Sorry kids but this is an entirelty mathematical fact. What you approve of for one side automatically makes it OK for the other side.

When Bush set the terms and protections for our enemy to not include the Geneva Convention or other basic international law elements he fails to realize that this will be seen a little differently on the other side. Now when a US soldier is totured to death and we try to be outraged, Al Queida will remind us that we made it OK to torture-and that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Of course it doesnt matter. Al Queida will torture people and this can be all but assured. But when the USA does it we demonstrate a willingness to forget our values. Who would Jesus torture?

But what needs to be CLEAR to all of you is this-it makes torture of our people OK since we have made it OK to torture their people. No amount of outrage will be justified when we get it back.

Exactly. And the same thing goes for his retarded stance on "preemptive war." By announcing that the United States can attack anyone that it feels threatened by at any time, he opened the door for every other nation and/or entity around the world to do the same. In fact, he basically said that 9/11 was okay--since al Qaeda felt threatened by the United States and/or the West in general, they were, according to Bush's doctrine of preemptive war, within their rights to attack us on 9/11. Good work, Monkey.

"Who would Jesus torture?" You mean some guy in Mexico named Jesus? I don't know, you'll have to provide more details, like his last name before I can answer that.

As to your mixed morality message. While nice, you hold us to a standard of behaving good or we'll receive our own treatment in return. I guess that means you don't feel other countries in the world have to hold to their own standards? So all eyes are on the US and how we behave dictates how they behave. That right there demonstrates that we, excuse me YOU feel we are leading the world by example and morally superior to all others. I would like to think that we aren't the ONLY bastion of humanity in the world.

I don't doubt that terrorists and countries that directly support terrorists, like Iran, will do whatever they feel is required when it comes to pain and suffering - our own position is irrelevant and certainly isn't going to prevent them from doing something harsh and uncalled for.

Except that when the US did lead by example we could judge the actions of the terrorists as being evil and uncivilized. Now we dont have that right. We are as bad as they are.

Do you want to talk law, or morality? They aren't always the same thing.

Torture we can certainly state as a moral wrong. Legally, however, Bush is on much better footing and the author of the article (and the originator of this post) are missing something. The Geneva Convention (the sheaf of treaties comprising the Law of Land Warfare as practiced by the U.S. government throughout most of the last century) does not apply to terrorists -- and it never has. This isn't some new interpretation created by the Bush administration.

The Geneva convention probably is "quaint" -- it protects the uniformed soldiers of governments who are signatories of the convention. It has never applied to "soldiers" who don't represent a government. It has never applied to spies and other covert operatives who don't wear uniforms, but do represent governments. When it comes to uniform-wearing members of governmental units, it applies only if the governments have also signed on to the treaty. My point is, using the GC as a starting point in the legal argument is extemely flawed. Terrorists almost by definition don't represent governments. They don't wear uniforms. They haven't signed the GC (and they don't practice its provisions when they are in possession of U.S. prisoners).

As for the current executive order, I think it's critics are correct when they say it is an extremely lawyerly compostion, replete with loopholes galore for various treatments that might be considered torture. I'm not certain this is wrong. Can you imagine the questioning session:

CIA "Are you a terrorist?"

Terrorist (excuse me, "freedom fighter') "No."

CIA "Pretty please, are you a terrorist?"

"Freedom fighter," "No."

"I really need to know if you're a terrorist, are you?"

"Freedom fighter," "No."

Obviously some sort of "carrot or stick" approach is needed, but we aren't allowed to use any "sticks," not even if they're just to make the person stand up for eight hours.

I'm not condoning torture, either, but this executive order makes an effort to define torture, and all the terms it uses or could use fall short because torture itself is a slippery term. It's easy to identify waterboarding as torture, or the rack, or the thumbscrew -- it's a lot heard to define what constitutes a violation of human dignity. Does nudity violate human dignity? The only answer is "sometimes yes, sometimes, no, depending on the individual and their culture."

So we're dealing with issues that only appear to be black and white, but offer a varitible set of fractal zooms of shades of gray when examined closely.

I am sure this made hell of a difference to John McCain when he was tortured by the communists. Of course, Americans did not do anything comparable to what the commies of moslems did to our soldiers, even after 9/11.

"Bush is on much better footing and the author of the article (and the originator of this post) are missing something. The Geneva Convention (the sheaf of treaties comprising the Law of Land Warfare as practiced by the U.S. government throughout most of the last century) does not apply to terrorists -- and it never has. This isn't some new interpretation created by the Bush administration."

Here is where the problem begins. You dont know if the subject is a terrorist or not and worse, chances are you are already decided that he/she is a terrorist, so you begin with an assumption. Now you ask nicely and dont get the answer you want, so you begin to torture-now you cause this person extreme pain (excuse me "discomfort" with waterboarding and other "acceptable" methods). It has been proven that under torture, the subject will say whatever you want-even lie to stop the pain-so suddenly we have a lot of false positive results-and the information turns out to be bad.

