A Respectful Admonition of Senator McCain

My father was a war hero. He served in the US Navy as a radar man aboard an LCT in the North Atlantic and in the Mediterranean; most notably, at Anzio. He nearly lost his life on several occasions and, as one of the younger, unmarried members of the crew, was often asked to perform dangerous duty in service to the nation.

My grandfather was a war hero, too. He served as an infantryman on the killing fields of Europe during the First World War, what was then called ‘The Great War’.

They have been many heroes who put their lives on the line for the people who served with them. It can easily be asserted that each and every member of the armed services who has seen action, whether or not they were wounded, be-medaled, captured or killed, are heroes worthy of our admiration and gratitude.

As my father and my grandfather expressed it when pressed to tell their stories, they did not consider themselves heroes but simple ordinary men who managed to stay alive because of the heroic actions of their buddies. This is a most common comment made by those we consider war-time heroes.

In interviews with the surviving members of Company E, 2^nd Battalion, 506^th Parachute Regiment, 101^st Airborne Division, ‘The Screaming Eagles’, whose story was recounted in the best-selling book, ‘Band of Brothers’ by military historian, Stephen Ambrose, each and every man down-played their own part and honored those they served with. Their commanding officer, Richard D. ‘Dick’ Winters expressed this attitude of noble humility best in an interview for the HBO series. When asked if he considered himself a hero, he responded with tearful eyes, that he wasn’t a hero, but he had served in the company of heroes.

My father, like Dick Winters and many thousands of other veterans, did not crow and puff themselves up by harping about their heroics during armed conflict. They were modest men who saw themselves as unextraordinary despite the extraordinary conditions under which they served. This attitude of gracious humility is not exclusive to any specific generation; it is an unspoken code that is followed by all of the combat veterans known personally to this writer.

Meaning no disrespect to Senator McCain, for he must be counted in the company of heroes, he does not share the noble humility of Dick Winters or my father or my grandfather. Senator McCain’s unceasing, self-serving reiteration of his experiences as a POW in order to brazenly advance his political career and this presidential campaign is most distasteful.

His service should be honored as should all be honored who have laid their lives on the line for the nation and their buddies. What is objectionable is Mr McCain’s vulgar, overweening use of his experiences in Vietnam to blatantly promote himself and the agenda of the Republican Party by playing off the sympathies and pity of the public.

Former senator and presidential hopeful, George McGovern, was once asked why he hadn’t trumpeted his war-time military career during the 1968 election campaign against Richard Nixon. After all, McGovern had served during World War II as a B-24 Liberator bomber pilot in the Fifteenth Air Force, had flown 35 missions over enemy territory and had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for saving his crew. Surely, his campaign as an anti-war candidate would have been strengthened if he had simply made the American electorate aware that he was an honest-to-god, decorated war hero. McGovern shook his head dismissively and replied, “That would have been unseemly.”

Senator McCain, end the incessant rehashing of your war stories. It’s unseemly in a hero.

Bush’s 2008 RNC speech: (Reading Between the Lines)

Borrowing the technology of 'Being John Malcovic', the author is able to provide annotation for Bush's speech to the RNC as heard through the mind of the 'Decider'.

And now, Ladies and Germs, give a warm Republican welcome to the 'Decider', the Commando-in-Chief, the President of the United States of America (for at least another fiscal quarter), GEORGE W. BUSH!

(Cue ‘Applause’…)

I know what it takes to be president.

(Unfortunately, I don’t have what it takes to be a good one.)

In these past eight years, I’ve sat at the Resolute desk

(That’s the one next to the water-cooler outside Cheney’s office.)

and reviewed the daily intelligence briefings, the threat assessments and the reports from our commanders on the front lines.

(Well, I didn’t actually ‘review’ cuz, y’know, I just hate to read but Dick or that nice Addington fella told me the gist of it.)

I’ve stood in the ruins of buildings knocked down by killers

(the ones in Jew York City and the ones in Iraq, too.)

and promised the survivors I would never let them down.

(I just hope that don’t hold me to it cuz I’ve got more brush to clear down on the ranch and that thing in Afghani-whatever ain’t going so well, Condi says.)

I know the hard choices that fall solely to a president.

(And I’m batting pretty close to 1.000 on getting them all wrong but ‘Hey’ you gotta swing for the fences, right? Or why step up to the plate? (I love a good baseball metaphor, don’t you?))

John McCain’s life has prepared him to make those choices.

