# The Senate torture report **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 9, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773 "2014-12-09T17:20:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 38
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/741 "2014-12-13T23:46:23Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I keep seeing this mentioned. Can you show me a cite that would show that they were hanged for the waterboarding? Or maybe it was for other stuff and you were just trying to make the impression that that was the case? :rolleyes: [ > [@](#): > > Colonel Nielsen returned to Shanghai, China, in January 1946 to testify in Tokyo War Crimes Trials trials against his former captors, who had tortured him with waterboarding, then called the "water cure. ]([Chase Nielsen - Wikipedia](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Nielsen)) [ > [@](#): > > 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. > > After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: “I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure.” He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. “Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning,” he replied, “just gasping between life and death.” > > Nielsen’s experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan’s military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding. ]([http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html)) ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/742 "2014-12-14T00:25:17Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/743 "2014-12-14T00:41:16Z")
I just realized that **Terr’s** internet apparently comes unequipped with Google. Here, **Terr** : [www.google.com](http://www.google.com). It’s gonna blow your mind! Spend a little while exploring Google’s resources on torture; we’ll be happy to wait for your apology for your ignorant bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/744 "2014-12-14T00:43:15Z")
Im pretty sure it can’t be torture because it doesn’t you can’t do it using a cardboard tube. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/745 "2014-12-14T00:52:23Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > So then just to be clear, when Chase Nielsen, one of the pilots in the Doolittle raid, was captured he was water boarded. > > This was classified as torture and the men who did it were hanged. Are you sure the torturers were hanged just for waterboarding an American pilot, or rather because they had committed a great deal of other war crimes as well? Because if the latter, then they were hanged for a long list of crimes, not just one incident. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/746 "2014-12-14T01:02:22Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Are you sure the torturers were hanged just for waterboarding an American pilot, or rather because they had committed a great deal of other war crimes as well? Because if the latter, then they were hanged for a long list of crimes, not just one incident. EVEN IF there were a lot of crimes, it doesn’t address the main point: for the better part of a century, the US has officially classified waterboarding as torture, accused people who do it as having committed war crimes, and used it as PART of the justification for arguing (persuasively) for their execution. The initial evidence has been offered. If **Terr** wants to show where the judges, in their ruling, said that “Waterboarding is nowhere near torture, that’s some serious bullshit, it’s just some physical discomfort, but everything else is real so these guys got to get got,” then maybe they can continue their antiquixotic crusade. Otherwise, they have nothing left to say except abject apology. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/747 "2014-12-14T01:03:04Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > :rolleyes: > [ > [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html]](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Nielsen) Again - show me that they were hanged specifically for waterboarding. Not for other crimes, with waterboarding being just one of the charges. I would be very surprised if it was true. ---
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/748 "2014-12-14T01:03:17Z")
I love how a few of the board’s resident ‘conservatives’ are coming out against the drone strikes. I guess it might mean something to me if it I didn’t find it such transparent bullshit. Does anyone believe for a second that if it were President Romney’s program there would be a single complaint from these folks? No, it would be a great example of LEADERSHIP. But since it’s Obama, and they think the can deflect the horrors of the Bush/Cheney torture program with this Pollyanna defense, NOW they pretend to be bothered by the drone strikes. Absolutely sickening, but also totally expected. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/749 "2014-12-14T01:04:19Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > EVEN IF there were a lot of crimes, it doesn’t address the main point: for the better part of a century, the US has officially classified waterboarding as torture, accused people who do it as having committed war crimes, and used it as PART of the justification for arguing (persuasively) for their execution. Cite for having waterboarding as “PART of the justification for arguing (persuasively) for their execution”? It is disingenuous to claim that they were executed for waterboarding if they were executed for, for example, massacring POWs. Like referring to someone executed for kidnapping/murder but also charged with illegal possession of weapons and claiming that he was executed for the weapons. ---
