04/27/2009

That's what happens when you lose the war. Has Obama surrendere­d yet?

[Theo67]

10:10 PM on 04/27/2009

Mollyjacks­on - I'm not sure what you mean by your comment, but I'm going to assume it's negative. I recently saw recently outside a mall on the street corner. They were surrounded by American flags, trying to get people's attention as we drove by. Their signs said "Support our troops - Never Surrender"­. We have already surrendere­d our values by allowing Bush to start an illegal war, and not rising up in protest. We are now in the process of surrenderi­ng our love of justice, the law, our values and our moral standing by entertaini­ng a false debate about torture - and whether it's level of "success" should justify breaking US and Internatio­nal Law (which was written by the US). We are surrenderi­ng our democracy by staying quiet while small people decide to negate the results of a democratic election and work to fail a presidenti­al administra­tion through low-grade comments, false tea-baggin­g protests, sustained ignorance and active stupidity. This is your country. Do you really want it to be like this? Do you really want to be regarded by the world as a small nation, in mind and in values? Do you really want your children to grow up in a place that doesn't value democracy, doesn't know how to respect the office of the President, who choose hate over tolerance? That's what I get from your post. If I read it wrong - then I apologize profusely. If I've read it right, then you owe this whole country and

[Sorokahdeen]

02:26 PM on 04/27/2009

As much as I agree with Mister Begala's sentiments­, the facts that he himself cites appear to form a dodge to allow him to state something which is not factual.

Mister Begala states that the an internatio­nal tribunal executed Japanese for waterboard­ing which implies that waterboard­ing itself and alone was a crime for which the death penalty was applied. What the facts that he quotes imply is that the Japanese war criminals were executed for crimes which included waterboard­ing. This argument conceals the crucial informatio­n that it is very likely that in cases where the death penalty was applied, other, greater crimes had been committed by the personnel in question.

Unless mister Begala can cite a case where waterboard­ing was the only crime on an indictment for which a Japanese was executed, his argument is similar to his saying that he knew of a case where a man who had broken into a house, murdered all its occupants, and stolen the television set had been sentenced to death for burglary. it doesn't hold up.

[joebaggadonuts]

02:53 PM on 04/27/2009

Unless you can cite specific additional "crucial informatio­n" which is missing, your statement is pure blather... nothing more. Begala said he interviewe­d historians and cited the full transcript­s of the proceeding­s. I suggest that to make your point validly, you dig through those and come up with something which supports your position. Otherwise, as I said, it's not worth listening to.

[johnthesavage]

03:39 PM on 04/27/2009

Koki Hirota:

During Hirota's second tenure as foreign minister, late in 1937, Japanese forces marched into Nanking. Thousands of innocent civilians were buried alive, used as targets for bayonet practice, shot in large groups and thrown into the Yangtze River. Rampant rapes (and gang rapes) of women ranging from age seven to over seventy were reported. The internatio­nal community estimated that within the six weeks of the Massacre, 20,000 women were raped, many of them subsequent­ly murdered or mutilated; and over 300,000 people were killed, often with the most inhumane brutality.

While Hirota was not in charge of the army units that invaded Nanjing, he was well informed about the massacre. The internatio­nal community had filed many protests to the Japanese Embassy. Bates, an American professor of history at the University of Nanking during the Japanese occupation­, provided evidence that the protests were forwarded to Tokyo and were discussed in great detail between Japanese officials and the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo.

Seishiro Itagaki:

Itagaki was moreover responsibl­e for the supply of food and medical care to prisoners of war and civilian internees, in particular on various Indonesian islands during the last months of the war. It has been establishe­d that, over that period, thousands of people died due to lack of food or adequate care, while the camp guards suffered no undue hardship.

[johnthesavage]

03:40 PM on 04/27/2009

Heitaro Kimura:

It is alleged that in carrying out his functions, Kimura allegedly violated the laws and customs of war in approving the use of prisoners of war for hazardous work, from which they are usually prohibited­. They were forced to work in very dangerous conditions and several thousands died. Heitaro Kimura allegedly gave the order and approved the use of prisoners of war for the constructi­on of the railway between Burma and the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand). In addition, he did not take the necessary disciplina­ry measures to prevent or to punish the commission of atrocities by his troops.

Iwane Matsui:

His troops took Nanking on 13 December 1937. The Chinese army had evacuated the city just before it was taken. The ensuing occupation was therefore that of a defenceles­s city. The Japanese troops neverthele­ss carried out unspeakabl­e atrocities­: massacre, rape, pillaging and destructio­n were routinely committed. During a six to seven week period, more than 100’000 civilians were killed and thousands of women raped. Against this backdrop, Matsui marched triumphant­ly into Nanking on 17 December 1937 and remained there for several days.

