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The US is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. Those conventions and their protocols declare there is treatment to which countries must never resort, even in time of war.
Which means that we are claiming a certain moral high ground abroad and with our own citizens. That latter is perhaps the most important, because our government should not let its own citizens believe it behaves in one way, then in fact behave differently. It is an elected government, something which becomes meaningless if it acts contrary to the way it encourages the public to believe it is acting.
If the powers-that-be believe they must now abandon the Geneva Conventions, they have a duty to sell that belief to American voters and should not act arbitrarily.
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