[JLS]

While I would not condone or recommend it, IF the US kept doing things like this, the Islamofascist might begin to respect the US more. They certainly respected Saddam who brutalized Iraqis far worse.

Now that is not our way, but I do not buy into this great harm to the US claim. Similarly, I did not scream for flattening Al Falluja just to get their respect. If we start behaving like uncivilized Islamics, they will have in one sense won.

However, kicking their butts in battle and being tough is what we need to do. Will someone occasionaly go over the line. Sure. People did in WWII, WWI, the Civil War the Revolutionary War etc. I think what I have seen so far is not terribly over the line, but not what we do never-the-less. So some soldiers will be sanctioned. That happens in every war too.

[RightWhale]

While we might not have moral purity anymore, we have stated the rules we operate under. We will not nuke cities, we will not bomb and gas civilians except where they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we will not machine-gun prisoners before breakfast. For the time being.