The war against terrorism is really a war of ideas, and it can be lost only if the U.S. adopts a "policy of cruelty" that endorses the torture of captured enemy combatants, two military law experts said Tuesday night.

"If we adopt a policy of cruelty, we are going to be in trouble," Marine Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch told an audience at Dickinson College. "We are going to win the war against this bunch of chumps because we are better than them, not because we are more inhumane."

Couch drew national attention for refusing to prosecute a suspected terrorist whom he believed to have been tortured. He spoke at "Keeping America Safe and Safeguarding American Values," sponsored by the college's Clarke Forum and the Washington, D.C.-based National Security Network.

He and retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, a ex-Navy judge advocate general, said Americans can't lose their values in fighting any foe.

That's even if some at government's highest levels seem willing to overlook or even condone atrocities such as those known or alleged at the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay military prisons, Couch and Hutson said.

Couch said evidence obtained by such coercion can't be used to prosecute suspected terrorists in any civilian or military court.

Hutson praised the U.S. Supreme Court for demanding that respect for the basic human rights and tenets of law be applied to Guantanamo detainees. Any other stance would play into our enemies' hands, he said.

"Their weapons are hate and terror. ... The enemy's goal is to make us more like them," Hutson said. "This nation's main mission is to not forget who we are ... to hold our ideals even more tightly."

The use of torture hasn't been a high-profile topic in the presidential race, but Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, who was tortured while a POW in Vietnam, have said they oppose its use.

Couch told of an experience he had at Guantanamo Bay in 2003. He heard rock music blaring down a hall and found a detainee shackled to the floor of his cell being subjected to the deafening noise and strobe lights.

"He was rocking back and forth, and he was praying," Couch said. "It infuriated me. ... We had forgotten what it means to be an American. We're about fair play and justice."

Those values apply even when your enemy kills prisoners of war and innocent civilians, he said.

"Does that give us the right to jettison our own morals?" Couch asked. "I don't think it does."