(For me, it was my close ties with the Saudi Royal family and my personal ‘hot line’ to Jesus.)

He is ready to lead this nation.

(Down the primrose path, for four more years of economic ruin for the middle- class and the poor (who ever they are, I forget…) and prob’ly a couple more cool, never-ending conflicts to show the world we’re still #1 at ‘standing tall’ and kickin’ ass!)

From the day of his commissioning,

(when he barely passed the flight training – something we have in common!)

John McCain was a respected naval officer

(whose father and grandfather were admirals, so those tars and avi-a-tors had damned well better respect him.)

who made decisions on which the lives of others depended.

(Mostly of course it was decisions like when to drop bombs on the Vietnamese peasants and the like; y’know - ‘Life and Death’.)

As an elected public servant,

(of the wonderfully generous lobbyists of Big Oil and my other buddies)

he earned the respect of colleagues in both parties

(who are also deep in the pockets of Big Oil and my other buddies)

as a man to follow when there’s a tough call to make.

(F’rinstance when he has to figure out which of his mansions he wants to spend the weekend at.)

John McCain’s life is a story of service above self.

(Or is that ‘the service of story to self’? Whatever… But the ‘official’ story of John’s life 40 years ago is the story we’re selling here so even if all the facts don’t fit, Karl says that’s no matter seeing as Americans’re such a stupid bunch.)

Forty years ago in an enemy prison camp,

(I’ll never understand why those folks took being bombed and slaughtered so personally…)

Lieutenant Commander McCain was offered release ahead of others who had been held longer.

(Cuz they thought he was some kinda royalty or something, I guess, his father being an Admiral an' all.)

His wounds were so severe that anyone would have understood if he had accepted.

(Let’s see, about that time, I was outside Houston in the Air National Guard - when I wasn’t AWOL! Heh-heh)

John refused.

(I guess that just goes to show you there IS a difference between the two of us.)

For that selfless decision, he suffered nearly five more years of beatings and isolation.

(Let’s see, yeah, I was on my way to Harvard Law School. They sure were surprised to see a ‘C’ student sitting in class! Just goes to show, ‘It ain’t what you know but WHO you know.’ So, there, Obama-jama.)

When he was released, his arms had been broken, but not his honor.

(Prob’ly best not to mention that his nickname was ‘the Songbird’; he was hurtin’, after all. Just wish some of those Al Qaeda boys in Gitmo would start singin’…)

Fellow citizens,

(Not all of you, just the rich, connected ones, okay?)

if the Hanoi Hilton

(Always flash on that crotch-shot of Paris when I say that…)

could not break John McCain’s resolve to do what is best for his country,

(Like, y’know, staying alive and that sort of stuff.)

you can be sure the ‘Angry Left’ never will.

(I’ll never understand why they’re so pissed. Why don’t they like me? I’m a pretty regular guy for a spoiled rich kid who’s led the country to ruin three different ways to Sunday. But that’s mostly Dick and Donnie’s doing, y’know. And that Addington guy and Paul and, and Condi.. and….)

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

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/McCAIN%20RADIO%20BROADCAST%20from%20Ha%20Noi%20060269.pdf

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.html?PageNr=1

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

American Exceptionalism

Of all of the tenets of the secular pseudo-religion, Americanism, the principle dogma is that of American Exceptionalism. Put simply, the precept of ‘American Exceptionalism’ is the notion that the American people, the American way of life and the American form of Democracy are a result of holy providence and are of divine origin and inspiration. It is a most pernicious concept; one upon which most, if not all, of the other false creeds of Americanism are based and to which most if not all of America’s failings can be attributed.

On August 20, 2008, Andrew Bacevich, a conservative historian, Boston University professor and retired colonel who spent twenty-three years serving in the US Army, appeared on ‘Democracy Now!’ to discuss his new book entitled “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism”. He stated, “Well, this is not an idea that’s original with me. It’s clear that from the founding of the Anglo-American colonies, from the time that John Winthrop made his famous sermon and declared that “we shall be as a city upon a hill” a light to the world—it’s clear that, from the outset, there has been a strong sense among Americans that we are a special people with a providential mission.”

A providential mission. This is precisely where this precept becomes dangerous.

Is America exceptional? Yes, most definitely; the Republic of the United States of America is exceptional. It was exceptional at its inception and it was founded by exceptional men. There is no rationally sustained argument which can negate that. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence are all exceptional documents, each with their own merit, historically, philosophically and in many ways besides.

