Nov 19/05 In
NEWSWEEK's
Nov 21/05 Torture
Issue, Senator John
McCain,
in his essay regarding his opposition to torture, said in part:
"What I do mourn is what we lose when
by official policy or official neglect we allow, confuse or encourage our
soldiers to forget that best sense of ourselves, that which is our
greatest strength--that we are different and better than our enemies, that
we fight for an idea, not a tribe, not a land, not a king, not a twisted
interpretation of an ancient religion, but for an idea that all men are
created equal and endowed by their Creator with inalienable
rights."
Of course, to be a wee politically
incorrect, we Americans are not all born equal with inalienable rights;
some of us are white, some black, some yellow, some stupid, some smart,
some rich, some poor; for instance most of us will never enjoy the great
health benefit and pension perks enjoyed by Senators.
But you get the picture, folks. The
Senator, a very decent man, unlike Bush/Cheney, is someone who has bravely
served his country in combat, who has been tortured and has retained his
sense of honor, and who merely by his example and his words sincerely
wants us to seek a much higher level of morality than the devious
administration crowd, which appears to sink lower and lower into the muck
every time I look.
So thank you, Senator McCain.
And are you listening Mr. Cheney, you of the dark side believing in
torture, approved of in this regard by your President, in spite of the
increasing distance between you?