Waterboarding is a war crime

Or at least it is when done to Americans, according to the US military:

[I]n 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. "We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II," he said.

And just to be clear, this is exactly the same method of waterboarding used by US torturers. Unfortunately, the US has just passed a law granting those torturers an amnesty for their crimes. So much for Justice Jackson's statement at Nuremberg that "we [the United States government] are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us"...

[Hat tip: Talk Left]