Promoting a common human morality in the long term seems like a good thing.

Why, this idea is old hat! Hasn't it been a theme of Christianity, in all of its sects, since its inception?

Isn't part of the problem we are facing that this has been a theme of all evangelical religions in all their sects from the beginning?
The Christians promote their vision of a common human morality, as do the Muslims, Hindus, etc. Unfortunately their visions of a common human morality are not common to each other and many of them, particularly the more orthodox, are not willing to find common ground unless it is the ground they are already standing on.

Why, this idea is old hat! Hasn't it been a theme of Christianity, in all of its sects, since its inception?

(The West has far more coherence in many dimensions; even with Spain!)

Wonderful arithmetic and inclusion of irrelevant data.

Maybe next time you'll think a little more carefully about using terms like "the west", huh? Or are you really unaware that spain is part of western civilization?

So you equate the moral societies of the US and the UK to those of cannibal tribes in New Guinea.

Well the cannibal tribe of New Guinea have never nuked civilians. Never engaged in slavery on a scale resembling the US slave trade. How many civilizations are the cannibals from New Guinea responsible for wiping out? Like I said you really need to read a little history. It'll prevent these kinds of embarrassments for you.

Moral relativity has its main companion meme in atheism, which opens a religious gulf that is impossible to transit.

It doesn't require atheism, merely the lack of a god who is a moral authority. That actually doesn't preclude all that many religions and schools of spirituality. The major monotheistic faiths certainly, but those are self negating anyway.

So you equate the moral societies of the US and the UK to those of cannibal tribes in New Guinea. Marvelous! What a trip! In that case your moral compass is simply spinning around, with no North to guide you. Moral relativity has its main companion meme in atheism, which opens a religious gulf that is impossible to transit. Mere words cannot do it.

It is obviously a degree-to-which question, where the number of incidents of like kind in the West cannot possibly rival those cited, or the many others, such as the massive mass murders by minions of Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, and the Vietnamese Communists, to add a few more.

Spoken like someone with a serious ignorance of history. Western civ has exceeded all the people you list combined, sonny. The Conquistador genocide of the aztecs *alone* far exceeded the nazi final solution in terms of body count. Add to that the genocide of all the other native americans, the slave trade, the various European nations colonial atrocities, the various Cold War machinations... well the numbers add up right quick.

Do I detect the idea that all men are morally equal, all societies are equal, all religions are equal, and that moral relativity is the correct position?

Moral relativity, certainly. Honestly it takes a pretty shallow and poorly thought out world view not to realize the truth of moral relativism. However your previous statements are another thing, which makes me suspect you don't know what moral relativism is in the first place. Maybe once you know what it is you are talking about you'll have better luck reaching the correct conclusion.

Do I detect the idea that all men are morally equal, all societies are equal, all religions are equal, and that moral relativity is the correct position?

One merely has to cite the Kamikazes of Japan, the suicide bombers of Hamas, or the genocidal actions in Africa and Kosovo to realize that there is a fundamental difference in the very natures of these people from most of us in the West.

Right because people in the west are never suicidal, willing to die for a cause, or genocidal.

What orifice do you spew this garbage from?

One merely has to cite the Kamikazes of Japan, the suicide bombers of Hamas, or the genocidal actions in Africa and Kosovo to realize that there is a fundamental difference in the very natures of these people from most of us in the West.

It it comes from the Washington Post, NYT, TIME, NEWSWEEK, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, I automatically dismiss it as enemy propoganda.

graywolf, I think you need to be a little bit more subtle in your spoofing of the insane right wing. I mean, "enemy propaganda" is just too obvious a give away that you're just making fun of the conservative crazies. Truly excellent spoofery requires a delicate combination of subtlety and insanity.

Last month, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates authorised a $40m expansion of the programme, which will assign teams of anthropologists and social scientists to each of the 26 US combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"While often presented by its proponents as work that builds a more secure world," the petition says, "at base, it contributes instead to a brutal war of occupation which has entailed massive casualties".
US calls in the anthropologists to beat the Taliban

It it comes from the Washington Post, NYT, TIME, NEWSWEEK, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, I automatically dismiss it as enemy propoganda.

How do these guys know anything about how much information modern interrogators get from their subjects? Or how they do it? Even if one assumes the press reports are literally accurate in all details (an assumption no sane person should make), it should be obvious that not every detail of every interrogation gets reported on. For all we know, 99% of the intel we get from interrogations is acquired by the same methods these WW2 interrogators used.

To call it made-for-TV or ignorant does not do away with this possibility at all. To say that it is false because the person would be able to hold out for long enough is to evade the question again. One does not know how long a subject can last in advance, especially against fiendish tortures of the past over days and days. Thus, that is no reason to avoid the question of: should we, or shouldn't we?

It does point to the sharpness of the question that some would try to sweep it under the rug with an ignorant sweep of their pen. So when it does appear, we won't react even so far as to consider the question! How very foolish, and how dishonest!

“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.

That there is an example of a high value target. The kind that we brought back to Fort Hunt, or kept in apartments in theater. This is the type of guy that you turn, rather than the type you break. Once they are known to be captured the immediate plans that they were involved with will change, but the underlying strategy and psychology stay the same. Their insights into the others still in play can be invaluable. That is why you seduce them.

Your low level guy has extremely limited info that is much more time sensitive. You fly him back here and stick him in a townhouse in Vienna while you wine and dine him, the only info he can offer is well past its expiration date.

This really is a different type of war. We're not sweating prisoners to find the disposition or readiness of their armor. I agree that the "ticking time bomb scenario" has been overhyped, but we are not looking for their arms manufacturing works. We're lucky to get a cache before it's been used or moved. Cells can dissolve so quickly they seem to have never existed, and our Humint in the region is...sub-par.

Setting aside ethical and moral considerations and viewing this as a business, there is no return in not breaking the small fish. Big fish, that's a call for the guy on the ground.