Outrage to the 3rd Degree

This is a letter from a childhood friend (who I've known since I was seven years old), who eloquently expresses outrage at Sen. Inhofe's outrage at everyone else's outrage.

Dear Senator Inhofe,

I saw on TV where you claimed to be "outraged over the outrage" over the sadistic abuse of Iraqi prisoners, so I thought I would explain to you why so many Americans see the scandal differently from you.

Even if you don't hold religious beliefs that mistreating your fellow man is morally wrong and indefensible before God, and even if you don't see that cowardly cruelty against those unable to defend themselves is sick, there is still a simple, basic reason to treat our prisoners decently that even a child can understand. It's so the other side will be encouraged to do the same with our people whom they capture! Good old-fashioned self-interest, in other words. What else do you think motivated the nations of the world to get together and hammer out the Geneva Conventions? Soft-hearted altruism? A pie-in-the-sky idealistic dream? No. They were all just trying to protect their own guys.

Now, if any Americans are captured, they're screwed. It's possible that their captors will not torture them, but if they do, we as a nation no longer have any grounds to complain, not in the eyes of the rest of the world. The United States has just lost its moral high ground on this issue. Now do you get it?

Yours truly,

Paul Tullis
Ft. Worth, Texas