The Thinking Conservatives

First there was Sullivan, now comes Cole (Note: unlike most of the torture cheerleaders, Cole is an actual veteran) . . .

Are Durbin's remarks really that offensive? Do you honestly hear descriptions like that and think to yourself- "Gee, American troops do that all the time."

Of course you don't, and I don't either. I think of some third world dictator, some tin-pot despot who brutalizes not only his enemy but his own people. Someone like, for example, Saddam Hussein. Or Pol Pot. And that was Durbin's point- not that we are Nazis, but that we are better than Nazis by an order of magnitude, and that such acts of abuse, while rare, are beneath us.

What should offend you is not what Durbin said, but the possibility that what Durbin said regarding the abuse may be accurate -even if it happened only once. And spare me the false bravado and the tough-guy attitudes about how this doesn't sound so tough, and they deserve what they get. I am all in favor of stern measures and tough interrogation practices, but there are lines that should not be crossed.

If your attitude is that because some evil people killed 3,000 people on 9/11, we have the moral high ground and are thus free to do as we please, including chaining people in a fetal position and forcing them to wallow in their own urine and feces, you might as well stop reading now because we aren't going to agree on anything. We have the right to to detain these people, we have the right to interrogate these people, and we, in the future, have a right to try them for their crimes and punish them appropriately. But we also have an obligation to ourselves and to the rest of the world to treat these detainees humanely, lawfully, and in accordance to the history of decency that I proudly associate with the United States. To do otherwise is to stain our dignity and our honor, as well as our reputation and good standing in the world.

The thinking conservative is not dead. That's heartening. Perhaps someday these voices of reason will rise to power in the Republican party.