You just can’t beat the internets for information – as long as those tubes aren’t all clogged up with Senator Ted Stevens’ emails. I wrote abut the “torture” of the British Marines and sailors the other day, and linked to an Iranian video clip showing them sitting around barefoot (on Persian carpets, natch) playing board games, chuckling and laughing up a storm.

Here’s another shot of reality in the fantasy world of the Republicans, conservatives and neocons, those cowardly war lovers who send other people's children to die in their wars. History seems to have caught up with macho tough guy John McCain, who needs a company of US soldiers to keep his six while he shops in Baghdad, and who has been ridiculing people who want to give up.

Let me be clear. I am not criticizing Senator McCain for what he did. We don’t even know, let alone understand, the pain and agony this man endured during his captivity. From what I do know, I can’t think of a single person on this earth I’d like to see treated like that. Barbarism, whether done in the Hanoi Hilton or Abu Ghraib, is the hallmark of a bestial and savagely brutal pack of sociopaths. The fact that Senator McCain broke is not an adverse comment on him. But those chickenshits (and we know who they are) who clamor for death before capture should be sidelined.