Cheney Lying AGAIN when he claims Japanese soldiers were not tried for waterboarding.

The Facts

At the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), which lasted from April 29, 1946 to Nov. 12, 1948, there were indeed Japanese war criminals who were tried and ultimately executed for some of the events mentioned by Cheney. Akira Muto and Iwane Matsui commanded troops that commited atrocities at Nanking, including the rapes of 20,000 women and the slaughter of 300,000 people; foreign minister Koki Hirota was also held responsible for being “well informed about the massacre.” Heitaro Kimura forced prisoners of war to do extremely hazardous work, including the construction of a railway between Burma and what is now Thailand.

The judgment of the IMTFE included a description of the type of torture known as “the water treatment,” in which “the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach until he lost consciousness,” according to “Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts,” a 2007 article in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, by Judge Evan Wallach. (The article is generally behind a paywall, but a plain type version can be found on the Internet.)
http://lawofwar.org/Water_Torture_Article.htm

But as Wallach makes clear, Japanese soldiers other than the Class A war criminals were also prosecuted for mistreatment of American prisoners—and water torture “loomed large in the evidence presented against them.” For instance, at the Yokohama Class B and C War Crimes Trials in 1947, Yukio Asano, an interpreter, faced a charge of violating “the laws and customs of war” through these specific acts:

Specification 1: That in or about July or August, 1943, the accused Yukio Asano, did willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Morris O. Killough, an American Prisoner of War, by beating and kicking him, by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring water up his nostrils.

Specification 2: That on or about 15 May, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Yukio Asano, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O. Cash and Munroe Dave Woodall, American Prisoners of War, by beating and kicking them, by forcing water into their mouths and noses, and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies.

Specification 5. That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 December, 1943, the accused Yukio Asano, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture John Henry Burton, an American Prisoner of War, by beating him, and by fastening him head downward on a stretcher and forcing water into his nose.