The good ship Chris Shays, captained by the besieged Republican congressional representative who this year is defending his seat against former Westport First Selectwoman Diane Farrell, ran aground when Shays said, in an address before a Jewish group, that the guards at Abu Grab were practicing a perverted form of sex rather than torture on their prisoners. Shays was immediately attacked by partisan bloggers. “What could he have been thinking?” was the general refrain. And soon the editorialists weighed in. It has been suggested in recent days that the failure to provide enemy combatants with habeas corpus protection is a form of severe deprivation, and Shays’ remark was taken by those in the United States who wish to wrap the torturers of Daniel Pearl in constitutional cellophane as, to say the least, intolerant. Can a distinction be made between the torture of Pearl, a journalist whose head was sawed off by enemy combatants – the event was videoed and aired on Arab television – and t...
go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you;
may your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"
--Samuel Adams