It occurred to me this morning that the raving right wing (and some of us right here on DU) has/have an odd set of conflicting standards about how to prosecute a war.
1. If our civilians are killed by terrorists, we can kill as many of their civilians as we want, even if they're not from the same country as the terrorists, just so long as we can claim we're "winning" the war, whatever that means.
2. If we capture their terrorists, we can torture them, but we disagree about executing them
3. If we capture their leader, we can execute him, but we disagree about torturing him.
4. If they bash in a marine's (or ordinary citizen's) kneecaps, electrify his genitals, load him up with drugs, deprive him of sleep, make him act out sexual scenes with other naked marines on camera and have a national military trading card collection, it's clearly and indisputably torture, but if we do it to them, it's merely "college hazing".
5. It's not really torture if it's not breaking any laws, even if we have to change the laws at the last minute just in case. Torture is illegal you know.
6. We have an indisputable right to the information in a prisoner's head, by whatever means, but other nations do not have an indisputable right to the information in our soldier's and citizens heads, by any means.
7. We have a right to set up roadblocks that say "if you're close enough to read this, etc." that blow up civilians who can't read english to smithereens, and to ride through the streets of Baghdad shooting civilians with 100% impunity
http://www.chris-floyd.com/fallujah/contract/, yet when they blow us up they are the evil bad guys.
Please, share your observations about double standards. I personally think it destroys our moral authority to shamelessly exercise a double standard, but worse, it puts the lives of our soldiers and of our people at risk today, and ten and twenty years from now.
We seem to think it's amusing to play adolescent games like this, but sooner or later we (you and I) are going to have to pay the piper for what those people are doing, for what half this country is condoning by inaction, by braying-ass congratulatory chain emails to each other about how much worse things would be if we weren't doing this.