Dianavan, I respect your views on this, but I don't entirely agree. I do think that Saddam Hussein was a menace who had to be dealt with; I do believe that promoting human rights and self-determination for the peoples of the world are appropriate goals for the US; and I do believe that, to a point, it is important for the US and other countries to take some measures to ensure that energy resources continue to be available to the world. I expect that others on this forum might disagree with some of that, and that's okay with me, but these are my views.

However, assuming for the sake of argument that these are legitimate aims, I still can't fathom how we can realistically expect to advance them by abusing people in our custody. Even if we somehow bypass the moral issue, as a practical matter we need to win people over or we will never accomplish any of this. It's the old "hearts and minds" objective from Vietnam war days; until we truly recognize that as our primary objective, and align our tactics with our objectives, we don't stand a chance.