> ...a compensation he is
> getting due to having been tortured, a fate I would hope none of us
> would wish even on our adversaries.
========================
That money, and a lot more, is owing to the Vietnamese as war reparations,
including for the death and destruction wreaked by Agent Orange and other
chemical defoliants. The US actually agreed to $3.5 billion in reparations
as part of the 1873 peace accords, but never delivered a dime. A separate
suit launched by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange was thrown out by a US
court a couple of years ago.
As an aside, have McCain's claims of being tortured ever fully been investigated? It wasn't at all characteristic of how the Vietnamese treated American POW's, though there were random local acts of violence against downed US airmen and captured troops who were destroying their villages and cities. More than 3 million North and South Vietnamese soldiers civilians outside the US-controlled zones were killed during the war.
Against this backdrop, the fawning over McCain's war record by the media and the Democrats, including Obama, is nauseating, and I'm always being forced to remind myself I shouldn't be expecting other than that.