Louise,
The classic rule for fairness is that you must play by the rules of the game. Now the rules very often are not just the rules laid down by Mr. Hoyle but are often modified by your opponent.
That is why in boxing they say to the fighters "protect yourself at all times." If your opponent starts doing something illegal to you it is up to you to protect yourself and if that means fouling him back, well, so be it.
In war the same thing applies. In WW2 the Japanese treatment of prisoners was savage. Suggestion, read up on the Rape of Nanking. Actually that is a misnomer. To be raped by the Japanese at Nanking was a very mild thing by comparison.
Early on the American front line troops devised verious techniques to teach the Japanese soldiers not to mistreat American prisoners. I will guarentee you non of those techniques were according to the Geneva Convention. On the other hand they were effective enough to to continue their use.
The same thing has gone on during the Afghanistani - Iraqi wars. They have used knives to cut the heads off of helpless living Americans they had captured. They flew airplanes into the World Trade Towers forcing burning Americans to leap to their deaths. They executed and hung from a bridge Americans they had captured. Don't you believe waterboarding and the other techniques you described were actually pretty mild? As you have indicated we have caused no ones death. Now you didn't say so but we both know that had we killed anyone you would have shouted it from the rooftops.
Ron

Scott Horton of Harper's Magazine

I've had quite enough of reading your tortured prose for one day, thank you.

http://antiwar.com/horton/?articleid=8556

Louise,
You are getting very testy at a time we are only discussing national policy that isn't likely to have much direct effect on either your or my life.
"I've had quite enough of reading your tortured prose for one day, thank you."
Louise, I am certain it is my incisive facts and logic that is bothering you. The question is why?
Why do you have problems with procedures designed to save American lives and at the same time to be far less barbaric than the enemy is using on us? I do not agree to anything more barbaric than the Muslim Radicals are using but you must agree to tactics designed to teach Muslim Radicals to be more civilized. The question is not why I agree to those tactics but why you don't agree? The follow up question is why do you immediately use emotional tactics as soon as I fail to agree with you? Is it because you immediately realize you have really poor logical reasons for your position. Or do you wish to be a tyrannt dictating to the rest of us?
Thank it over, Louise. I can't believe you have thought this subject through at all.
Ron

Louise,
Surely I was providing you a podium by asking what you thought. Do you mind sharing your thoughts with us?
Ron

You are on my IGNORE list, which is why I'm not answering your questions. You're not even honest, hence your denial that you referred to Percy as a Brown Shirt.

Why would I want to engage in conversation with you when you apparently believe in the moral idiocy of torture as a legitimate means of intelligence gathering? "Enhanced interrogation techniques," a phrase coined by the Nazis.

I have no respect for your opinions or ideas. How's that? Enough of an answer?

Louis,
"I have no respect for your opinions or ideas. How's that? Enough of an answer?"
I understand perfectly. You are not only the judge, jury and executioner you also get to invent your own evidence out of the whole cloth. That is a ancient and time honored collectivist liberal tactic.
You call me a liar? I've never denied what I said. You pointed out my error and I immediately corrected it. What is dishonest in that -- only that you refuse to acknowledge my correction and continue telling a fiction. That is very dishonest. On the other hand I expected no better.

"I have no respect for your opinions or ideas. How's that? Enough of an answer?"
Again you are fundamentally dishonest. I never asked you to respect my "opinions or ideas." You invented that one out of the whole cloth. I asked you to answer my questions. That is a different matter entirely as everyone knows.

But you couldn't resist this litle deception. " you apparently believe in the moral idiocy of torture as a legitimate means of intelligence gathering? "Enhanced interrogation techniques," a phrase coined by the Nazis."
The question was never what I believed in. The question was are you willing to accept America's right to retaliate in kind to behavior against our citizens by a violent and barbaric enemy. If you don't want to retaliate then how do you propose to stop the barbarians from cutting off the heads of our civilians on world wide TV?