Atlanta Journal Constitution claims US didn't torture during WWII, oh really

Today Ft. Wayne's Journal Gazette re-published a piece from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, or as Rush Limbaugh calls it the Atlanta Journal-Constipation. In its long-winded high-minded piece the AJC asserts that the US never used rough treatment on POWs in WWII. Lex fired off the following response:

The piece that appeared in the editorial roundup section from the Atlanta J-C in today’s J-G, is perhaps the dumbest or most willfully ignorant thing I’ve seen in print in a long time. To claim that the US didn’t mistreat Nazis and Japanese prisoners during WWII is ludicrous. The writers ought to study the US struggle with Germans in the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest or one of about eight dozen references on Marine actions in the South Pacific.

To be sure, the actions were not government policy, but to pretend it didn’t happen or that the government wasn’t aware is dubious at best. The J-C makes its ridiculous assertion because it’s a good way to color the Bush administration’s effort to ensure American safety and clarify Common Article III of the Geneva Convention in the worst possible light.

If anything, Bush is taking the high road by seeking congressional codification of POW treatment rather than just doing what needs to be done. FDR never sought the codification of POW treatment during WWII, where only the most naive among us, or political hacks that populate today's editorial boards, would think rough treatment of POWs on both sides did not commonly occur.

But times were different then. Everyone knew the country was at war. Everyone knew what was at stake. Everyone supported the military and nearly everyone supported the president. The Supreme Court and congress never tried to assert power as the Commander in Chief. There were no protests calling FDR a war criminal when he had four German saboteurs tried by a military tribunal in secret in the basement of the justice building and then hanged.

If the misinformed or under-educated editorial staff at the J-C want to read about American treatment of Muslims in a former war, they should read about how we dealt with Muslim terrorists during the Philippine insurrection. If they’d like to read about American inhumanity to Americans, pick up a book on the Confederate prison at Andersonville.