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John McCain and the "Project for a New American Century"
In January 1998, John McCain signed the now infamous open letter to President Bill Clinton cooked up by the neo-conservative "Project for a New American Century" (PNAC). The letter urged the president to take unilateral military action against Iraq. McCain and his neo-con brethren were literally cheerleading for the United States to attack and overthrow the government of Iraq long before George W. Bush stole the 2000 election.
The PNAC letter drips with contempt for the United Nations and for international law. Among the other warmongers and neo-colonialists who signed it were Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, William Kristol, and Zalmay Khalilzad. "The only acceptable strategy," the letter states, "is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction." What's more, these self-appointed foreign policy gurus wrote: "American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council." Hence, years before 9-11, McCain and his ideological soul mates had fully-engorged stiffies for bombing and invading a sovereign state that was never really a "threat" to the United States.
We've heard a lot about McCain's alleged tactical criticisms of the war and his disagreements with his good friend and fellow PNAC member Don Rumsfeld about the nuts and bolts of invading and occupying Iraq. But we've heard nary a peep about McCain's former association with the single most influential organization that brought us the war in the first place, PNAC. Bush peppered PNACers throughout his foreign policy apparatus and they were calling for attacking Iraq the day George W. Bush was inaugurated. In the first distressing moments after the September 11 attacks, according to former terrorism czar Richard Clarke and former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were searching for ways to pin the blame on Saddam Hussein as a pretext for the invasion they lusted for. McCain did his part in the Senate to sell the American people on the false idea that launching a war in Iraq would be relatively easy, short, and wouldn't cost very much, at the same time his fellow PNACers Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, and the rest were using their pieces of the bully pulpit to deceive the American people into supporting this murderous imperial endeavor.
It must have seemed really sweet to them at the time. Cheney's cronies at Halliburton and KBR and Blackwater and other white-collar criminal enterprises would make a killing on war contracts; the oil conglomerates connected to Bush and Cheney could position themselves to rip off Iraq's oil; and the United States could fulfill the role PNAC had laid out for it as the world's sole remaining "superpower" by controlling the "grand prize" of Middle East oil. The neo-cons, with their close ties to the Likud Party in Israel, also knew that Israel would benefit from the smashing of a secular Arab nationalist state that might be a problem for Israel in the future. Taking out Saddam would be a blow to Arab nationalism generally. It was going to be an obscenely lucrative business deal and they were all going to make a helluva lot of money! Even Karl Rove got piece of the action by milking the war politically in pursuit of his wet dream of a permanent Republican majority. God Bless America!
And John McCain was with these jackals all along. Please go to Youtube or pick up a copy of the DVD Leading to War and watch the ceremony in October 2002 when Bush signed the resolution authorizing him to invade and occupy Iraq. The first guy Bush shakes hands with is John McCain and McCain flashes his affection to the president in the form of his now familiar wink of an eye. I've seen that footage many times and I cannot help but think that the subtext for the whole goddamned war was that these guys and their campaign donors were going to make a lot of money on the contracts and grease the wheels of the Republican juggernaut. Watch the clip yourselves -- I report, you decide.
Also, what really galls me is that John McCain twists and distorts "history" just like Bush does. Recently he's been talking up his support for the "status of force" (SOF) agreement the Bush administration is trying to shove down the throat of the Iraqi government. It calls for an open-ended U.S. troop presence, 58 permanent military bases, legal immunity for all U.S. personnel, and sweetheart deals for U.S. oil conglomerates. Even the malleable Maliki government in Baghdad is resisting this neo-colonial arrangement that would strip Iraq of sovereignty. But McCain compares this status of force agreement to the ones the United States negotiated with Japan and Germany and South Korea. Maybe one of McCain's neo-con foreign policy "experts" -- James Woolsey perhaps? -- could please advise their candidate that his historical comparisons are bogus. Let's keep the record straight: The United States did not launch an unprovoked war of choice against Japan and Germany or South Korea, bomb them, invade them, overthrow their governments, occupy them, imprison thousands of their citizens, and then demand under military force that they sign SOFs with the U.S. The Iraq War is completely different than what existed in Japan, Germany, or South Korea. Whenever McCain makes this phony "historical" argument he should be called on it forcefully. I don't know any credible historian who would make this kind of miserable, self-serving, and wrong historical analogy. Why should McCain get away with it?
So, in conclusion, John McCain cannot hold up his tepid tactical criticisms of the now disgraced Rumsfeld as evidence of his lack of support for the Iraq war. He was for the war even before Bush was president. He calls himself a war "hero," (which I suppose he is if you think dropping bombs on a Vietnamese city is "heroic"), but being a "hero" does not make one a foreign policy expert. And his judgment on Iraq has shown that he learned all of the wrong lessons from his Vietnam experience. I will be writing more about McCain and the Vietnam War in future posts.
