Yes, there is much wrong with the Tower, but that does nothing to exonerate the Whitecloaks. Not that the standards in place to prevent the Tower abusing members make criminals immune from justice, they just deter the witch hunts and kangaroo courts that brought down Siuan. Intimidating criminals whom they're under a geas not to harm with the Power isn't worse than using red hot pokers to torture confessions from innocents, and the Whitecloaks as an institution aren't just guilty by association: The Questioners are a subordinate organization within the larger Whitecloak body and subject to the same Lord Captain Commanders authority; his refusal to exert that authority to restrain their brutality makes him and those loyal to him complicit. Whatever the Tower does or doesn't do doesn't justify any evil by the Whitecloaks, any more than the Tower can excuse its abuses and faults by saying, "It doesn't matter because the Whitecloaks accuse innocents of being Darkfriends, then torture, maim and murder them!"

Name one country apart from Amadicia where everyone familiar with Whitecloaks doesn't great them with resentment or outright hostility. Which one generally depends on how capable people think the particular Whitecloaks in question are of draconian retaliation on the grounds that "you're either with us or you're with the Shadow". Whitecloaks were welcome enough in the Two Rivers because no one hand first hand experience with them--and the former remained true only as long as the latter. Once they got to know them as the kind of people who'll lead an entire regiment to try taking over whole villages for the sake of a personal vendetta, whose word is only as good as ones ability to hold them to it, they started comparing them (rightly) to the Coplins and Congars. Galad's very lucky that that remains between him and Perrin (if in fact it does); while Morgase was dispensing justice maybe she should have spared a few words for Bornhalds Whitecloak invasion of Andor (I'd not be surprised if Queen Elayne does).

I STRONGLY disagree that extremism, brutality and zealotry on behalf of hte right faction are legitimate. Impartial standards are integral to both morality and rule of law, and the moment we accept all reprehensible acts provided they're done by the right person to the right person we've abandoned rule of law for rule of force, and morality for self interest. If the power to imprison and torture whole families on suspicion or mere accusation also conveys authority, right and legitimacy we're no longer debating morality, but which amoral flag to follow. Extremism in the pursuit of power is an unpardonable vice, and moderation in administering justice the highest virtue. Attaching "as long as you don't abandon the Light as in the case of Shadar Logoth" completely misses the point of the Shadar Logoth story: Condoning extremism and brutality as necessary evils to serve the Light was PRECISELY how they did abandon it, despite never giving active allegiance to the Dark One. There is no "third way", and in that sense you ARE either with the Light or the Shadow, but adopting the Shadows methods to oppose it (almost a verbatim quote of how Jordan defines Shadar Logoth) is, in fact, joining it. That gives the Shadow victory; whether YOU win or lose the resulting world will operate according to the Shadows order, not the Lights. You asked earlier why I take the real world political positions I do: As we've previously discussed, this is a lot of the answer. If two sides are fighting to preserve their ways of life and one adopts the way of the other, the fight is done, whether it's terrorists trying to hide behind the law or us denying them its guarantees to torture free trials. When you become the enemy, surrender: They've won.

Galad hasn't traveled to the ruinous end of that road, and Morgases conversation with him is clearly meant to forever divert him from it, but he was well on the way until then. He'd never found himself in a position where his wit and ability couldn't resolve conflicting obligations, but his insistence on putting himself in situations conducive to that meant it was coming, because he was continually raising the stakes. And, yes, it could have happened long before; again, while he clearly didn't feel Nynaeve and his sisters ABILITY to channel reflected on him, had they been foolish enough to begin channeling when they met him with his cohorts he would have had two choices:

1) Hand his sister and her friend over to the fate Whitecloaks drawing swords on them while screaming, "DARKFRIEND!" would inflict, or

2) Forsake his oaths to the Whitecloaks and defend the very lives of his sister and her friend.

Those would have been the equally unacceptable options he created for himself: Allow his sister to be tortured to death or slay his sworn brethren. We can choose to ignore that as deftly as Galad always has, but if we're willing to confront it we can't deny it.