Natan Sharansky offers a powerful antidote to the hysteria that has overwhelmed any reasonable debate over definitions of torture and treatment of unlawful combatants, in a freeSpeech segment at CBS Evening News.

Mr. Sharansky has, in my opinion, “absolute moral authority” on the subject of torture, what it is and what it is not. This authority rests on his long, personal experience, suffering at the hands of a regime fluent in the many expressions of torture and repression, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Mr. Sharansky makes a point completely lost in the rhetoric of critics of this Administration:

Those who would use abuses at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay to accuse America of being no different than the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or Sadaam's regime have lost all sense of moral clarity.
America is different because your citizens can protest without going to prison. America is different because your courts can defend rights and your press can expose injustice. America is different because your Congress can hold hearings and because your people can hold your leaders accountable. America is different because America is free.

The many and strident critics of this Administration are unlikely to agree with, or even consider, Mr. Sharansky’s caution, having not forgiven him for making The Case for Democracy.

Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Sharansky.