Also, let's not lose sight of what we are arguing here: You say it perfectly OK for our country to TORTURE individuals (who haven' been convicted of ANY crime) & I say no it isn't OK.
I don't think anybody is stating that it is OK to "torture." The argument is whether or not what America did to the very few is to be considered as torture.
You people are so obsessed with international law, narrowly interpreted, that you seek to handcuff our efforts, which allow the terrorists to turn borders and legalisms against us. But laws lose their validity when they no longer protect those who adhere to them. People are afraid to change in a changing world. When a foriegn state either cannot or will not curb terrorists or international criminals operating from its territory, we have a moral, practical, and legal right to act. In an age of innovation, we cling to a nineteenth-century model of international relations.
The same is true when it comes to prisoner treatment where we cling to Geneva rules that do not pertain to this new enemy. Our enemy doesn't come dressed in military uniform and under national banner. This enemy defies the rules established at Geneva by waging war via terrorist means and against civilians, yet Westerners seek to protect them with the same rules they defy. We go far beyond the norm when caring for these prisoners and far beyond that of anyody else on earth. We ensure that they have their Qu'rans and prayer time even as their region's monsters and media accuse us of being converting crusaders, which is validated by self-righteous Westerners seeking to look better than those actually fighting this war. We ensure their religious diets are established just to satisfy those same Westerners. But we are constantly having to deal with the crocodile tears about the waterboarding of a few as if Geneva is set in stone no matter how much the world and our enemies change.
Part of the problem is that people are abslutely in love with their fantasies and illusions. They want their "white capital on the hill" despite the facts of what made us the most powerful nation in history. They want to be able to keep thinking that purity and goodness determines the favorable outcome everytime. But part of the problem is something else. People absolutely refuse to understand this enemy. While Westerners seek to prove their arrogance and self-righteous attitudes by forcing Western rules (Geneva) towards the entire globe's cultures, this enemy has their own set of rules. They believe that it is absolutely legal to kill civilians as combatants for their social and religious prescriptions. And when we deal with religious men of the fanatical extreme, we do not deal with the practical. We no longer deal with the Western manners of the glove-slap-to-duel civility or the "Name, Rank, Social Security Number please" culture. (Speaking of change...Social Security numbers in an age of Internet identity theft is yet another change from Geneva's rules isn't it?)
No...this is an enemy that works in cells, schemes, and future planning. His tools hinge on surprise and global attention. The more brutal, deadlier, sensational the better. Our CIA, still shaking off the effects of seeing the Cold War come to an abrupt end, is still even beginning to understand this enemy and how to properly deal with them. Our military has evolved from basic conventionalism to special operations in Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW). And our prisoner handling must also evolve beyond the foolish please and thank yous' that worked fine enough against normal prisoners of war who had group information about military movements and numbers but not against those who hold individual intelligence about apocalyptic terrorism and of whose mission is the war itself...not an earthly end goal.
