beryl zei:
De US senate heeft folteren nooit toegestaan na 9/11. Nadat de folterpraktijken aan het licht zijn gekomen heeft Obama beslist niemand van de CIA te laten vervolgen, maar hij had dat wel kunnen doen. Er was helemaal geen wet die dat toeliet.
Van wikipedia:
On 28 and 29 September 2006, the
U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, respectively,
passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a controversial bill that allows the President to designate certain people with the status of "unlawful enemy combatants" thus making them subject to military commissions, where they have fewer civil rights than in regular trials.
The specific actions defined in section 6 of the Military Commissions Act include
torture, cruel or inhumane treatment, murder, mutilation or maiming, intentionally causing serious bodily harm, rape, sexual assault or abuse, and the taking of hostages. According to Mariner of Human Rights Watch, the effect is "that perpetrators of several categories of what were war crimes at the time they were committed, can no longer be punished under U.S. law." The Center for Constitutional Rights adds:
The MCA's restricted definitions arguably would exempt certain U.S. officials who have implemented or had command responsibility for coercive interrogation techniques from war crimes prosecutions.
. . . .
This amendment is designed to protect U.S. government perpetrators of abuses during the "war on terror" from prosecution.
En verder:
The term water board torture appeared in press reports as early as 1976. In late 2007, it was widely reported that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was waterboarding extrajudicial prisoners and that the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, had authorized the procedure among enhanced interrogation techniques.
Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, several memoranda analyzing the legality of various interrogation methods were written by John Yoo from the Office of Legal Counsel. The memos, known today as the torture memos, advocate enhanced interrogation techniques, while pointing out that avoiding the Geneva Conventions would reduce the possibility of prosecution under the US War Crimes Act of 1996 for actions taken in the War on Terror. In addition, a new US definition of torture was issued. Most actions that fall under the international definition do not fall within this new definition advocated by the U.S.
Samenvatting:
Het legale is betwistbaar, maar praktisch gezien 'kon' het allemaal zonder risico op vervolging door het wijzigen van de statuten van gevangenen en het veranderen van de definitie van foltering.