Hey would "those same people" include all "those people" we've released after torture revealed they were goat herders, or all the "collateral" casualties incurred as a byproduct of our freedom spreading ways? I guess it's OK with you to bring the wonders of democracy and freedom to others by killing them. It's okay to "ensure" your personal safety by torturing people despite the myriad reasons why it is not only ineffective but amoral. Will you feel the same if China brings its "glorious socialist" ways to America in the same manner once we go bankrupt?

Are you really as stupid as you appear in writing or are you simply a sadistic jackass? Either way you need to develop a soul and a brain before you start typing. I'm sure you're a real nice guy to puppies and your kids but beyond that an unthinking sadistic clown when it comes to the rest of humankind.

And no the law isn't just some "academic" exercise in the real world, it was once the foundation of our little American experiment in self governance. Clearly the founders were right when they predicted we'd botch it. With half of the citizenry as cowardly as you that they'd allow themselves to be brought as low as those we claim to oppose it is no wonder.

You are so weak and fearful you make me sick to my stomach. See a shrink. Please. You have a statistically better chance of being struck by lightening than you do of being a victim, on American soil, of a terrorist attack. More people die at a ratio of 500 to 1 of preventable medical malpractice so maybe we should torture doctors and hospital administrators until they clean up their act or confess why it's happening.

Do you even read the articles Glen writes and links to? The place is overflowing with "facts" but because they aren't ones you want to accept you just deny them. How conservative of you.

but the point is that the question "what Reyes motivations are" is irrelevant to the issue at hand in every conceivable way i.e. it doesn't matter if torture is effective (which it demonstrably is not and that's not me just saying it, it is the people who engage in the alternative methods that actually succeed who say it) it continues to be WRONG for myriad reasons posted here for years. That I call you names is because clearly you're either being wilfully obtuse or you are morally impaired. So which is it?

Query: Assuming torture is effective (for the sake of argument) is it any less repellent morally? And if it doesn't really offend your sense of morality and you feel it's productive, why stop at non-citizens or those suspected of terrorism? Why not use these methods on drug dealers, white collar criminal CEO's (who wreck more lives than terrorists everyday) etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum. If it's okay for us to torture we can't really have any issue with anyone capturing our soldiers and torturing them? Right? Is spreading freedom and democracy sufficient moral basis to justify our torture of "others" and simultaneously insufficient for foreign citizens defending their homes, families, and neighbors from using it to derive when and where the next American "smart" bombing is going to take place (or the whereabouts of cluster bombs, uranium cased shells, or unexploded ordinance)? Because what is certain and demonstrably true is that "collateral" damage to non combatants is both unavoidable and inevitable. It is the necessary consequence of the act of bombing.

I guess every other human man woman and child on the planet is somehow less than an American and that yeah war is bad but yeah it's a necessary evil so everyone in the world can have the wonderful opportunity to eat at McDonalds, shop at WalMart, and drive a Hummer. Maybe you should read a little St. Thomas Aquinas on just war, trying listening in church, and then STFU and think about what it is you're typing. Maybe you really are that dumb and morally depraved that you are incapable of "getting it."

we have become little more than a sad joke in the world community. Feared and loathed and little respected. We claim to be the "shining city on the hill" when really we should claim to be the "shiny penny in a pile of poop." Other than force of arms what "markers" of "high civilization" do we actually lead in anymore? Infant mortality, per capita GDP, public/business corruption, . . . I'm having a hard time coming up with any which is really really sad. Lowest taxes in the industrialized world or highest wealth inequality are my guesses. Not something to be real proud of. Oh yeah and most strings attached foreign aid. I forgot that one.

I think it's coming down to outside forces changing America's insides, because clearly we seem largely incapable of doing it ourselves. My guess is they'll do to us what we do to those we don't like--ECONOMIC EMBARGOES, TRADE SANCTIONS and DIVESTITURE. Should work pretty effectively too given the pool of quicksand our economy is currently sitting on. Use of arms against us is out of the question because our leaders are just insane enough to nuke someone in retaliation and everybody knows it.