Is the US better than terrorists? In some ways …

Just a quickie, several responders to my blog about a POW in Afghanistan who has been held more than two years, and we sure hope isn’t being tortured by his captors, said the reason the US is better than the people we are fighting over there is because, well, we’re better.

And we are, mostly, but we can hardly claim that nobody can torture our prisoners because we don’t torture theirs.

As this item in slate makes clear (click) it is well documented that we did and may still.

Now, feel free to argue that those aren’t really soldiers in Gitmo, or that Taliban treatment of women and civilians is disgusting, and several other things, and so their fighters don’t deserve Geneva protection.

Even if I grant you that, I still argue that to be better than them, we can’t just meet some qualifications or standard measures that they don’t.

We must be better than them.  We should not torture people. Not just because it doesn’t work, and not just because it’s not even necessary, and not just because it is far too easily abused, we shouldn’t do it because it’s just plain wrong.

But we did.