Tortured Arguments

Maybe it's me, but usually when you need an army of lawyers (Ok, White House lawyers and a bunch at the Department of Justice) to keep writing and stating opinions secretly about how much pain you can cause a captive human being held in secret, you are probably doing something wrong. Maybe illegal. Certainly something you really don't want to ever be made public.

Now, the ugly, secret, 'legal' rulings are emerging that provide cover for the president and those who act in his name: those who conduct the horror of Abu Ghraib. The black CIA prisons in countries that permit authorities to do anything they want with captives. The anonymous imprisonment and extralegal proceedings that keep hundreds of suspects in Guantanamo.

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"Robust Interrogation"

Q Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the Vice President "for torture." We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in. We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that.

And thanks to the leadership of the President now, and the action of the Congress, we have that authority, and we are able to continue to program.

-- Office of the Vice President , October 24, 2006 Interview of the Vice President by Scott Hennen, WDAY at Radio Day at the White House

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Civilians were systematically subjected to tortures of all kinds, with the object of obtaining information.

Civilians of occupied countries were subjected systematically to "protective arrests" whereby they were arrested and imprisoned without any trial and any of the ordinary protections of the law, and they were imprisoned under the most unhealthy and inhumane conditions.

In the concentration camps were many prisoners who were classified "Nacht und Nebel". These were entirely cut off from the world and were allowed neither to receive nor to send letters. They disappeared without trace and no announcement of their fate was ever made by the German authorities.

Such murders and ill-treatment were contrary to international conventions, in particular to Article 46 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and to Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

-- Nuremberg Trial Proceedings - Indictment: Count Three: War Crimes