Several times recently I recall hearing of the need to retain the moral high ground in the debate about using torture or coercive measures to extract information from enemy combatants.  I have seen this argument applied to giving terrorist detainees Geneva rights, for one example.

Let me be the first to say "hogwash".   There is no moral high ground.    First of all, our enemies have no qualms about torturing our prisoners.  More pertinent to the argument however is we as a nation have no moral high ground to step up to.   We are the only nation to obliterate hundreds of thousands with nuclear weapons.   We are world leaders in killing the unborn.   We are setting the standard in late life euthanasia, under the guise of "death with dignity".  The vast majority of the worlds hard core porn flows through the US.  World demand for illegal drugs starts and stops here.  A nation that used to be very "christian" is far less so today.   In short, we like to think we are this noble giant benevolently helping the world, in reality we are a bunch of capitalist thugs willing to murder to keep what we've attained.  And don't get me wrong, I love the US.  I'm just a realist.

Its high time we stopped pretending to be something we aren't, that is moral shining stars.   While we gloat over how noble we are towards scumbag radicals that would think nothing of killing thousands of US innocents, our enemies in the world will be plotting new and unthinkable actions against us.  If we as a nation are serious about stopping that tidal wave of terrorism, we'd better stop preening and start getting our hands dirty.