Nothing Personal, Senator McCain

This point has been raised before but it bears repeating.

The relentlessly chanted mantra of John McCain’s campaign has been his POW experience. Ignoring, for the sake of compassion, that McCain broke under torture and like many, many other tortured POWs, gave false testimony to his captors, let’s for a moment look at the reason of his serving in Vietnam.

As is well known, McCain was a Navy pilot. What is left unstated is that, as part of his duty, McCain bombed and strafed the people of Vietnam, their roads, their hospitals, their schools, their homes. The citizenry of Vietnam were no threat to the people of the United States. (Nor was their government.) The people of Vietnam were an impoverished, Third World nation emerging from the brutal and repressive colonization by France; a colonization that stripped the country of their natural resources and denied the people self-governance, democracy and freedom.

Where, in such a vile, despicable, murderous mission as was his, is the honor or the bravery?

Doing one’s patriotic duty of service to one’s nation most emphatically does not include service to tyranny.

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/index.htm

Three Pots Calling the Kettle Black

I hope that you haven’t missed the most recent revival of this old Vaudeville shtick. The sublime comedic timing displayed by these three pros of the greasepaint is simply not to be missed!

Senator John McCain, playing the irascible codger: "My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression."

President George W Bush, in the role of the baudy, BMoC: "With its actions in recent days, Russia has damaged its credibility and its relations with the nations of the free world. Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the twenty-first century."

As the saucy hat-check girl, Condi Rice:”Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that's its military power. That's not the way to deal in the 21st century.”

Then, all three pull missile defense systems out of their pants, plant ‘em in Poland and nuke Iran!

You got to see it to believe it!

Parsing McCain's Call for Action Against Iran

“It’s time for action. And it’s time to make the Iranians understand that this kind of violation of international treaties, this kind of threatening of their neighbors, this kind of continued military activity, is not without cost."

Senator John McCain, July, 2008.

It is truly amazing that a presidential candidate, one who touts his foreign policy expertise, would make such tactless remarks in public. To anyone living outside of the vast ‘cone of silence’ that shields the American people from actually comprehending what their leaders spout, it must be nearly incomprehensibly impolitic. Let us take the time to parse the Senator’s statement in hopes of uncovering some semblance of truth.

Violation of treaties?

These are charges against a country which hasn’t invaded another in centuries. These charges are against the only nation to agree to the proposition by the International Atomic Energy Agency to a single-source control of enriched uranium for peaceful purposes.

Threatening their neighbors?

These charges are made by a man who sang ‘Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran’ at one of his campaign rallies. More pointedly, these charges are made within a statement that asserts the necessity of military action against a UN member state.

Military activity?

These charges are made by a man whose comments about 100 years of an American military presence in Iraq are all too well-known.

Moreover, to assert that a nation does not have to right to hold military exercises or conduct military tests within its own borders is ludicrous to the extreme. Imagine any other country in the world challenging the US military’s use of White Sands Testing Grounds. This man is severely out of touch with a reality shared by much of the world.

That this does not come as a surprise to this writer and that Senator McCain’s supporters might not think twice about their candidate openly stating such an absurdity (because it so starkly reflects accepted, traditional US foreign policy) should be of great cause for concern for anyone who shares the reality in which rule of law – when right and just – is an ideal to be upheld and peace is the preferred state of international affairs.

As a further test, let’s replace ‘Iranians’ with ‘Americans’ in that list of charges intoned by McCain:

“It’s time for action. And it’s time to make the Americans understand that this kind of violation of international treaties, this kind of threatening of their neighbors, this kind of continued military activity, is not without cost."

‘Violation of International treaties’?

The invasion of a sovereign nation as other than a deterrent to an immediate, obvious threat of attack is a clear and blatant violation of the UN Charter and the Nuremburg principles.

CHECK!

Threatening ‘neighbors’?

Repeated threats by American leaders to attack Iran are multiple violations of the UN Charter and the Nuremburg principles.

CHECK!

‘Continued military activity’?

There are active American military bases and installations on every continent but Antarctica; more than 700 world-wide by several estimates with the likelihood that there are upwards of 1000 if one should be able to count secret, classified ones.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would certainly constitute ‘continued military activity’.

The recently revealed allocation of funds to support covert military action against Iran must be included here. Quite unlike the military activity so absurdly decried by McCain, the aforementioned military actions are most decidedly not within the recognized borders of the United States.

CHECK!

So, of the three charges Senator McCain levels against Iran in his brief statement, all three apply with even greater weight to the USA.

One must wonder with trepidation, what the ultimate cost will be of America’s continuing militaristic foreign policy.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

http://www.alternet.org/story/47998/

McCain and the American Empire

On NBC’s Today Show (Wednesday, June 12, 2008) Senator John McCain was asked by Matt Lauer when he thinks US troops will return from Iraq. McCain replied, “That’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine.”

No, Senator, it is NOT fine.

It is precisely the fact that American troops are in nearly 130 countries around the world that is so woefully wrong. According to the web site, globalsecurity.org, there are an estimated 350,000 US troops stationed around the world “performing a variety of duties from combat operations, to peacekeeping, to training with foreign militaries”.

