The US should not be waterboarding suspects - if it comes down to the smoking gun/terrorist bomb/nuke scenario that people throw around, we can simply drug the suspect. We used to try & execute warcriminals for waterboarding our troops in WWII. It does us a lot of damage in the eyes of the World to simply become more efficient thugs or scientific thugs, if you like, than anyone else.
We should not be executing people - targeted assassinations? - whatever the words of art - anywhere except as a last resort & if deadly harm to the US will otherwise result. It is dangerous to put this much power in the executive branch, without the legislative & the judicial branches playing their normal roles of checks & balances. The Constitution did not set up a toy soldier dictatorship, & it's long past time we revoke the so-called PATRIOT Act & all the Big Brother legislation that our congressional sheep baa-ed their assent to back when.
We need people with spines in Congress. If we don't encourage our legislatures to show some steel in standing up for a traditional understanding of the relationship between citizen & state, we will deserve whatever we get.
