What Do Reports of Torture Say About Us?

Re “The John McCain of Bagram Prison,” Commentary, June 2: Bravo to Margaret Carlson for juxtaposing Arizona Republican Sen. McCain’s ordeal at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors with what is going on at American detention camps in Afghanistan, Guantanamo and Iraq.

During the Bush years, the U.S. has fallen into an abyss of criminal behavior, beginning with the unprovoked imperial war on Iraq, coupled with a “gulag” mentality in our treatment of assorted prisoners in our “war on terror.”

We have indeed met the enemy, and it is us.

Bob Teigan

Simi Valley

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I too found it difficult to watch [the documentary about McCain’s 5 1/2 years as a Vietnam prisoner of war], but even more I became saddened that McCain, a man I have always admired, would not speak out more vigorously about the torture by Americans against others that has been documented.

I have always been very proud to be an American. It is becoming harder to continue to be proud of a country that says we are civilized, religious and caring, but we will not treat others the way we expect our people to be treated.

Oh yes, I know terrorists do not believe as we do, do not treat our people in a civilized way and that should be the thing that separates us, but it no longer does.

McCain may want to support the president, but it says little of his integrity and honor.

Margo L. Allen

Laguna Woods