if he can engage in pretzel logic like the following . . .

"Some people might believe there is one for torture too. You might not agree, but those who commit violence inself defense are not moral equivalents of those who do so out of aggression. Similarly those who torture out of self defense are not moral equivalents of all torturers."

Ok Dave, temporal concerns are relevant as is the "objective" reasonableness of your "fear", at least according to the law. So here's a little mind bender. If vast swaths of the world's population (and America's) "accurately" perceived the "real world degree of threat and imminence of that threat" that "pre-Bush" Iraq presented to the US of A. and Bush inaccurately perceived that threat or in fact lied about the seriousness of that threat to justify his "self-defensive" actions, does it not negate your point?

In the context of your "daughter scenario", if you mistakenly perceive the actual threat to your daughter and embark on a "well-motivated" pre-emptive torture and ass kicking progrom against all those "perceived" threats, does your misguided good intent absolve you from your the legal consequences of your acts. Of course not. This isn't a matter of the scale of the potential harm (aka Cheney's 1% doctrine) it is a matter of both the (imminence + reality of the nature of the threat). If magnitude of prospective harm were part of the equation everyone in the world would be banding together to nuke us from the face of the earth. Apparently they are more moral than us and less afraid.

You appear to be one of three things: 1) a deluded whacko who can justify violence aimed at anything or anyone who you perceive to be a threat to you and yours, or 2) an idiot who makes bad judgement call and should have to live with the full panopoly of legal and moral consequences of his "oh so well intentioned" but unsubstantiated fear, (like Pres. Bush) or 3) in the context of a perpetuating lies about an "actual threat" when there wasn't a good faith basis to believe there was ONE followed by aggressive, illegal, amoral acts--makes you a war criminal (like Pres. Bush et al). You don't get the defense of "my bad I was just scared of you" without you actually having been objectively correct about the perceived threat. Do you understand? Even then it would be debatable as to the reasonableness of response.

Purposefully obtuse bed wetting babies who don't have the intellectual horsepower to even have an internally consistent morality much less understand what this issue is about, really shouldn't post much here. What do you have like a AA an MBA? Online divinity degree? Brain damage or no soul? Fundamentalist Christian beliefs? Which is it?

because you "believe" that whatever argument you make is the most salient despite myriad posters here blowing up every single one and refuting the applicability of every argument by analogy offered. Here's another inapposite one:

"If a police officer shoots a 10 year old boy because he believes the boy is pointing a gun at him, his claim of self-defense will stand. Even if the threat was shown non-existent as in it was a toy gun."

It is objectively reasonable, given certain visual environs, to reasonably mistake a toy gun for a real gun being pointed at an officer and for the office to defend himself given the objective reasonableness of the imminence and nature of threat with inaction . . . this is not analogous to the "reality and imminence of the threat posed by Iraq based on the information known to the world at the time of our attack". Based on the information known at the time (no hijackers were Iraqi, weapons inspectors on ground, etc. etc.) it was not by any stretch of the imagination reasonable to preemptively attack Iraq and/or engage in torture of "combatants" as a response . . . and just because you "believe" this an apt analogy and "arguably" justifiable moral response or legitimate dilemma does not make it so.

Another point you never seem to want to address, is whether or not it is excusable to mistakenly torture the wrong people . . . ondelette has explored the very precise scenario that might make torture justifiable and refuted it convincingly taking into account the inevitable and very real unintended consequences of legitimizing torture. Do you still think it is okay to legitimize torture knowing that inevitably you will torture innocents? If you do, my (and dare I say our) point stands that your morality and humanity is suspect despite your contorted protestations otherwise.

You are in for a long road in higher education if you are unwilling to ever concede you are wrong or accept when the validity of one of your "points" has been soundly refuted. But good luck to you. I still think you're an obtuse troll with zero moral grounding masquerading as a liberal on the toobz. It seems to be the cross we carry here--attempt to convince and audience that is incapable of conceiving that they might be wrong. Trying to debate things with those who have little capacity to do so in an intellectually consistent or honest way. I'm sorry that you can't admit your arguments are as weak as your intellect.

You'll do well at Liberty University. Best of luck.