I am tired of people trotting out Gandalf's two or three humane homilies to lend profundity to their arguments. Tolkein was as morally simplistic as Bush. The Lord of the Rings is built on the pernicious fantasy that agents of evil are purely and unambiguously evil, that wars are fought against inherently and irremediably evil enemies, that kings are fighting a constant rearguard action against the weakness of their people, and that history is a long tale of degeneration.
There are few evils more clear-cut than torture, which is why the campaign against it suits Sullivan's earnest nature, and why he has been so effective on this vitally important front. But fantasy-world invocations should be left to the neocon fabulists.
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