Why? Why are they there?

The reason, clearly, is to support a de facto US Empire and protect American business interests by the constant, visible display of military might. By sustaining and promoting the policies of empire, the United States has turned its back on democracy and skillful diplomacy and statesmanship thus alienating much of the world and dramatically increasing the ranks of the Al Qaeda network of terrorists and similar groups.

Let it not be asserted that the US troops in Guatemala, Germany or Japan are there to protect US citizens. They are not. Troops are stationed in those far-flung nations to protect corporate interests and to intimidate the local government and the population. All but the most cursory reading of the history of US military personnel on foreign soil will provide the reader with little evidence that ordinary US citizens benefit from their presence. (The exact opposite is true as will be stated below.) Troops are stationed in Okinawa for the same reason the Roman legions occupied Gaul or Britain: to maintain an empire. And it is well known that for similar reasons much of the world considers the United States of America the single largest threat to world peace and stability; a greater threat than Al Qaeda, Iran, North Korea, Hezbollah or Hamas.

Furthermore, by spending more than $620 Billion each year to support a US global military presence - nearly $350 million a day in Iraq alone - US social programs (e.g. education, job training, health care, social security, EPA, etc) are continually gutted, ignored or abandoned in direct opposition to the expressed will of the American people. Ordinary US citizens are therefore, by the existence of a phenomenally bloated military budget, deprived of the benefits and services they desire from their government and for which they pay taxes.

The choice is simple: support a failing system of global military empire-building with an ever increasing, crushing debt or re-build our society with a fraction of what successive administrations have spent year on year to subjugate, murder, torture, control and deleteriously influence the lives of innocent people while enriching the wealthy.

This ain’t rocket science.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/global-deployments.htm

McCain Lies About Lobbyists

John McCain, the Presumptive (or is that ‘consumptive’?) Nominee of the Republican Party (PNRP) in an interview with Chris Wallace on Faux News was asked to respond to a comment regarding his continued ties to lobbyists made by David Axelrod, a reporter, media consultant and advisor to Senator Obama.

Chris Wallace asked, “David Axelrod said you talked in your speech today about changing the way Washington does business but your campaign is run by two of the biggest lobbyists in Washington. How do you respond to that?”

Johnny Mac’s response?

First, he met the query with the stunned silence of disbelief. He sat frozen like a deer in the headlights for three full counts – a seeming eternity in the rapid-fire, sound-bite orgy that is Faux Gnus’s typical pace.

Then the ‘Straight-talker’ stammered his answer.

“I’d, uh, duh, look, uh-uh-uh, those uh, they are not lobbyists but, uh, the f-f-fact is Americans care about my vision and plan of action for the future – that I can unite the country, that I can take on the challenges (gasp) that are facing them now which are enormous and that’s what elections are going to be about and I’ll look forward to a great debate – a great debate across this country between myself and Senator Obama… he has a very, very liberal, mm-mm, down-the-line Democrat voting record… I have a record of working with all Americans, uh… to bring this nation back to its future greatness and I believe we will.”

Say wha’?

The first caller who can properly diagram that sentence wins a chronic migraine. That last bit of time-traveling sophistry,”… to bring this nation back to its future greatness…” makes the malapropisms of Dan Quayle pale in comparison.

Alright, run-on, syntactically fractured, solecistic sentence structure aside, McCain’s answer to Chris Wallace’s question was a flat-out-and-out, bald-faced lie.

Does Johnny Mac think he can hoodwink the American people by muttering such a crass falsehood between clenched teeth and then slime his way out of an ethical corner by blabbering on with jingoistic campaign boiler-plate? Does he think all Americans are that stupid and uninformed or just the viewers of Faux Gnus?

As is well-documented and relatively well-publicized, McCain’s inner circle is chock full o’ lobbyists of the kind he claims to shun:

• Charlie Black, Chief Campaign Advisor,
• Doug Goodyear, Convention CEO,
• Rick Davis, Campaign Manager,
• Randy Scheunemann, Top Foreign Policy Advisor
• Frank Donatelli, RNC Deputy Chairman, Campaign liaison

According to McCainSource.com, Johnny, the straight-talker has 134 lobbyists running his campaign and raising money for him. (Remember how he nearly ran out of money during the republican primaries when up against the deep pockets of Mitt Romney, et al? He solved that cash-flow problem it seems.) A complete list of the lobbyists and the clients they have represented can be read here: http://mccainsource.com/corruption?id=0006

Need more proof that ‘Straight-talking McCain’ got caught telling a whopper? Google the growing number of stories about his Lobby-gate Scandal for yourself.

McCain has sold his soul to the denizens of K Street and their keepers. The ‘Maverick’ has been broken, branded and hobbled.

Pathetic.

http://democrats.org/a/2008/06/mccains_lobbyis_4.php

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/dnc-releases-new-video-mccains-lobbyist-friends/

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/john-mccain%e2%80%99s-lobbyists/

McCain's Diplomatic Tap-Dance

In the wake of his and Bush’s comments about ‘appeasement’, Johnny Mac attempted to explain his ideas about diplomacy to the students gathered at the University of Denver on May 27, 2008.

