Should civilized nations use "Enhanced Interrogation" techni

[--Pete]

Hi,

. . . The Americans, being severely outnumbered rarely engaged in that honorable style of warfare. . . .

While the American forces did utilize some guerrilla warfare, if you actually study the Revolutionary War, you'll find that, by and large, the Americans used much the same style of fighting as did the British. The backwoodsman firing his squirrel gun from ambush is mostly a folk tale propagated by third rate history text book writers.

So, I wonder, . . . whether sometimes we are trying to hold the high moral ground, but losing the war.

The "moral high ground" *is* the war. If we give it up, we've lost. We'll join Israel as a victim of Middle Eastern barbarity.

Sometimes I view this struggle against tyranny like a tug of war, and every time we weaken our resolve the rope moves closer to their side. We give Hugo Chavez a kiss on the cheek, they win a little. We bend over for Castro, they win a little more. We don't react when Daniel Ortega ridicules the US, and we lose a little more. Our President travels around the world prostrating himself before the world, offering apologies for American arrogance, and we lose a little more. We gut our military again, and humiliate the American agencies who are doing their best to protect the nation, and we have lost more ground. How long does it take to forget the lesson of 911? I guess about two Presidential terms is the limit of American will power. Yes, I know it is not so one dimensional, but it feels this way sometimes.

You seem to think that geopolitics is a zero sum game. If so, then you are just as deluded as Shrub and the Texas Oil Gang. The lesson of 9/11? I see two lessons: first, the government should be concentrating on keeping the country safe, not on making a bunch of the president's cronies rich. And, second, you piss off enough people, especially irrational, barbaric people, and something bad will happen. So, you need vigilance and you need to eliminate irrational, barbaric people. You could kill them all, or at least try. Or you could target barbarianism. The first doesn't seem to be working, indeed, it seems to be breeding more. And, for the second, you need international cooperation. Shrub type arrogance and stupidity may not be the best way to get that cooperation.

We need a government that looks for a way that all can win, not "If you're not with us, you're against us."

I guess their are two ways to lose the war, one is as I said, to focus on preserving principles at the expense of the overall objective, . . .

The principles *are* the objectives, so this is an oxymoron.

. . . and the other would be to lose our principles and become equivalent to the enemy. There is also the danger of creating cynicism in the hypocrisy of espousing the high principles, while never actually following them. When we choose allies like Israel, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or Abu Dhabi, and our enemies are guilty of much, much worse, are we in danger of blurring our morality and losing our principles as well?

Yes.

--Pete