The world's leading scientific journal has featured a powerful image of John McCain and Barack Obama on its front cover. The pair radiate statesmanlike-authority, the image is suitably sombre for the weighty interview inside.
Then, however, you see the back cover.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama said in last night's debate:
And one of the things that I intend to do as president is to restore America's standing in the world. We are less respected now than we were eight years ago or even four years ago.So America is less respected because the CIA used waterboarding on a couple of terrorists to trick them into revealing their attack plans?
OBAMA: And this is the greatest country on Earth. But because of some of the mistakes that have been made -- and I give Senator McCain great credit on the torture issue, for having identified that as something that undermines our long-term security -- because of those things, we, I think, are going to have a lot of work to do in the next administration to restore that sense that America is that shining beacon on a hill.
I don't think so. I have been hearing all my life about how America is not respected any more, and yet it appears to me that America is more respected than ever. Maybe some wise-guy editor at Nature magazine has no respect for our presidential candidates, but I doubt that UK prime ministers have any greater respect.
4 comments:
The conclusory statement, "America is TOTALLY still respected!" (I'm paraphrasing) is just that. Torture is dangerous because, apart from being inherently evil, it decreases our diplomatic capital with our non-torturing allies, and encourages our enemies to use reciprocal tactics. Don't ask me, though, ask a soldier... like John McCain.
Our American military does not approve of torturing anyone.
So, under Bush, they just did it and held their noses?
What are you talking about? Gitmo? Please be more specific if you want to accuse the Bush administration of torture.
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