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An ideal society is where all get what they want. In democracy, if 50.1% of people vote for John as the president, the country gets John as a president although almost half of the people want Mary instead. Difficult to achieve but society wants a result where all are happy. (Try not to have elections ^^)
Not to be involved in this argument but i'm here only to dispute your claim of the Chinese using waterboarding in the Vietnam War. In fact, the media never once mentioned the Chinese and instead designates the using of waterboarding by the US as 'fairly common'. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
Remember that manpower can be exhausted and money bled out. If every country were against China I don't see the impossibility. The same with a scenario of every country against the US. Unless the world explodes the one without belligerents cannot win. Even if the world does explode the one without allies still loses in the end.
This is a particularly strong dilemma, especially if the sacrifice of this man's human rights could save the lives of many others. Theoretically, a hundred lives would be a hundred times more in value than the one enemy. This view however is always challenged by the fact that the moral high ground stands on NOT doing the wrong thing. Like many other previous examples of doing something "wrong" in order to result in something "better" or "greater in worth", the moral high ground has actually quite sadly prevailed in the world view.
For example, Genghis Khan exterminated a few towns on his conquests, and I say that because he left the majority of his conquered (surrendered to him) land relatively untouched. The reason he cited was that the massacre of a few towns would ultimately save the populations of many others who surrender out of fear of massacre. In part this is true. In part this is false. However, the addition of the general 'hatred' for him and his conquests have greatly affected the moral high ground's convenient standing in this case and this is the general trend of recent thinking. Other examples include the use of WMDs being horrible and a crime against humanity although some still use them in modern warfare like the US dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although notably the moral high ground seems to be loose in this case. Also, the invasion of other sovereign states is seen as an atrocity, although many still take the UN and/or the actual situation in disregard, some even using false flags as causus belli. (Okay wait this is getting out of topic)
Thus I conclude that although morality is disputable, it is usually wise to stand on the moral high ground to avoid condemnation mostly because it is the politically correct answer. However, these moralities in reality are freely disregarded in action. I would actually say that the situation depends and I may act differently if faced with such a dilemma, but in theory I would have to choose the politically correct answer.
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