and where you see some kind of inbuilt Republican lust for torture, I see people who were dealing with a new and frightening situation, and who made some decisions that even now, are controversial.

Don' you dare presume 'what I see'- What I see are human beings given illegal, illdefined, and insufficient rules to operate by. What I see is a group of people in this administration that feel they are above the law, and have no problem telling grunts to do the dirty work for them in the field. I see an administration that has worked very hard to circumvent our laws as well as international laws.

The interrogators said they got information from people like KSM that saved lives--

Yeah, but they have said a lot that wasnt true, haven't they? Of COURSE they are going to say that, but the the point you work so hard to miss is that it doesn't matter if the illegal actions resulted in the saving of lives or not. There are laws that we have agreed to follow- we violated those laws- it was wrong and evil when we put japanese americans in internment camps, and it is wrong and evil to engage in torture now.

What do we call people that ignore the law when it suits them? The word is "criminal"...

Do I expect the enemy to abide by the Geneva Convention? Nope, I know better than that- But I DO expect US to follow the laws, THAT IS WHAT MAKES US THE GOOD GUYS!

If the bad guys had a nuke I am sure they would try to use it nuke one of our cities, does that mean we can start nuking their cities because thats the sort of thing 'they' would do?

There are surely some terrifically brutal and evil things that we could do to reduce terrorism... but we dont do those things because we stand for something better than that. If we stop standing for those things what have we won?

Will sticking to our principles cost us american lives? Its quite possible, but ask yourself this "how many lives have we sacrificed to establish and preserve those principles?" Are we willing to dishonor those that fought and died for the principles that make us what we are?

How many deaths is it worth for America to keep its moral high ground? This is not a facetous question, and believe it or not, I think there may be a real answer greater than zero.

What do we call people that ignore the law when it suits them?

Its odd, I think America is too good to be violating the principles it stands for... you seem to have a much lower opinion of America...

I'm actually conflicted on this, and have been for a long time

That is because you know it is WRONG! Is YOUR America one that discards its principles like this?