John McCain: Why We Must Support Human Rights -<br />By JOHN MCCAINMAY 8, 2017<br />Washington, D. C. — SOME years ago, I heard Natan Sharansky, the human rights icon, recount how he<br />and his fellow refuseniks in the Soviet Union took renewed courage from statements made on their behalf by President Ronald Reagan.<br />As I listened to Mr. Sharansky, I was reminded how much it had meant to my fellow P. O.W.s and me when we heard from new additions to our ranks<br />that Mr. Reagan, then the governor of California, had often defended our cause, demanded our humane treatment and encouraged Americans not to forget us.<br />In the real world, as lived and experienced by real people, the demand for human rights<br />and dignity, the longing for liberty and justice and opportunity, the hatred of oppression and corruption and cruelty is reality.<br />In a recent address to State Department employees, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said conditioning<br />our foreign policy too heavily on values creates obstacles to advance our national interests.<br />In their continuous efforts to infect us with despair<br />and dissolve our attachment to our country, our North Vietnamese captors insisted the American government and people had forgotten us.<br />What I’ve learned is that it is foolish to view realism<br />and idealism as incompatible or to consider our power and wealth as encumbered by the demands of justice, morality and conscience.
