“We’ve sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists,” McCain said earlier as he sat next to Bush in the Oval Office. “We have no grief for them, but what we are is a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are. And I think this will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world in the war on terror.”
— Senator John McCain congratulating himself on pushing President Bush to reverse course and sign a bill restricting the ability of intelligence and military officials to do their jobs.
So let me get this straight. We have no “grief” for terrorists (which I suppose means no liking for them), but at the same time we will not lower ourselves to their standards by treating them the way they treat us–even if there might be a rational reason for doing so, such as finding out the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden or the production of the dirty nuclear bomb to be opened up in a New York subway. This is like a parent telling a child, “If the bully starts to beat you up, just keep a stiff upper lip and don’t lower yourself to his level.” McCain and Bush have now codified this idiotic, unjust and downright dangerous reasoning into law.
You are not lowering your standards by doing what you have to do to rid yourself of dangerous people with no standards in the first place. The only way to lower your standards is to give in to them.
Terrorists have no mercy for anyone and no respect for human life at all. Anyone who values his life should be happy that our military and defense officials are doing whatever it takes to get the information we need from prisoners of war to perhaps make us just a little bit safer. John McCain would have us believe that’s there no difference in the moral status of an American soldier held prisoner in Communist Vietnam and an open Islamic terrorist held prisoner by the American military in Cuba or Afghanistan. I see no value in winning the “hearts and minds” of people who are just as worried–or maybe even more worried–about the comfort and well-being of acknowledged terrorists as about the safety of the innocent who suffer at their hands. John McCain and President Bush are not passing this legislation to make us safer; they’re passing it to look good to France, Michael Moore, the U.N., the Washington media corps, and Tehran.
The next time something happens, and it will–even sooner thanks to the likes of John McCain and George W. Bush (who’s even worse, for giving in to him)–the people who preened before the cameras to announce how sensitive, compassionate and concerned they are for the likes of those who actively seek to destroy us all, right here in our own country, will have much to answer for.
