"...it won't be long before the media will be making comparisons with nasty regimes that we don't want mentioned in the same sentence with the U.S.A."
And why do we call "nasty regimes" nasty? Perhaps because they put people into secret prisons without benefit of trial or oversight? If that's what we do, how can we claim to be different?
"I wonder if Red Cross already knew about the prisons... I hope we have had some kind of Red Cross oversight - they are pretty good at keeping quiet and that will go a long way to allow us to claim the prisons were acceptably humanitarian."
Am I the only one who is disturbed that things that are not "acceptably humanitarian" may be going on there? When you lose the moral high ground, you have lost. Period.
"And why do we call "nasty regimes" nasty? Perhaps because they put people into secret prisons without benefit of trial or oversight? If that's what we do, how can we claim to be different?"
They are called nasty regimes because they sought to conquer and enslave. We would like nothing more than to get our troops back home. They seek to pillage the countries they fight and take everything - we help rebuild them and tax ourselves to do it. They set up puppet governments that must conform their master's will - we will accept whatever democratically elected government the people choose.
I agree. It doesn't jibe with Bush's stated goal of ending alliances, of short term advantage, with dictatorships.