Notice how quickly our blockade removed Castro from power in our own back yard, and how much it benefitted the innocent people of Cuba.
Blockades do NOT work to remove an existing government.

That's why Castro and Saddam are still in power.

Freezing assets works even better than blockades. As often as not we find the assets we are freezing are our own assets as well.
Eh? What do you mean?

And if we get too liberal with freezing assets within our reach, everyone will become accustomed to keeping assets out of our reach, which will not work at all to our advantage.
Ummm, Andrew, check that logic. If we take the money from the criminals often enough, then the criminals won't leave their money where we can take it?

Damn, they're some lazy criminals if they haven't moved what money they can already.

You cannot (we hope, anyway) legally arrest people on speculation, nor just because they associate with people of whom you do not approve, or because you disagree with their political opinions.
Eck-fucking-zactly!

We need PROOF. (or a legal rendition thereof).

Otherwise, we're just another bully warlord with the biggest stick on the planet.

Yes, killing innocents is unjust - but justice is a conceit of human society, it does not exist in nature.
Again, eck-fucking-zactly! And "hypocrisy" is another human conceit. Claiming it is "just" for you to kill innocents but "unjust" for someone else to do so.

As humans we strive for a "higher" ideal, which is of our own design and craft, and has nothing to do with nature - but we still must live as creatures of nature, "red of tooth and claw".
I'll agree. But only with the basis.

Sometimes we have to make the hard choices in violation of our self made ideals.
And this is the part that I disagree with.

If you "violate" your "ideals"......

Well, in MY opinion, you can NEVER violate your ideals.

You just haven't CORRECTLY stated your ideals.

Which is why I keep hammering on how our actions are identical to the terrorist's actions.

OUR ideals are EXACTLY the same as THEIR'S.

Kill anyone who opposes us. Be they soldiers, women or children.

We can find it within ourselves to rise above the law of the jungle. Yet there will always be those who will not.

The problem with morals and ideals is that they RESTRICT your actions.

Not that they demand recompensation AFTER you've performed the action.

Having morals and ideals mean that there are actions you will NOT perform.

If you will perform such actions, no matter how you justify them or rationalize them or claim that you "had" to do them...

It is still the same. You claimed ideals and morals you did not posses.

And all such human conceits as "justice" and "freedom" and "equality" are ONLY available as long as we NEVER try to rationalize setting them aside. No matter WHAT the provocation.

Please pardon me for jumping into the middle of a thread I haven't read all of, but it looked too tedious for my very limited attention span.
No problem. But I think we've gone off of the thread and into philosophy.