We're not fighting an army on the battlefield (the bombings is a particularly bad example because it's a frequent example of atrocities committed on the allied

We're not fighting an army on the battlefield (the bombings is a particularly bad example because it's a frequent example of atrocities committed on the allied side), we're talking about arresting loosely organized criminals who are deprived of the right to a trial and detained indefinitely. This isn't an episode of 24 where there's a bomb that will go off and rough a guy up for the passcode. This is waterboarding people for 16 hours a day for months on end in secret prisons unaccountable to the rule of law. And no, even if it helped save lives, the moral repugnance of what we've been doing does not absolve us of moral responsibility for our actions and policies.