Yes, We Did Execute Japanese Soldiers for Waterboarding American POWs

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Originally posted by Nobluedog:
Yes, We Did Execute Japanese Soldiers for Waterboarding American POWs.

"I forgot to mention last night that 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," [McCain] told reporters at a campaign event.

"If the United States is in another conflict ... and we have allowed that kind of torture to be inflicted upon people we hold captive, then there is nothing to prevent that enemy from also torturing American prisoners."

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.

R. John Pritchard, a historian and lawyer who is a top scholar on the trials, said the Japanese felt the ends justified the means. "The rapid and effective collection of intelligence then, as now, was seen as vital to a successful struggle, and in addition, those who were engaged in torture often felt that whatever pain and anguish was suffered by the victims of torture was nothing less than the just deserts of the victims or people close to them," he said.
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Originally posted by luvurnabor:
I suggest we may never know the truth. Almost 6,000 were indicted. Death appears to have been reserved for Generals and high ranks. Obviously, they did not dirty their hands by directly carrying out the crimes. This was in the context of mass murder, something the CIA is not presently accused of. I suggest those who deny waterboarding took place are predisposed toward that conclusion. Real proof?
From Wikipedia:
Sentencing
Seven defendants were sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity:
* General Kenji Doihara, spy (later Air Force commander)
* Baron Kōki Hirota, foreign minister
* General Seishirō Itagaki, war minister
* General Heitarō Kimura, commander, Burma Expeditionary Force
* General Iwane Matsui, commander, Shanghai Expeditionary Force and Central China Area Army
* General Akira Muto, commander, Philippines Expeditionary Force
* General Hideki Tōjō, commander, Kwantung Army (later prime minister)
They were executed at Sugamo Prison in Ikebukuro on December 23, 1948. MacArthur, afraid of embarrassing and antagonizing the Japanese people, defied the wishes of President Truman and barred photography of any kind, instead bringing in four members of the Allied Council to act as official witnesses.

Sixteen more were sentenced to life imprisonment. Three (Koiso, Shiratori, and Umezu) died in prison, while the other thirteen were paroled in 1955:
* General Sadao Araki, war minister
* Colonel Kingorō Hashimoto, major instigator of the second Sino-Japanese War
* Field Marshal Shunroku Hata, war minister
* Baron Kiichirō Hiranuma, prime minister
* Naoki Hoshino, Chief Cabinet Secretary
* Okinori Kaya, opium dealer to the Chinese
* Marquis Kōichi Kido, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
* General Kuniaki Koiso, governor of Korea, later prime minister
* General Jirō Minami, commander, Kwantung Army
* Admiral Takasumi Oka, naval minister
* General Hiroshi Ōshima, ambassador to Germany
* General Kenryō Satō, chief of the Military Affairs Bureau
* Admiral Shigetarō Shimada, naval minister
* Toshio Shiratori, ambassador to Italy
* General Teiichi Suzuki, president of the Cabinet Planning Board
* General Yoshijirō Umezu, war minister

Foreign minister Shigenori Tōgō was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and died in prison in 1949.
The verdict and sentences of the tribunal were confirmed by General MacArthur on November 24, 1948, two days after a perfunctory meeting with members of the Allied Control Commission for Japan. Six of those representatives made no recommendations for clemency. Australia, Canada, India, and the Netherlands were willing to see the general make some reductions in sentences. He chose not to do so. The issue of clemency was thereafter to disturb Japanese relations with the Allied powers until the late 1950s when a majority of the Allied powers agreed to release the last of the convicted major war criminals from captivity.

Subsidiary and related trials

According to Japanese tabulation, 5,700 Japanese individuals were indicted for Class B and Class C war crimes. Of this number, 984 were initially condemned to death; 475 received life sentences; 2,944 were given more limited prison terms; 1,018 were acquitted and 279 were never brought to trial or not sentenced. The number of death sentences by country is the following : Holland 236, Great Britain 223, Australia 153, China 149, USA 140, France 26 and Philippines 17. [11] Additionally, the Soviet Union and Chinese Communist forces held trials for Japanese war criminals.