How many more lives will be lost because we lose our moral authority? Because we can no longer lead the world against the barbarians using ourselves as an example if we violate the geneva convention.

The answer to this is exactly zero. While you and others present good arguments against extreme interrogation, this one never held up.

There is not one enemy of ours--not one--who has not done much worse than this to our troops in every conflict we've been in since WWII. There is not one current enemy--not one--who gives the slightest thought to what we do to prisoners when sawing the heads off of our people. Had we never done so much as mussed the hair of a single prisoner, there isn't one person that has fallen into the hands of the terrorists who would have been treated one bit differently.

And the civilized nations who've been pissed at us through the entire Cold War would just find another reason to condemn us.

When the monsters torture our soldiers - and they will, no matter what we do- will we be able to tell the world that the monsters have behaved as no civilized people would?

And what the hell difference will this make? The "condemnation" of the civilized world amounts to so many buzzing gnats to these people. Again, if we put up our captured terrorists at the Ritz, and then condemned our enemies for using power drills on captured prisoners, exactly WHAT WOULD BE DIFFERENT? You think they'd stop out of shame?

On the other hand, if even ONE prisoner gives us information that saves ONE life, as I see it we're one life ahead.

As I said, I'm conflicted on this, but you won't recognize at all that each side of the issue has its own problems.