The USA is exceptional, too, in the matter of freedom of speech and personal expression. Not only is this freedom at the core of the law of the land and boldly evident at the birth of the nation, but it has been internalized by all of its citizens for generations and occasionally even exercised by some.

America is exceptional for a whole slew of reasons. Only the most ardent ideologues would disagree in principle. It should be noted, however, that the term ‘exceptional’ does not exclude negative attributes or conditions. The canon of ‘Exceptionalism’, however, invariably connotes righteousness and imparts the odor of sanctity to all things American.

How America has shown itself by its actions to be exceptional but by no means righteous are many; exceptionally aggressive in foreign policy, exceptionally bellicose, exceptionally parochial, exceptionally arrogant and exceptionally reluctant to abolish slavery, to name a few examples. The point of this article is, however, not the failings of American policy but the debasement of America’s exceptionally high-minded principles by the sentimental attachment to the false doctrine of ‘American Exceptionalism’.

The danger of subscribing to the concept of ‘Exceptionalism’ is in the unthinking, unwitting belief that Americans and America have the sole, exclusive claim to being exceptional and thus according to the accepted precept, are righteous in all things. The danger of the wide-spread belief in such a notion by the citizens of a country should be obvious; it leads to chauvinistic, nationalistic policies such as ‘preventative war’, ‘regime change’ and empire building.

Moreover, the danger of such self-centered, imperialistic policies is compounded and exacerbated dramatically by the attendant belief that these policies and all policies of the USA stem from ‘a providential mission’. Citing ‘divine guidance’ to justify government policy nullifies rational debate and dissent, the foundation of democratic governance.

George W. Bush, a self-professed ‘man of God’, has claimed not only that his presidency is a ‘divine mission’ but that he, himself, is guided by his faith, by his God. In June 2002, for example, he sermonized to West Point graduates, “We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name.” Bush and his administration have made it abundantly clear that they do not want to hear dissent or debate on the matters of his ‘mission’. One need only recall Mr Bush’s disdainful frat-boy flippancy when faced with criticism or Mr Cheney’s rash and contemptuous disregard for the opinions of the vast majority of Americans on the matter of the occupation of Iraq to find verification for this assertion.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SypeZjeOrY4

The resultant atmosphere of zealous, self-righteous piety smacks of the same sort of religious-based fundamentalism that is derided and anathematized when proclaimed by radical Islamists, to offer but one example. When supernatural power, other-worldly agents and mystic intuition are the basis on which governance is determined, the natural world of humanity and the means by which humans chart the course of their lives (such as logic, rational discourse, education, and empathy) are undermined and disregarded as superfluous. In the more extreme cases, disputation of the ‘providential mission’ and ‘divine guidance’ is condemned as blasphemy and subject to harsh punishment; often ostracism or death.

While an unwillingness to adhere to ‘Americanism’ and the tenet of ‘American Exceptionalism’ might not lead to immolation or decapitation, those journalists who have dared to question the ‘divine inspiration’ and wisdom of Mr Bush’s ‘mission’ have most assuredly found themselves excommunicated and barred from the hallowed sanctum of the White House press room. Furthermore, citizens voicing their dissent by silently displaying placards or slogan-emblazoned T-shirts in the presence of administration officials have been arrested and sequestered. A careful examination of the public record will, most assuredly, provide many more examples of free speech being sacrificed at the altar of ‘Exceptionalism’.

The systematic ostracism of non-believers is clearly evidenced by the well-publicized “public demonstration zones” at the upcoming conventions of the two major political parties. These euphemistically named holding pens and detention centers for dissidents have been condemned by the ACLU and other Civil Rights organizations as a violation of the First Amendment Right to Free Speech. It is tragically ironic that one of America’s rightful claims to being exceptional is at risk because of the fearful over-reaction by those of the ‘Exceptionalism’ sect.

The tautological, circumlocutory argument of American Exceptionalism can be stated thusly: “We are on a providentially inspired mission and are guided by a ‘Higher Power’, therefore whatever our actions or policies, we cannot be in the wrong.”

Or as Elwood Blues put it, “We’re on a mission from God.”

Professor Andrew Bacevich put it this way, however, “…to view international politics through this lens of good and evil leads you to vastly oversimplify and I think also leads you to make reckless decisions.” It may be added that reckless decisions lead to reckless actions from which we will not find absolution in worldly or other-worldly courts by simply ‘sticking to our guns’ and muttering the mantra of American Exceptionalism.