[Preechr]

I'm interested, and I obviously haven't explained my position well enough yet, or you wouldn't be asking for further clarification, right?

Let's try to remedy that.

First, let's examine a snapshot of where we are right now: I think it's safe to say that whether we have any actual data to work with, the vast majority of us do not think real torture is actually being used all that often by Americans right now. The real problem is that we do not know, and nobody is telling us the rules. You are asking me what I think, and I'm telling you, mostly for both of us in order for us to have something to do where that something concerns us. If Rummy published a book on US torture in reality, we'd go read it instead of doing this.

We know the specter of torture is out there, but other than that, we don't know shit. The same exact thing is true of nearly everyone in the world right now, enemy fighter, American soldier or random, uninvolved idiot. If one of our goals is to extract information from anyone that might have it, that's a pretty sweet set-up ain't it?

If another one of our goals is to get valuable information without actually being barbaric dicks, this is also the best method to do so. Let me explain that...

Think about it. One of your questions concerned where I felt this torture line should be drawn... Can you tell me how we're gonna figure out who does and who doesn't have potentially life-saving intel in their heads... maybe even when they don't know it's importance... Maybe we're talking about some random Iraqi father of three, a dentist that's never stood up for or against anything in his life and never will. Maybe he doesn't know that the construction crew he saw the other day was actually a bunch of dickheads rigging up IEDs. Maybe, if he thinks these possibly insane and probably racist Americans that rounded him up in a raid might just pull out his fingernails for fun, he'll give them something else to do... anything else.

Maybe, however, if he's read in the paper that these Americans that rounded him up in that raid are guaranteed to never do anything bad to him, he'll just sit there and raise hell until they let him go.

What if he's not a dentist? What if he's actually just pretending to be a dentist, but in fact he is a bad guy that knows a lot of stuff the good guys would really like to know? Personally, I'd prefer either one of those guys to be scared of having their fingernails pulled out. I want them both to worry about the safety of their families. Is it so bad, considering the situation, to want to see them both pissing their pants with fear? I feel sorry for the hypothetical dentist, but I realize that all he has to do is be completely honest with those possibly insane Americans.

You saying torture is not effective is like me claiming that pepper spray doesn't work because ninjas, yogis and PCP addicts are immune to it. I promise you that if I believe I'm subject to torture by my captors, I'm spilling my guts. Al Quaeda is not the Legion of Doom. Your average terrorist is a garden variety idiot. That's what makes them so dangerous.

You ask if we should be willing to adopt the values of our enemy. As I am expaining this, do you see me doing that? I'm not suggesting firing squads, beheadings or mass graves here. An official ban on torture would take away a very valuable psychological tool. There is a ton of valuable intelligence to be gained from a large number of people that are not actual leaders of terrorist organizations. Most of those people will talk if they think torture is an option for their interrogators. Most of them won't if they know torture is completely off the table. Those that would are probably already talking.

I'm trying to paint you a picture of the vast territory that exists between our troops picking up someone that might know something and the point at which we cross your moral line. There's a lot of good information to get in there, and we can get it with nothing but the fear of what might possibly come next. I told you before that their's is different world from ours, right? Personally, I can think of no better example than that dentist. Many Iraqis and other Middle Easterners are no more connected to this war than most of us are.

You and I can sit over here and discuss the tremendous benefits that lie in store for them once something as simple as basic security is established, but that dentist can go to work every day and sleep all night long, smiling all the time like nothing is wrong, while his blithe disconnectedness to the war all around him might very easily one day destroy the lives of his loved ones or himself. All it takes is the thought of someone causing him a little pain, and all of a sudden he's a team player.

It's a different world.

Do I wish we lived in a world where terror and torture were mere memories of a bygone era? Sure I do. Is this that world? Nope. As long as barbarism exists, no matter how many personal electronics are available to me and no matter how sophisticated and modern my lifestyle is, I still live in a barbaric time in human history.

I want that era to end. There is no evidence that it ever will through only us setting a better example. To zoom in, consider the example of our own economy: Some of us are rich and some poor, right? Until we build a bridge between those disparate stratii, no poor person will ever believe he can ever aquire wealth. The War on Terror is building a bridge between their way of life and ours. The War on Terror is ending their endless war.

We will not win this war between two different worlds by us fighting in our world and them fighting in theirs. That would mean eventually fighting this world on OUR streets, Zig. The reason this war exists is because of problems OVER THERE, and so we will have to fight this war as close to our rules as possible, but well within their territory and thus by their rules. This endless war continues because they do not yet know they have lost it already. We are explaining it to them in their language right now so there can be no doubt.