AD as long as Bush is around to blame for any mistakes PC will run amok, let there be another attack on America and watch how fast these cowards on the left run away from their PC positions

Gid, while I understand your position I ask that you stay on topic in your defense. No one (on either side) is saying that we should torture just anyone (unrestrained power). The innocent here are people who are guilty by association or has evidence that links them to a plot or act.

Says who?

Due process is an invention of civilisation, it is not available in nature (the tiger will eat you) nor is it a good deal or fair towards the uninvolved.

Within a legal system, like under a king or in a republic, due process is a good deal to keep the balance between government power and the right of the individual. But that is not the situation Guantanamo is in.

All wars see the innocent become casualties. But here's the thing:

Guantanamo keeps lots of terrorists out of the war, reducing the number of battles.

The innocents in Guantanamo (and I doubt they are a large percentage) are in the mean time enjoying a far better fate than the innocent casualties of the battles would have.

Sometimes the question is not right or wrong, but pure mathematics. Should we keep innocents alive and in prison or should we risk them (more likely others) being killed in battles that can be avoided by keeping terrorists in Guantanamo?

If the US would apply the idea that no innocents' rights must be harmed no matter what to the war (or any war), the US wouldn't be able to fight.

Tell that to the terrorists' victims in the west and the middle east.

Yes, but I see this being the fundamental question which reveals how one thinks. Logically or Emotionally.

and are you able to accept that few innocents are mistakenly tortured in order to protect civilians?

Torture is wrong.  Period.  End of story.

"better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished"

I have a huge amount of respect for McCain because of his anti-torture stance and I would vote for him if he got the Republican nomination.  Of course, he won't get the Republican nomination because somehow it was wrong for him to point out that waterboarding is a torture technique invented by the Inquisition. 

OK, so where we're splitting here is in our definition of tyranny. I believe that an unlawful, indefinite detention with no access to the legal system to defend one's innocence is a form of tyranny and is the very tyranny we're employing here. I'm not talking about torture, but about unlawful, indefinite detention.

And you know this will happen because of psychic powers?

Knowingly imprisoning a few innocents to house the guilty

Gid pointed out the achilees heel here.  Did anyone "knowingly" imprison the innocents?  You then talk about guilt by association.  That is a good point.  But until you discern the innocence of those guilty by association, how do you know they are innocent?

I dont think anyone is "knowingly" imprisoning innocents.  Imprisoning those that we are not sure are guilty, sure.  But not knowingly imprisoning innocents.

agreed. But then we have to have an accord on what torture really is. I do not see loud music or a overheated or cold room as torture, I do see ripping fingernails out as torture. Try to remember these are the same folk that cut of heads and other body parts of our troops and how many of the gitmo folk have been released only to be found again on the battle field killing our troops again.

That is the real issue here. Some folks seem to have a problem distinguishing between the words torture and interrogation. True torture, inflicting of extreme pain such as using a half inch drill on the knee caps, is wrong. Interrogation is necessary.

They attempted to clarify the definitions of the two but some people are still going to claim that any sort of interrogation technique other than asking nicely and saying pretty please is torture.

Try to remember these are the same folk that cut of heads and other body parts of our troops and how many of the gitmo folk have been released only to be found again on the battle field killing our troops again.

I'm hardly sympathetic to them, if they're uncomfortable, then who gives a damn? It'd probably be better if they were dead in the first place. I don't take kindly to people trying to kill me.

I just see torture as an essentially useless information gathering tool.

~Zoo