U.S. values and defense
KUDOS to Tim Rutten for his piece, “Decency Should Be State Policy” [Nov. 3]. It was one of the most eloquent statements about what America should stand for, and how the Bush administration has corrupted those values.
Ron Prentice
Temecula
TIM RUTTEN needs to climb down from his high horse and be fair with his readers. Nowhere in his overheated screed does he give the other side of the waterboarding controversy -- that is, the “ticking time bomb scenario.”
Does anyone doubt that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or Ayman Zawahiri, or Osama bin Laden or any one of thousands of their acolytes would set off a nuclear device if they could? What would President Rutten do, knowing a nuclear device is about to go off and the man who planted it was in his custody? Would he reject waterboarding and keep intact his moral purity and his high-minded righteousness at the cost of thousands of American lives? Would that be the “decent” thing to do? Clearly not.
Carl Moore
Lomita
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