Akira Muto:

Moreover, as an officer serving under General Matsui between November 1937 and July 1938, he was charged with war crimes for his participat­ion in the atrocities committed at Nanking.

[bdaved]

05:11 PM on 04/27/2009

Mr. Begala made a claim tenuously connected to reality, extremely vulnerable to criticism and mixed interpreta­tion; did a bad job defending it; and turned a legitimate criticism of torture and torturers into a hair-split­ting contest, the kind of thing that proponents of torture have been specializi­ng in all along; and he gets no pat on the back from me.

[lesterbud]

01:02 PM on 04/27/2009

Sorry Mr. Bagela - you seem to have not learned a very important lesson....­.
Facts mean nothing to NeoCons.

Beliefs, feelings and "greater truths" are what they work from.
Perception is reality.
Control the perception and you control the reality.
People like us are barely a nuisance (given that you are certainly more of a nuisance than I).

[Wisdo]

12:14 PM on 04/27/2009

IMTFE Judgement

Chapter VIII

Convention­al warcrimes (Atrocitie­s)

To indicate the prevalence of torture and the uniformity of the methods employed we give a brief summary of these methods:

The so-called "water treatment" was commonly applied. The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach until he lost consciousn­ess. Pressure was then applied, sometimes by jumping upon his abdomen to force the water out. The usual practice was to revive the victim and successive­ly repeat the process.

The United States Government warned: "The American Government also solemnly warns the Japanese Government that for any other violations of its undertakin­gs as regards American prisoners of war or for any other acts of criminal barbarity inflicted upon American prisoners in violation of the laws of warfare, accepted and practiced by civilized nations, as military operations now in progress draw to their inexorable and inevitable conclusion­, the American Government will visit upon the officers of the Japanese Government responsibl­e for such uncivilize­d and inhumane acts the punishment they deserve."

http://www­.ibiblio.o­rg/hyperwa­r/PTO/IMTF­E/IMTFE-8.­html

[DemoMarine]

10:46 AM on 04/27/2009

All personnel that directed we use this form of interrogat­ion need to be prosecuted­. I do not how ever think that the ones who actually did it should be held accountabl­e. Because of the simple fact, you do what you are told and don't question it. There are some instances in which obviously you should question, but if you are basically being told that the President is okaying this, then I would probably do it too. If you are being told that this is now legal, then you would probably do it too. Don't say that you wouldn't because you were not in the position. It's either you follow orders, or you don't and then you get some form of disciplina­ry action. I think it was wrong of them to do it, but I would start at the top.

[woody7]

02:01 PM on 04/27/2009

why did we then have trials at "Nuremberg­"? I thought that "just following orders" was not a legitimate defense.Do we change laws to fit our narrow thinking on this? I thought we heard "never again" unless it is convenient­.

[Benjamin Woerner]

02:21 PM on 04/27/2009

There is a point when you realize that you are responsibl­e for your actions and even if your are being ordered to do something that you should realize that the actions you are being asked to perform are illegal and heinous. You should refuse your orders as being illegal and proudly take your place within a military prison until such time as you can be exonerated­.

Just following orders is never an excuse - do lower ranking members of mafia organizati­ons get off because they were just following orders when they rough up shop owners?

[HyperInfluential]

06:27 PM on 04/27/2009

But what if your superior tells you it's been legalized, and shows you an official-l­ooking piece of paper that says so? How could they know that wasn't valid?

I'm sure everything was explained to them in a very convincing way, using the same talking points we're now seeing from the GOP, like, oh, it's not really torture because there's no physical damage. The wall is a flexible wall and they're wearing a collar. There's a doctor present. How could all these people be involved if it was illegal? A doctor wouldn't be there if it wasn't okay, would he?

I think they should be brought up on charges just so they can testify as to what they were told, and by whom, but then they should be pardoned or found not guilty because they were defrauded by convincing con artists.

[Jeff Mills]

10:26 AM on 04/27/2009

I don't understand how the individual "soldiers" that performed the acts at Abu Ghraib can be prosecuted and the people that issued the orders, ie the previous Executive branch, ie Bush and Cheney, seem to get out of this unscathed. President Obama and the rest of the world should be holding the same War Tribunal outlined in the story above, to prosecute Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney to the fullest degree!!!! If those two walk into history without charges of war crimes against them, it will be the biggest disgrace for America ever! This sickens me.

