This week, I have been listening to people justify torture and these fake "news" stories we have been planting in Iraqi papers. By describing our current situation as a "war", people seem able to justify any kind of behavior. "We have to do this or we could lose the war!! Do you want to lose the war!?!"

The whole thing made me think about when the White House described Iraq as a battle for hearts and minds.

Most people will never have a chance to go to the United States or a chance to befriend an American.

What they will see are photos of Abu Ghraib. What they will hear is Dick Cheney's defense of torture. What they will hear is that we are willing to hold people in prisons without charges or trial or contact with the outside world, not even releasing their names to the public or their families. What they will hear is that we are planting fake news stories in foreign newspapers. What they will see is that we are happy to do things in other countries that are illegal in our own country while making speeches about wonders of democracy and freedom.

Tell me, are these attractive traits? Are these behaviors likely to win any hearts or minds? Would they win yours? If you heard these things about some other country, would you think positively about them? Would you be sympathetic? Would you be inclined to believe the best or the worst about them?

We will never defeat terrorism by being more ruthless than they are. We will never defeat terrorists by killing all of them. When people are willing to kill themselves in order to hurt us, we will never be able to scare them out of attacking.

Every person we kill provides the motivation for someone else to take revenge. Every person we wrongly abuse, imprison or insult will anger them, their friends and their family. Every person we torture provides justification for attacking an American. Every time we do something that contradicts what we say we stand for, we provide support for the arguments of our detractors.

This is not a "war" that we can win with stealth bombers or armies. We need intelligence, and police, and the rule of law. We need transparency and to behave in an unassailably ethical way. The way to win this struggle is through friendships because every friend of America is one less supporter of terrorism against America.

This IS a war of hearts and minds and the White House is continues to do things that fill those minds with anger, outrage and hatred. Whether or not the ends justify the means, we will never reach our desired ends with these means.