OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[Tichy]

We can argue all day about what we are bound to do according to notoriously flimsy precedents of international laws of war. What's more important is the question of what we *ought* to do.

We may be able to legally wrangle our way out of adhering to the international standards that other civilized nations adhere to, on the basis that our enemy is not acting as a civilized nation. And it's also clear that people who like to argue this way usually have the UN-bashing conservative's contempt for the very idea of international law.

But no legal argument, or ideological rejection of international law, changes the fact that acting the way we've been acting is *morally* shameful, and leads to justifiable suspicion about our motives and methods.

Even if the moral argument doesn't sway you, the tactical advantages of having the perceived moral high ground should. We did a lot better on the ground when enemy soldiers perceived surrendering to U.S. troops as a ticket to a safe place to sleep, a meal and not-getting-shot-at, instead of a bag over the head and a one-way trip to the inquisition.