Reciprocity

From the National Review Online

This is a letter in response to by Jonah Goldberg at the NRO (one of several in the same vein).

• 
  "After I was captured, my hands were tied behind my back . . .I was thrown on the water board, where under questioning the enemy would drown you till the verge of losing consciousness. . . I was confined to a three by four foot tiger cage with a coffee can for a toilet. . . I was repeatedly dragged from my cage for more beatings and interrogation. . . I was deprived of any food for five straight days.
  . . . that is only part of what EVERY U.S. Navy and Air Force pilot and flight crew goes through in survival school. . . We do this to our own people for training but we can't do it to terrorists?Incredible."

So let me see if I understand Jonah Goldberg's reader's letter's intent.
Japanese treatment of American POW's and Chinese during WWII - Torture

North Vietnamese treatment of American POW's during the Vietnam War - Torture

Americans doing the same to Iraqi/Afghani POWs (excuse me "Enemy Combatants") - Perfectly justified in the name of the Greater Good.

Can anyone come up with an instance in which American POW's were tortured and our government said that was a perfectly acceptable thing to do to them? If we as a nation didn't like it when this stuff was done to us, then why would we consider it ok to do to others?

When fighting monsters, one should take care not to become one.