**Author:** ![tooldtocare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@tooldtocare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tooldtocare)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/750 "2014-12-14T01:11:45Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’m comparing torture to torture. They torture, we shouldn’t. Not for their respect, but for our own, and for the respect of the rest of the world. Being known as a torturing country would be very, very damaging. Do onto others as you would have them do onto you This is a very very very old phrase and still some just cannot learn We learn by example; is this what you want your children to learn too-? sad indeed ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/751 "2014-12-14T01:14:50Z")
Why limit yourselves to 60 years ago. Didn’t they used to boil people in the Middle Ages - that was also before an international law framework existed, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/752 "2014-12-14T01:28:00Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Cite for having waterboarding as “PART of the justification for arguing (persuasively) for their execution”? It is disingenuous to claim that they were executed for waterboarding if they were executed for, for example, massacring POWs. Like referring to someone executed for kidnapping/murder but also charged with illegal possession of weapons and claiming that he was executed for the weapons. “Disingenuous”? Disingenuous? You really have the nerve to suggest that I am the one being disingenuous here? Okay. Gotcha. Why? Why would I cite that? You already have a cite from a newspaper of record that the US considered it torture at the time. What would you concede if you found out that waterboarding was the reason for the execution? Contrary, if it turns out that they were executed for other war crimes, but waterboarding was still considered a war crime because it’s torture, what would you expect me to concede? From here, your request for a cite looks a lot like a request for me to dance like a monkey, and I’m fresh out of jigs. YOU find the cite if you think it matters. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/753 "2014-12-14T01:32:48Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Why? Why would I cite that? Because that is what was claimed in this thread. Not by you, originally, but you jumped in. > [@](#): > > What would you concede if you found out that waterboarding was the reason for the execution? For one, I would be extremely surprised. ---
**Author:** ![tooldtocare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@tooldtocare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tooldtocare)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/754 "2014-12-14T01:33:46Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > If the reason we’re going after the **Taliban** is because they’re _evil motherfuckers_ You speak as though “Taliban” is a real entity. It is not. The term represents a conjugation of one’s twisted view. The term did not exist until others created it for self-serving reasons. The people you call “Taliban” are human beings just like you and me. They have families.,.,.,.,.they have children.,.,.,…,…,. just like you Like it or not, that’s life May you and yours live long and prosper for all time to come (:- ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/755 "2014-12-14T01:34:41Z")
Another interesting principal established in those trials of Japanese officers is the notion than mere ignorance of what your subordinate officers are doing is not a defense. The leader, the superior is ultimately responsible, regardless of whether or not he was directly involved. A Japanese general was tried for war crimes committed by his subordinates on American POW. His defense was that he knew nothing about it. Not good enough, we said, you are required to know, it is your duty. And we hanged him. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/756 "2014-12-14T01:35:47Z")
“If the reason we’re going after the Taliban is because they’re evil motherfuckers…” No, that is not the reason. They were evil before 9/11 and no one was considering “going after them”. In fact, the world is full of evil, and they are mostly left alone by outsiders. ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/757 "2014-12-14T01:44:11Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Another interesting principal established in those trials of Japanese officers is the notion than mere ignorance of what your subordinate officers are doing is not a defense. The leader, the superior is ultimately responsible, regardless of whether or not he was directly involved. > > A Japanese general was tried for war crimes committed by his subordinates on American POW. His defense was that he knew nothing about it. Not good enough, we said, you are required to know, it is your duty. > > And we hanged him. Meh, American Exceptionalism. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/758 "2014-12-14T01:45:23Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Cite for having waterboarding as “PART of the justification for arguing (persuasively) for their execution”? It is disingenuous to claim that they were executed for waterboarding if they were executed for, for example, massacring POWs. Like referring to someone executed for kidnapping/murder but also charged with illegal possession of weapons and claiming that he was executed for the weapons. You’ve been given two cites above. You have provided none. All available evidence shows that the claim you challenged is, in fact, true. If you have contradicting evidence, go ahead and present it. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/759 "2014-12-14T01:45:29Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > “If the reason we’re going after the Taliban is because they’re evil motherfuckers…” > > No, that is not the reason. They were evil before 9/11 and no one was considering “going after them”. In fact, the world is full of evil, and they are mostly left alone by outsiders. What, you really think there isn’t some moralistic element to this? Have you forgotten the jingoism of the Bush years? The literal talks of a crusade? Why the fuck _are_ we going after them? Also, for someone complaining about others being disingenuous, you sure are splitting a lot of really inconsequential hairs. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773/760 "2014-12-14T01:53:30Z")
> [@tooldtocare](#): > > You speak as though “Taliban” is a real entity. It is not. The term represents a conjugation of one’s twisted view. The term did not exist until others created it for self-serving reasons. Well, no, you’re wrong. Just so we ensure the facts are kept straight, the Taliban did, in fact, give themselves the name “Taliban.” It means “students,” incidentally, in context meaning students of modern Islamic fundamentalist schools, which is where their early recruits came from. Nobody else gave them that name; it is a defined group of people that chose the name for themselves. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773.md?page=37) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-senate-torture-report/706773.md?page=39)