You know, Jon, you’re right—in retrospect, I could have made the point much more succinctly and straightforwardly, with less sarcasm and more precision. Something like, “or is flinging feces one of those ‘weapons of the weak’ that Chris specificaly argued ought to be forbidden to military forces, such as those of the Western democracies, but freely usable by ‘non-conventional forces’, such as Al Qaeda terrorists?”

I apologize for letting my emotions get the better of me.

Damn, why didn’t I think of this? This is perfect, if a bit too sarcastic.

but hey, don’t let that stop you from accusing them all of being terrorists.

God, how I wish I could have the seconds from my life back that I spent reading that sentence.

(Or is flinging feces one of those “weapons of the weak”, like killing civilians, that terrorists have the unlimited right to use against Americans—and are downright encouraged to use against Israelis, whenever they get the chance—but that Western democracies must avoid even accidentally seeming to use, while defending themselves against terrorists?)

Euwww…no wonder they don’t want to read it then.

According to the WaPo piece linked in the post:

Eugene R. Fidell, president of the nonprofit National Institute of Military Justice, said that laws governing military conduct are filled with broadly described prohibitions that are nonetheless enforceable, including “dereliction of duty,” “maltreatment” and “conduct unbecoming an officer.”

In general, I do think that “degrading treatment” is too ambiguous to deter would-be wrongdoers, but why not use this opportunity to adopt international standards of degrading treatment rather than to ensure impunity?

Do we Americans no longer have a moral imperitive to ensure human dignity according to the broadest definition of dignity that exists in the world?