“It’s a vision not of the United States acting alone, but building and participating in a community of nations all drawn together in this vital common purpose. It’s a vision of a responsible America, dedicated to an enduring peace based on freedom.”

So, apparently, Mac is willing to meet and share the vision of enduring peace and freedom with anyone except those he perceives as the enemies of America, of course. Before he takes this generous diplomatic tack, he wants to stay engaged in war in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring Iran to heel with a well-placed assault.

Other than that… Peace, freedom and diplomacy for everybody.

Unless somebody disagrees with US policy.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/16397864/detail.html?rss=den&psp=news

Grandpa McCain's Psychotic Fairy Tale

Grandpa John McCain, on the stump in Columbus, Ohio, shared a little fairy tale about his vision of “victory” in Iraq.

Papa John calmly intoned the following:

“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom.”

Ah, ain’t that sweet?

We can all rest better knowing that America will “be secure in her freedom” at some time in the future if we only have the iron-willed determination to offer the youth of our nation in bloody sacrifice on the altar of corporate greed and rapaciousness by invading, destroying and subjugating each and every nation which has exploitable resources and a government, democratic or totalitarian, that does not explicitly do the bidding of the State Department or the White House.

One may ask, however, what Papa John means by ‘freedom’, so I will.

What restraints on our freedom had Saddam’s regime ever placed on the American people?

None.

What condition of slavery, detention or oppression has been rectified in the US by the destruction of Iraq?

None.

Have the people of the US attained further political independence, possession of additional civil rights or been liberated from unlawful authority as a result of this war?

No.

Are the US people now exempt from such onerous conditions as hunger or disease because Saddam has been over-thrown?

No.

In point of fact, the American people are less ‘Free’ now than we were before the attacks on September 11^th or the wars in Southwest Asia and whatever further restraints to personal freedom the people of the US are currently subject to have been placed on us by the hysterical railroading of legislation in the wake of the 2001 attacks - such as the cynically misnamed ‘Patriot Act’- which have been calamitous to civil liberties and the general good.

So much for the 'freedom' side of this fairy tale but Papa John’s pathetic little fantasy continued:

“The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension.”

Now, one may ask, “The Iraq war was fought and won for whom?”

The Iraqis? Hardly.

Has any serious commentator or observer of the invasion or its aftermath claimed the Iraqis better off now than under Saddam’s brutal dictatorship when, with callous disregard for the well-being of the Iraqi people, the Bush administration dismantled and debilitated all of the institutions of national stability, disbanding the armed forces, designating all Baathists as anathema and resulting in the on-going chaos of violence and depravity which is observed today and which in all likelihood will dominate Iraq for a generation?

By what measure, in 2013 or any year, could any rational person claim a victory, Johnny Mac?

With more than 4,000 American forces killed and an estimated Iraqi death toll well over a million during the first 5 years of the war, what will the body count be after another half decade of this insanity? Will all of the spirits of the dead assemble to bestow blessings on what you and Dubya’s complicitous cohorts proclaim as ‘democracy’ in Iraq?

Thanks but no thanks, Grandpa John. Keep your absurd and contemptible fantasy about Iraq to yourself. It offers nothing but an eerie insight to your very warped and disturbed mind.

End the War Now!

Impeach Bush!

Impeach Cheney!

Impeach Scalia!

Indict and prosecute the war profiteers and war criminals to the fullest extent of the law. Make them all pay the price for their greed, their arrogance, their disdain for the rule of law and their disregard for humanity.

The rest of us already have.

China's Quake, Dubya's Shame

Less than 24 hours after the earthquake in Central China wrought devastation, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was flying to Chengdu Province, the epicenter of the 7.8 magnitude quake. Wen stated in mid-flight that it was the duty of Central Committee members to stand on the front lines of the relief and rescue efforts.

The Xinhua news agency reported that, upon arrival at the scene of a collapsed three-storey school building where about 900 teenagers were buried, Wen bowed three times in grief before some of the 50 bodies already pulled out from the wreckage.

"Not one minute can be wasted," Wen said. "One minute, one second could mean a child's life."

China's leadership announced that coping with the devastating quake, and ensuring that it did not threaten social stability, was now the government's top priority.

Compare this response to that of George W. Bush and his administration in the wake of Katrina: in 2005, with Katrina, rated as a category 4 storm, heading for the Gulf coast of the US, Dubya chose to continue his golf vacation. He then went to John McCain’s birthday party and lingered an extra day in Crawford (clearing brush?)before heading to Washington. He didn’t make his photo-op in New Orleans until September 2^nd, a full week after Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco declared a state of emergency.

Shame on you, Dubya. The totalitarian communist government officials of the PRC are taking you to school to teach you compassion. Or at least, the statesmanlike feigning of same.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/05/13/2243183.htm?site=science&topic=latest

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007060.php

http://dkosopedia.com/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina_Chronology