I think America gets it to. Chavez did us a big favor yesterday and today by repeating Democrat talking points with an ugliness that is often reserved for the internet. What a great Wake Up call.

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The left suffers endlessly from that cancerous innocence.

There are several rational reasons why those things shouldn’t be done, independent of the ethical reasoning.

For one thing, there is nothing you can do to a person that would be as bad as the things he fears you will do to him in his mind. The human imagination can come up with worst nightmares than any reality. Physical wounds are just, physical wounds. It is the spiritual and the mental wounds that can’t be easily healed. Sure, you could choose to use brute force and brainwashing techniques in order to convert a prisoner, but do you know how much work that would require for 2,000 prisoners, 50,000, a million in a war to the knife? Shouldn’t be and can’t be done for most. The benefits are not worth it, to get to all the trouble of brainwashing a prisoner just for information. The Nazis did it because they had some sadistic people in Intel and interrogations, and also because the orders of cruelty came from the top. Hitler cared very much for the prisoners, he cared about utilizing them to the maximum potential good for the Aryan race.

For the US, it would be better to just get the information and then get rid of the enemy. American will fullfill our maximum potential without relying upon the uses to which we may put our enemies to.

So, given that it is the psychological condition of a prisoner that you are seeking to influence, then there is technically no need to inflict permanent or life threatening physical injuries. It does mean however, that you must make people think that you are going to do so. People will call your bluff if you just threaten, but if you threaten and then demonstrate that you are willing to do such things, then you don’t need to do it. Does that seem counter-intuitive perhaps? Don’t blame me, I didn’t design the human mind.

If you’ve got Joe Shmo (or, should I say, Mohammed Al-Shmo) from Turkey, via Britain and Germany, who owes his allegiance to a small branch of terrorists that’s loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda, with whom are you going to negotiate?

Why are you asking us, Bookworm, you and Don are the lawyers. Can’t you guys write some contract up or something that allows us to specify which party the terrorists are a part of and then take (legal) action against said party?

You can find it and you can speak to it.

If you can find it and speak to it, you can kill it. Hard to kill someone when he can’t be found.

And before someone runs away with the idea that I’m advocating torture of the type that

How about we say we ran towards that idea, and not do it.

that is, people who have already embraced the idea of physical risk to achieve their goals in the first instance —

Could you address the scenario where terrorists hold Americans hostage and want all the GitMo prisoners released? Would you tolerate the President using the GitMo prisoners as hostages and executing them, as a way to pressure and force the safe release of American hostages?

(It’s actually not a scenario, they’ve already done it more or less, the terroists)

Would this violate the belief that we shouldn’t negotiate with hostages, in your view, Bookworm?

Do you think the President and the military have enough leverage-power to get the military tribunals up to try and execute the terroist prisoners, like post-WWII, or do you think the terrorists will be tried in civilian courts and released?

So that’s like 3 questions in all, to sum it up.