Are you appealing to judgment or emotion? Personal involvement can obscure judgment, which is why a judge would not preside over a case involving him personally.
Which is EXACTLY why we should be no different. Do you think they would stop if we showed them the example of how to conduct war? Just remember the phrase "all is fair in love and war"
We should always sink to the level of the opponent? What a high minded philosophy... Very principled, which why it is that we can no longer tell the good guys from the bad guys in this world...they have all become bad in the name of "goodness."
Your letting your ideals blind you to reality. If you were trading against someone who had a distinct advantage over you, you would lose in the long run. We all have idealistic views of how things should be, but they will never exist like that in this world so the playing field MUST at least be level or an advantage to you. Read the Art of War, ancient principles of engagement that ring true to this day. That book would tell you to not engage in a war like this if we will not engage our enemy properly.
My ideals don't blind me to the reality that we are sacrificing what made us great as a nation when we can stay true to our principles and defend our own country. Will you stop with the Art of war nonsense? Those who wrote those ideas lost the war...
Great, let's capture and teach our enemy Kumbaya! Show them the sound of music! Under your idealistic blinders, we should arm our soldiers with knives and send them into a gunfight. It's ok for us to die, die with good solid principles. Let me remind you that we won WWII by killing masses of women and children in Japan, dropping 2 nukes on them. I too, wish the world was different and we could all get along, but that is a pipe dream.
You seem to be going off on a tangent. I am suggesting we be a nation of law and principles first and foremost, you are suggesting we become as low as the enemy. There is no civilization in becoming just like the uncivilized...and it was not necessary to drop the bomb to win the war with Japan. http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=it+w...bomb+to+win+the+war+with+japan&fp=lRDD8WBgbNU Really, you have a choice to allow an enemy to destroy a principled existence, or to stand firm on the principles that stand for civilization... The end justifies the means is the exact same approach the Muslim extremists take, and you certainly don't support their principles, do you?
You're right, I am on a rant. I want this war on terror to end, I want our guys to come back to their families and I want at least some sort of semblance to stability in the Islamic world. But unless we play hardball with these guys, we will likely be at war perpetually. If we had never used the nukes, there may have been a much different outcome to that war, and many many more lives ultimately lost. War is hell.