So does that mean that all the subjects are good people and none bad? Of course not. But what we are discussing here is torture-do we use it or not? If we act differently than our terrorist enemy, who will side with us? If we act just as bad, why would anyone in the middle east see us as better than the terrorists? If we torture many people who are in fact not terrorists, what will they do once they get home-do you think they will speak well of us and join our cause or do you think they will go home pissed off and NOW join Al Queida with a new sense of purpose and a focus for hatred? This isnt about being liberal or conservative-it is about who we are as a nation and what makes us different than them. It is also about the morality of punishing those who are not guilty (via torture and military attacks) for the purpose of targetting a relatively small number of people who are not representing a government or even a single group of civilians.

The WOT makes sense in a police and spy/intel manner. It even makes sense in a special forces/special mission way, but torture and full scale war will NOT accomplish the goals we seek. They will in fact give our enemy more allies and more resolve. The shrunken status of our coalition is but one way to measure that I am correct in this-as is the divided nation we have today. In lying to launch a full scale war and in supporting the use of torture, we lose the moral high ground and provide the required hippocracy to weaken our arguments and justifications and the actions and the history which give the enemy their own evidence to support their arguments.

I'm assuming this executive decision would apply to people like those in GITMO, captured on the battlefield, as well as those who occupy the gray area you're addresssing. For most -- and I admit it wasn't all -- of those in GITMO, the issue of whether or not they were fighting the U.S. isn't in question. Merely the extraction of additional information was in question.

I'm in another thread where we have a debate going on the issue of full scale war. While you see it as not addressing the problem, I can't see any realistic way to address the problem in any other manner. Police work isn't going to bring down terrorist organizations in other countries for the simple and obvious reason that our police don't operate in other countries. I suppose we could ignore the laws of those countries and stage black bag operations and commando raids as the Israelis have done in the past, but I can't see how that would improve either our moral or political positions. Nor can I see how it would be a more effective way of fighting terrorism than what we're currently doing.

America has experienced terrorist attacks from Islamic extremists at our embassies, military installations and on individuals for more than 30 years, add that two the 1993 attack at WTC, the 9/11 attacks, and the Madrid and London bombings, and then tell me how we can LACK the moral high ground.

Now, as to the question of "do we use torture or not," I'll go with not -- but how do we question people who are suspect in a way that is effective? Until you can answer that question, some form of discomfort or trickery is going to be necessary in interrogations. If this is indeed a debate about who we are as a nation, then I have a question. Is it better that we be seen among the cultures in which terrorism begins as a tough villian, or as a weak villain. It is clear that those who call us "the Great Satan" aren't ever going to see us as a good guy. Which "evil" national identity is better for us, given that we are probably not ever going to not be seen as evil. We're the wrong religion, just for openers, and we don't even take our own religion seriously, which makes us doubly wrong in their eyes.

Dealing with terrorism is a little like dealing with a mean dog -- you probably can't keep the dog from being mean, but you can intimidate the dog so that it doesn't act mean with you.

You began by saying that all the people at Gitmo were fighting the Americans. In fact, we had many prisnors taken on the advice of paid snitches in Afghanistan and Pakistan-I guess you can say we taught then capitalism-since they are paid per person turned in, anyone you didnt like became a potential "terrorist". We may never know how many people were innocently arrested and tortured before getting to Gitmo since many were tortured out of the country where the laws against torture dont exist.

As to your comments about full scale war, I cannot believe anyone would support making the majority of a population suffer for the actions of a very few nut jobs. Imagine if we allowed such a philosophy with our own mass murderers--blow up upstate NY because Tim McVeigh blew up the federal building? Blow up Southern California because Rev Jim Jones made kool aid with rat poison? How about Texas because of David Koresh?

Yes, we are discussing highly evil and destructive people when we discuss terrorists, but they are still criminals. Their actions are not acts of war by a government and we have no right to hold whole nations personally responsbile for the actions of a few criminals. No doubt we would not accept the rationale if someone tried it on us-why should we do it to them?

Even if it were right to to hold populations responsible, we didnt do that either. 2/3 of the attackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia-Bush says they are an allie. Others were from Pakistan, a country where we still think Bin Laden has a safe haven-again Bush calls these people our allies.

Now how about Iraq. Not only were Bush's charges false, but the reasons he gives today for staying there are not in any way the reasons he gave us then. When anyone dares point out that Bush pulled a bait and switch on us, they are called a traitor. When anyone points out that Bin Laden remains free and that many of our allies are in fact our enemies, this is simply ignored.

The WOT should exist and should be well funded. But it should focus on terrorists, not on nation building. Secondly, allies who are a source of terrorists should be cooperating in full and arresting said people. We should have MANY Saudis working on getting Bin Laden and his buddies instead of just paying us lip service as they keep adding to his forces.

As to the military, they should be part of the WOT in two places-special ops and border protection. Part of that mission is to be ready to respond if we are attacked again AND if we are hit with a natural disaster--our national guard needs to be here at home ready to respond to both natural disasters and terror attacks and our borders MUST be sealed and made hard to penetrate illegally.

