What do we owe the victims of Lindsey Graham’s wars?

(RNS) — The last time I saw Lindsey Graham, I was sitting directly behind Hanan Shaheen.

Hanan had come to testify before Congress in September 2024 about the murder of her 6-year-old son, Wadee Alfayoumi. Just days after Oct. 7, 2023, Wadee was  stabbed 26 times  in his Illinois home by the man who had been his family’s landlord. Hanan herself barely survived the attack. She later asked me to accompany her as she appeared before Congress.

From my seat behind her, I could see both of them.

In front of me sat a grieving mother trying to describe the indescribable. Across the room sat Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Throughout the hearing, I found myself looking toward him. I kept wondering whether he would acknowledge her presence. Whether he would look into the eyes of a grieving mother. Whether, if even for a moment, politics would give way to some semblance of humanity. I never saw that moment come.

The same man who urged Israel to “flatten Gaza,” who defended expanding the war even as the civilian death toll mounted, who championed military escalation not only in Gaza but in Lebanon and Iran, and who spent decades establishing himself as one of Washington’s most consistent…