Politics: Does Anyone Even Care What We Do?

Apparently, we've become a nation we should despise. Not only did we kill two men in our custody during intense interrogation in Afghanistan and then lie about it (see previous post), but we're now abducting children (almost). Pakistani police took the children of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who is a very bad man who we already have in custody) into custody six months ago, and now that we have him in custody, the Pakistani forces have turned them over to us for safekeeping. According to this piece in the UK Telegraph, the boys are being held in a secret location, and are being used to make Mohammed talk about terrorist events. At least Jack Bauer only pretended to threaten the terrorist's kids.

Seriously, though, I can't help but feel this is strangely out of bounds. We wouldn't accept this from any other nation, would we? Would we want DEA agents to take a drug kingpin's family into custody and use them to make him talk about big drug buys? Would we be okay with abducting the children of a car-thievery ringleader? Of course not. And I know these things aren't the same, but is there a line? Should there be a line? What if this happens to us? What if terrorists abduct a family travelling abroad and threaten the children to get someone released? Will we have put children as bargaining tools into play, even though the terrorists kill women, children and everyone else indiscriminately? Aren't we supposed to be better than them?