Yoda & Steve point out a real disconnect that modern technology has created in wartime activities. It seems a lot "cleaner" to use drones to kill the enemy than to have to capture them and treat them with any sort of treaty-obligated humane-ness.

The Japanese were very aware of this, and were far more merciless to captured soldiers than even the Germans. Stalin, too, was no pussycat.

On the other hand, where we are in a situation where our own people don't speak Arabic and the loyalty of translators are questionable at best, how effective is interrogation/torture? We're dealing not just with a language problem, but a cultural one as well. We already know that Jihadists see death as a goal to be sought, not avoided.

Three points about the whole interrogation thing bothers me.

1.) If waterboarding is so effective, why was it necessary to carry it out on one lone person 163 times? And how can that now NOT be called cruel torture v. "information gathering?"

2.) If the ideological stupidity of "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" had been employed to help our nation, instead of to satisfy some homophobic egos, the policy would have been modified to allow the 50 discharged Arabic translators to remain in the military and help with the War effort.

Apparently it is ok to keep violent felons & white supremists in the military, but not individuals who did nothing wrong in civilian life except learn how to speak an incredibly different language that our war effort desperately needed. What priorities and military leadership did THAT illustrate?

3. I would argue that the Geneva Conventions always apply. We signed them as such, and unless we wish to change the language in them, we should abide by them. It is by observing them that we would then be able to bring violators to international justice. As it stands now, our former Vice-President and Defense Secretary can't leave the country for fear of arrest for war crimes, and a whole slew of lawyers, including one who is now a federal judge, will soon be facing the justice of the American people.

We are a nation of laws. The entire "operation" of our torture machine was developed not by experienced military leaders but by ideologues who seemed not to care that they knew nothing about the international rules of law. Ideology won out over professionalism. THe philosophy is no different than that of Stalin and a hundred other all-powerful political tin-horns.