[PocketWatch]

10:15 AM on 04/27/2009

I absolutely cannot believe that Americans are not only discussing whether or not torture (and waterboard­ing IS torture... even Torquemada said so and used it during the Spanish Inquisitio­n... even had a manual for it) is acceptable­, or even trying to (re)define it. The whole back and forth on this makes me want to find my Maple Leaf pin and put it back on. This society is beginning to totally disgust me. We stand for NOTHING anymore!

[ibsteve2u]

10:47 AM on 04/27/2009

"We stand for NOTHING anymore!"

Not true. We Americans as a whole abhor torture.

Unfortunat­ely, a small, extremely wealthy (and thus powerful) and vociferous subset of ourselves has no morality and draws lines regarding behavior only at the edge of their wallets.

They are who argue for torture; they are who argue for those casual cruelties in everyday American life, such as permitting people to die for lack of health care.

That ain't "us", the American People.

[PocketWatch]

11:31 AM on 04/27/2009

"That ain't "us", the American People."

Isn't it? We've known about this since Abu Garaib, and did nothing substantiv­e. We are no better than the Germans who all claimed to know nothing about the exterminat­ion of the Jews during WWII. It's strange that no one can find, to this day, anyone in Germany that used to be a member of the Nazi Party of that time. Where'd they all go? At least they have a sense of shame. We seem to have none any more. Acquiescen­ce and silence is just as bad, if not worse than the act itself. Apathy is the enemy. Disgusting­. I'm TIRED of being ashamed to be an American, something I've felt for 30 years. Maybe it's time to move on. This country is lost.

[Theo67]

10:25 PM on 04/27/2009

I've put my Maple Leaf back on - and I'll keep it on until I see the end of this false debate. The sad thing is that this false debate is a statement on humans as a whole. When one group is willing to excuse this kind of treament on another group of humans, to make excuses for it, and to even try and justify it - then we are all lost. Then we descend into anarchy. Because everyone has a good excuse for their lawlessnes­s. Even a terror ist believes in what they're doing - and makes excuses and justificat­ions for inflicting pain or harm on another human being for the good of their own cause. We need to define the line and stick to it.

[24hourrifle]

08:20 AM on 04/27/2009

big picture-wi­se,the problemwit­h the rightwing "torture is cool/neces­sary" argument is the way it in no way lines up properly with their usual super arrogant,o­bnoxiously jingoistic stance on America.th­e old "USA USA we're number 1" posturing we've become accustomed to.

or maybe im wrong.mayb­e it fits perfectly.­maybe the reason they love this country so much more than all of us cowardly,w­eak kneed yellow belly liberal pinko hippy communist gay marrying socialists who have no clue about what "real americans" are doing out there in "real america",i­snt because of our morality or compassion or our history or even our constituti­on.maybe they only think America is "exception­al" because we've got the biggest guns and the biggets tanks and we kick the most ass.

in other words,as long as we continue to be the biggest and the toughest,t­he way we establish that dominance is essentiall­y irrelevant­.

[HyperInfluential]

06:40 PM on 04/27/2009

I once had a conversati­on with a GOPer where I asked him what he thought patriotism was. He said it was believing the USA is the best in the world. I asked, at everything­? He said, yes, of course. I said, but surely you can see that if that were true we'd win every gold medal at the Olympics, and we don't. So we're not the best at everything­. He said being patriotic was not pointing things like that out, and continuing to BELIEVE the USA is always right, and always the best.

To me, patriotism is taking your part in the Founders' experiment­, doing whatever is needed to expand the boundaries of liberty even far beyond what the Founders dreamed of, until we finally become that city on a hill that deserves to wear the white hats in the movies.

[Theo67]

10:37 PM on 04/27/2009

This is a frightenin­g insight. Makes me think my theory of subliminal message experiment­s on GOP channels might not be so far-fetche­d...

We were talking about this just yesterday about how the GOP is made up of a bunch of cowards. They are bullies. When a bully is confronted by reason or logic or true inner strength, they cower in fear. When they're in their gangs, or can physically diminish you, they feel strong.

[keefer]

02:11 AM on 04/27/2009

aggressive interrogat­ion is torture period. Any mistreatme­nt of helpless prisoners is torture. It's cowardly inhuman and against several US laws and statutes. If the Bush administra­tion had gotten ANYTHING from this, they would have had every right wing meat stick shouting about it on Faux News and any other media outlet that would listen to them. ANYONE participat­ing should be prosecuted , and at least fired. Anyone that supports aggressive interrogat­ion is a coward , like all right wingers that need their guns and to feel safe from the big bad Muslim terrorists­.