Bull. Most emphatically disagreed with that, including those on this non-representative site. They were disgusting, unprofessional, illegal, ineffectual, and damaging to both the moral standing of this country, and to the causes for which it fights. Granted the unpublished ones, probably represent even more serious felonies, with even more attendant damage. And you know what? It appears the brass looked the other way. Kay mentioned it, others mentioned it, but nobody cared, because they thought it was generating information, however illegally obtained. The brass is in big trouble. Stay tuned.
What's your guess as to how big? Rumsfeld forced to resign?
Here's what troubles me. Obviously the abuses were heinous, and inexcusable. But at the same time, are we going to make the mistake of the '70's by overreacting and placing too many restraints on intelligence gathering? There are acceptable ways of 'softening up' that don't involve the inexcusable physical violations of rape, beatings, forced mastubation, etc., such as sleep deprivation, mind games, etc. One fear I have is that we will throw the baby out with the bathwater and restrict those legitimate interrogation tools, too. I am already seeing that in much of the media portrayals, how they successfully intertwine simple humiliation with serious abuses in their recitation of the harmful acts.
And bottom line, these are serious and deadly times. How far is too far if the information retrieves stops terror attacks, which are moving closer and closer to acts of mammoth scale? That is not a defense of what happened, nor of Rush's foolish carelessness, nor of the barbarian 'nuke 'em now, apologize later' mindset, nor of any type of physical brutality. But the stakes now do rise to the level where interrogators must push to near the limit, without crossing the fine line.
"Man's inhumanity to man" is as old as the hills, and if there was ever a superpower, such as the great U.S., less totalitarian and abusive in all of history, please point it out.
Any thinking adult can seperate the actions of a few soldiers from the true zeitgeist of a nation. Some, however are cynical and desperate enough (read: libs) to pretend they cannot.
If only you people could crank up the same degree of dudgeon over Pearl having his throat cut like a chicken. At this point, I couldn't give a flying f* if the Pentagon just strafed the next fist-pumping crowd that celebrates on al-Jazeera when some American contractor gets slaughtered. One way or another, we'll communicate the message that terrorist attacks on the civilized world are not going to happen again.