I get its against US laws but do US laws apply outside the country, to Gitmo, Iraq and Afganistan. Signatories of the Third Geneva Convention and Fourth Geneva Convention officially agree not to torture prisoners in armed conflicts. The arguement is it doesn't apply to terrorists.
Torture, according to the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture (an advisory measure of the UN General Assembly) is:
...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions. --UN Convention Against Torture[5]
It appears to exclude:
1. gangs, hate groups, rebels or terrorists who ignore national or international mandates;
2.random violence during war; and
3.punishment allowed by national laws, even if the punishment uses techniques similar to those used by torturers such as mutilation or whipping when practiced as lawful punishment. Some professionals in the torture rehabilitation field believe that this definition is too restrictive and that the definition of politically motivated torture should be broadened to include all acts of organized violence.
Posted By: marikod
to obtain information commits a war crime under US criminal law.
The US statute thus defines torture as:
(A) Torture. - The act of a person who commits, or conspires or attempts to commit, an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.
So absolutely anyone who tortured a terrorist or conspired or ordered this- even if to get information about Osama Bin laden - committed a war crime under US law.
Now, it is not accurate to say that “water boarding is a war crime period” bc at one time we waterboarded our own special forces as part of training exercises and single acts of waterboarding may not reach the severe pain threshold. But there can be no dispute that waterboarding someone 189 times in a month under circumstances where the guy does not know if he is going to be killed or not - as we did to one of the terrorists - is torture.
That is why those CIA torture tapes disappeared so quickly. And if we assume Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney ordered or conspired to do this - notwithstanding their label "enhanced interrogation techniques" - yes they committed a war crime and the John Yoo "legal justification" memo would not be a defense.
