[quote=KSMountain]You’re making quite a leap (perhaps even an absurd one) when you compare the murder of millions of innocent folks with the waterboarding of 3 folks, who are still alive, who were themselves murderers of thousands.[/quote]

I wasn’t comparing the crimes, I was comparing their defense. It doesn’t just apply to the Nazis, it applies to anyone whose defense is ‘I was just following orders.’

In your opinion is the Nuremberg Defense a valid defense when committing any crime? If I am a UPS driver and I get a ticket for speeding while attempting to make an on-time delivery, am I off the hook because I was ‘just doing my job?’ I think you’d be hard pressed to find any judge who would accept that as a valid argument. (I’m not a lawyer, so please correct me if I am wrong).

[quote=KSMountain]The interrogation techniques were specifically found legal by the attorney general at the time.[/quote]

So the AG is the one that decides what’s legal and what isn’t? I could be wrong, but wasn’t he simply advising the administration on whether he thought it was legal or not? And isn’t it the job of a judge/jury to ultimately decide the legality of it? As far as I know torture is/was illegal. That’s the whole point — why not have a proper trial, and if the administration’s lawyers can convince a judge/jury that torture was legal, then they’re off the hook. If not, they broke the law.

[quote=KSMountain]If every citizen (let alone CIA agents) labored under the threat that whatever behavior they currently legally engage in could later be retroactively declared illegal, that would make it pretty difficult to get anything done. It’s my understanding that that kind of legal shenanigans is actually prohibited in the constitution.[/quote]

Again, you’re operating under the assumption that torture is now (or was when they were doing it) legal. When has torture ever been legal? When Gonzalez declared it so?

I agree with you – torture is not well defined, and that makes legal arguments for and against difficult — but in this case, we had an administration declare that it was legal simply because they wanted to use it, without any regard for whether or not it was actually legal. If the administration wanted to torture — or more specifically waterboard — they should have proposed legislation to legalize it, not bend the rules to get away with something illegal. The last thing we need are our leaders unilaterally declaring laws at their will.

[quote=KSMountain]
Tell me this afx114: Do you think the special forces that shot the 3 pirates should be tried for murder?[/quote]

No, because they acted within the legal rules of engagement. Within the law. Now, if they just went off and shot any random dude on a boat for no reason — sure, they should be tried for murder.