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Too many people in this country think that war is really, really cool.
You left out the best and most important part. In the PNAC manifesto, they describe the difficulty in getting the American public to support a war with Iraq, unless there is a "catastrophic event, like a new Pearl Harbor". 9/11 was that new Pearl Harbor that made all this war profiteering possible. Coincidence? Yeah right.
Best, maybe isn't the best word usage here.
Worst?
Best ialk s the right word if you happen to be one of the lucky insiders with no-bid contracts! Talk about all your wishes coming true. They dream it up and POOF! 9/11. Open up the vault and take what you want- the American's paying the bill won't notice. No wonder McCain thinks 100 years in Iraq is fine with him. No need to cut off the spigot when there's still so much more to steal. Gosh, I bet they have some serious parties aboard their yachts laughing their rear ends off at how easy this was. The GOP is really the Mafia in ties (cheap flag pins) and smarmy hair cuts.
Most Americans will buy into the militaristic vision of Empire for America. The idea of a "common enemy" unites Americans because we are a very diverse country. Substituting "terrorism" for "communism" keeps America united against the common enemy and mobilizes the push for the spending on the "defense."
John McCain is totally on board with the oil and MIC interests nowadays. He opposed some failed weapons systems here and there but he is in line for being the top GOP candidate so long as he plays his cards right.
Robert Sheer has written a new book about the push for militarization of America. Even though communism is no longer a threat, the MIC has first priority on all money from taxes. Social programs and infrastructure upkeep are outmoded and out-gunned. Both President Washington and Eisenhower warned of the rise of this ever-growing military complex. Standing armies have clout over any Republic as Julius Caesar knew when he crossed the Rubicon. Business and military conquests are offensive not defensive but the lines are blurred, intentionally.
Up until a couple of years ago, most Americans were suffering from " triumphalistic post-Gulf War I syndrome", i.e., the illusion that modern day warfare was merely a question of launching a few "smart" cruise missiles at selected targets, with little "collateral" damage, followed up by a lightning ground campaign that annihilated the remnants of the enemy's ground forces. Any casuaties suffered by Americans in theater were caused by flukes, or lucky hits. All this brought to them courtesy of the major cable news networks.
The foregoing state of mind was welcomed as an antidote to the "defeatist Vietnam syndrome", which took into account the fact [which should be obvious to anybody with an i.q. over 40] that war is a horrible, bloody, inhumane hell.
The pendulum may be swinging back now, since the effects of the Iraqi and Afghan debacles are now starting to be felt big time, by the families of the dead, the mutilated survivors, and their extended families and communities.
The next administration must not only not heed PNAC, but must expunge all of these warmongers from government, and for good.
Well said.
Desert Storm was a fluke. We got lucky. The Pentagon expected us to take much higher losses than we did. Mind you, I could have been one of those losses so I'm not complaining. The problem is that it made us believe we were invincible.
John McCain deserves the same respect any veteran should receive. Being a veteran does not make one exempt from legitimate criticism, nor does it excuse bad judgment as an individual, or while in public office.
I'll never forget the way John McCain was all smiles on the eve of this war. He and Lieberman were looking like they were going to get that toy they always wanted for Christmas/Hannukah right before the start of this war. I won't forget that and I hope nobody else does either.
Making war is more exciting than making love for some males. The rise in testosterone is legendary. Football is no substitute for actually killing people. American woman are always turned on by war. Security moms are known for voting for more and more wars. The war candidate always wins. We live on Planet of the Apes with Madison Avenue types pushing for wars-for-profit. The psychology was copied from America by Hitler and we are copying it back. With the corporate media cheer leading we are on the way to Iran. It is no accident that Bush was a cheer leader, not a combat veteran. Today, one doesn't have to be a Julius Caesar with ten years in Gaul. The media makes the man.
Go ahead and expand your aim, Joseph. Barak Obama is cut from the same cloth, as is Hillary Clinton, and anyone can prove that for themselves by the good work of the Librarians of Congress at http://thomas.loc.gov.
Here is the actual text of every law and every bill, and every revision thereof. Here are the actual statements made on-the-record in committees. And, here are the actual voting records.
We've got "a white man, a black man, and a woman." (How quaint.) But they are all three the same. One perfunctory "election," ultimately decided by paperless voting-machines anyway.
Umm... does anyone else who likes to read history have this horrific sense of deja-vu?
This "...cut from the same cloth,..." B.S. gave us George W. in the first place! Only a Moron would think Obama and McCain are "cut from the same cloth".
