Martin, Doug:

I think you guys have seriously gotten the ACLU mixed up with someone else. They understand the issues that arise in times of war -- even an undeclared war.

DougR, you rassertion that the ACLU would frown on the capture of enemies in war-time is disingenuous and barbarous. The line that is drawn by the Geneva Convention is against the peculiarly cruel and unusual treatments that people have come up with, including extreme methods of torture, to use against their imprisoned enemies.

Maybe in your bloodlust for revenge you see nothing wrong with doing to a prisoner the worst things you can imagine, to make him pay, individually, for your whole nation's losses at war. The Geneva Convention, in a moment of relative clarity, was developed to prevent exactly that kind of blinded sadism from making crude animals out of human beings.

To defend such practices is to promote humanity's inhumanity and the erosion of civilization. This is waaaay beyond the effort and commitment needed to win the war. Is that where you want to go with your blood-lust and fanatacism?

A