Lastly we cannot ignore the two main problems with both torture and full scale war. They make us look bad AND they add to the number of terrorists and to their rationale for terror against the USA. We need to realize that any innocent person who is tortured or any person who loses a friend or family member to US attacks has now got a reason to hate us and to support our enemies. While many people were once not committed to either side as they were worried about their own lives and jobs, now these people are drawn into the war and its issues-their homes are bombed, their kids killed, their son tortured. What was once only a cause for the nutjob is now a cause for victimized family-and there is no cause greater-ask the parent of a 911 victim.

The new WOT needs to be fought with tight border entry security and advanced intelligence work IN OUR NATION and with lots of human intel and hard work working with other countries to identify and apprehend those who would build the terror networks. Al Queida doesnt have tanks or planes or troop transports. They are not going to be addressed with this type of weapon. Instead we need to penetrate their networks and their cells and remove them surgically.

If you want to talk law, consult the U.S. Supreme Court which recently held that the Convention does apply to those we hold.

See how long that lasts.

The SJC is already in trouble with the people for other stuff, but making torture legal and calling these people anything but prisnors of war is a tough status to keep long.

what the person wears. We all know that the USA up until this President did not condone torture. We faced far greater threats in the Cold War than we do with terrorists. The CIA may have tortured Russian spies for all we know but the official position of the US was that torture of all kinds was an abomination. Anyone who parses this basic fact vainly searching for some words to justify barbarism is un-American and acting against the mores of all civilized nations.

I began by saying that there were errors in some instances (as there always are on battlefields). I addressed that parenthetically in my very first sentence.

My view of a full-scale war on terrorism isn't the same as a full-scale war using the 80's-era "AirLand Battle" doctrine against a nation's military might. The days when our military will do things like that are probably gone, with the end of the Soviet Union. I was picturing something more on the order of what we're doing with the surge, pinning down individual neighborhoods and making certain terrorists can't operate there -- BTW, I have acquaintances in Iraq right now who tell me the surge is working extremely well in the areas where its been applied.

It would also entail a massive build-up of human intelligence to identify terrorist targets, and the use of Special Forces and similar small-unit attacks to deal with individual threats. This is somewhat the way the Israelis went after terrorists in the 1970s (and beyond, but less publically). A total war on terrorism should be hard on terrorists, but not necessarily hard on the infrastructure. But the military does have a place in these operations providing security where it is needed both here and abroad (and yes, that means we should probably pull out of Kosovo, which is now fairly stable, and do something about Darfur, which clearly isn't).

The leadership of terrorism, the places where its seeds are planted and the new terrorists grown, are not for the most part located in the U.S. I want to pull up those weeds before they have to grow. While I agree with you 100-percent-plus that we should be doing a much better job of border security, border security is only going to make the terrorists job more difficult. I want to eliminate the terrorists before the ease or difficulty of the job is a concern. That means fighting them on their ground, not ours.

Fighting them on "their gound" is fine when you are fighting the correct people. Originally, this was a very small number of people-the vast majority of the population in these countries are just trying to get through their daily life.

I find it amusing you think we can "root them out" as if they are dug in strongly anywhere and can be removed. What you fail to realize is that the root causes of the problem are and always have been the USA's support for dictatorships which keep their people in line with brutal tactics using weapons and money WE give to their governments.

Case in point-Saudi Arabia. Home of 2/3 of the 911 hijackers and to many of the foreign fighters we have captured in Iraq. In this oil rich nation, 90% of the population is living in complete poverty and works for meager wages in the very oil fields which allow their government to have solid gold toilet seats and a ski slope in the desert. The leadership speaks from both sides of their mouths, telling the people that it is America and other rich western nations who are getting rich at their expense but telling America that they are our allies and support us 100%. Meanwhile, anyone with a brain (including Bin Laden) knows that the USA is providing the military aid and all kinds of money for the government which is keeping them down. Protests are broken up with M-16 rifles, bombs are dropped with US made aircraft, troops dropped in US made helicopters.

Al Queida isnt simply a group of people who hate the USA and Israel because of religious intolerance. The inequities which the poor of the middle east suffer are not in dispute by either side. The trouble is that the only ones providing aid-financial and spiritual-directly to the poor are the churches (mosques) and this is the only place where the poor may assemble and not get shot-they have their mosques as a safe refuge and a place to think but of course it comes with a price-your entire nation is Muslim. So Al Queida remains a political terror organization but MUST incorporate religion because in these nations, it is the center of all culture and communication.

The surge is working ONLY where the troops are. As soon as they are gone, so is the accompishment. This is not success. Success would be to remove the bad elements and then see civilization in its place. The problem is that the population is the bad element because they dont support the US puppett government. As quickly as US troops leave the insurgents return.

I ask you this simple question. If a foreign nation removed Bush and congress and then forced new elections with the candidates having to be pre-approved (and "protected" the election at gunpoint) how legit would the new democratically elected government be in your eyes?

Until we can remove the element of US force from the story in Iraq, there is no proof of success. Leaving is more than just some liberal statement and it is not an indication of losing the war-we won when Saddam was removed. It is a sign that the people of Iraq are now in charge.

The fundamentalist answer to that is "All the unsaved, for all eternity."

Boomer