If Rumsfeld, and powell hadn't blocked the joint Chiefs access to the President, with the true Intel there would not be a war with Iraq, because I truely believe Bush would not have gone in to start with, and 4500 Americans would be alive now. Plus untold 1000's of Iraqi citizens. So lets put the blame where it belongs, on the joint chiefs, Rumsfeld, and Powell. Not on Bush.
Get real Repub troll. Bush is a co-conspirator even if he's not a neocon or a signer of the PANC letter.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) don't have direct access to the POTUS. Under the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, (1) the Chairman (CJCS) is the principal military ADVISOR to the POTUS, and (2) the chain of command runs from the president through the Secretary of Defense to the unified combatant commanders. It is debatable whether CJCS GEN Richard Myers, a USAF fighter jock, had the cojones to "speak truth to power" or was actually a cherleader in the march to war.
Moreover, Bush had claimed that Saddam Hussein "tried to kill my dad." This presumably was in 1993 when Poppy traveled to Kuwait as a private citizen. Saddam Hussein supposedly sent a hit squad, which was intercepted at the Iraq-Kuwait border. This was MILES away, so the would-be assassins never even got close to Poppy.
And The Shrub had been the "enforcer" during Poppy's 1988 campaign for president, according to the 2004 pro-Bush book by Peter and Rochelle Schweizer, "The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty."
So the Bushes are like a bunch of mafiosos, and woe to anyone who crosses any of them since (Bush) blood is thicker than water.
These "characters" have learned absolutely nothing from the fall of Rome.
As was said about the French House of Bourbon following their restoration in 1815, they "remembered everything, but learned nothing" from the French Revolution or Napoleon.
Great post. It's interesting to see the connection between neo-cons and John McCain. I wasn’t aware of the extent of it. There are many problems that I hope congress will hold the Bush/Cheney administration responsible for. It will be dangerous for our country if they are not held accountable. Electing McCain just has endless horrible implications.
One issue; I believe a military pilot does not feel like a hero after dropping a bomb, including John McCain. He's hero status comes from enduring five years of torture. I think we should be careful to respect that and, also, not minimize the fact that he was performing his duty when he dropped bombs, just like our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are performing their duties.
Thanks,
Not Voting for John McCain
I love this candidate. He is a duck in a barrel.
I don't like McCain much and haven't for a long time now. I think he sold out his principles when BushCo assumed power. However, according to the sources I've checked, McCain was never a member of PNAC and did not sign that letter to Clinton in 1998. I checked several sources including this one....http://web.archive.org/web/20060620122131/rightweb.irc-online.org/charts/pnac-chart.php... and none mention a connection between McCain and PNAC. Perhaps you can steer us to a source verifying your claim, Mr. Palermo?
The letter was on the "Project for a New American web site. The web site has since been taken down. It served it's purpose, getting us into the Iraq war.
Oh, I'm aware of the letter, Chillin, as well as most of those associated with the PNAC. I just don't recall McCain ever bein linked to it, much less a signer of that letter. As much as I dislike McCain, I need to see sourced fact before I believe what Palermo has to say about this. The website that I sourced above is a "watchdog" site and if McCain were associated with PNAC he would be on the list.
Here's the archived PNAC web site
http://web.archive.org/web/20070821161035/http://www.newamericancentury.org/index.html
here's an article on the connections between McCain and PNAC.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080612_john_mccains_chilling_project_for_america/
In 1998, co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act—drafted by PNAC—which decreed “regime change” in Iraq to be U.S. policy,
This is very important information to have.
Thank you.
This may be the best article ever at this site. While it seems everybody else is talking about Tiger Woods' bum knee or 50 Cents' new album, this column reminds us why the Secretary Of State put a portrait of George Orwell in his office. These are mentally ill times that we're living in. And speaking truth to power has never been so blunt at HuffPost. Thanks for the realist breath of political fresh air.
PNAC is prema facia evidence on the war of aggression or Operation Iraq Liberation in short OIL.
Don't forget that which has been done at the behest of the Zionist controlled Israeli Government to insure their dominance in the region. Truly the tail wagging the dog.
This whole issue is so da**ed important and is getting almost no air time. Why has the MSM failed to cover the SOF agreement that Bush is also trying to secretly cram down our throats (and yes, I see the contradiction in that sentence, even if the Bush Administration doesn't)?
Aw, Susan, because there is no more journalism. It's been supplanted by sensationalism. News is about viewership, ad sales, and personality cults. The quest for truth is dead in the MSM. RIP.
Although there is hope, and it's spelled h-u-f-f-i-n-g-t-o-n-p-o-s-t dot com baby! :-)
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