Walter Pincus, writing for The Washington Post:
[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.
So it’s not even a new issue, and one that seems to have been settled years ago.