McCain Still A Prisoner Of War

It's already evident that one of the pillars of the Republican argument in this year's election campaign is that we should fear an Obama Presidency, that he's not just too young and too inexperienced (that was a Clinton argument), but more that he has naively reckless ideas about talking to dangerous world leaders without preconditions, and basically doesn't get the dire, post 9/11 world we live in. And yet, it's the prospect of a McCain presidency that really scares me and ought to scare us all, not merely those of us who, as progressives, fear the current conservative agenda or anything remotely resembling a continuation of the Bush administration.

A McCain Presidency scares me for the prospects of an escalation of conflict the scope of which cannot be foreordained. Perhaps no one could have predicted that the foreign policy naïf, George W. Bush, would have gotten us so deeply and lethally embedded in so many corners of the world, but with John McCain it's a different story. The handwriting is on the wall for those who want to read it, and that handwriting reads too much like a declaration of war.

Already few people remember McCain/Feingold, that law that was supposed to reform campaign financing, and McCain has quickly turned his back on every other signature legislative stand he ever took - anti-torture and anti-tax cuts the two most salient of his jettisoned policy positions. What the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee is best known for is having been a prisoner of war. However, what we should be careful to understand is the possibility that McCain is not merely a once-captured Naval airman, but that he remains today, a prisoner of war - that is, a captive to an orientation to international problem solving so unduly militarily and aggressive, that as bad as things are now, four years of McCain, and America could very well be known worldwide as "Conflicts Are Us."

There's a history here that needs to be understood. John S. McCain III is the scion of generations of Navy royalty -- the son of Admiral John S. McCain Jr., and grandson of Admiral John S. McCain, Sr. McCain's great, great grandfather, William Alexander McCain, was a Mississippi plantation and slave owner, a man who died fighting in the Confederate Army.

McCain's grandfather was killed, not in World War II but by World War II. Down to 100 pounds by the finish of the fighting in the Pacific, he was refused leave to return home to recuperate by Admiral Bull Halsey, who instead, forced him to attend Japanese surrender ceremonies. He died four days later of exhaustion, a spent man who gave his life for his country but died, sadly, somewhat ignominiously.

McCain's father, though he had a distinguished career in the Navy, with many prestigious appointments, failed in all his attempts as a submarine commander to take out a significant target in World War II. Instead, by all accounts, his submarine was several times returned to port for repairs.

Though McCain himself had 22 successful bombing runs, he is most famous for his 23rd, in which he was shot down and became a prisoner, surviving 5 ½ years of captivity and torture, under which he eventually broke. That's a hard thing to live down. Some men would hopefully forgive themselves and move on. Perhaps McCain has, but there is no indication that he has taken that path. As Bush has been credited with finishing the war his father wouldn't, reason would dictate that McCain may be out to settle generations of family scores on a battlefield of his own creating.

Already McCain has proposed booting Russia out of the G-8, a move that is not just provocative, but downright pugnacious. His rhetoric on Iran borders on incendiary. McCain talks like a man spoiling for a fight, and not very particular about where he picks it. It's easy to dismiss McCain's crack about staying in Iraq for "100 years" as exaggerated politicking, but his family's personal conflict in war already goes back 70 years, and it doesn't seem to have adversely affected the candidate's prospects. While The Hundred Years War is history to some, it's a personal odyssey to John McCain.

McCain has long been a bellicose tough guy, known for a quick temper and an impatient, aggressive demeanor, a guy politically on the make and in a hurry since returning from Viet Nam. While there are those who would take him to task for his spousal upgrade to the beautiful young heiress and his calculated, carbetbagging move to Arizona, the long view cautions that those are merely means to an end, and the end is not just the presidency, but what it can achieve by decree, a realm that has been greatly enlarged by the current administration.

True, there are those who say that a military man is the right person for the job now that we're in the "War on Terror"; however, it helps to remember who coined that phrase and why and how it has enslaved this country into its sixth year of a violent quagmire in Iraq with no end in sight. Yes, we are in the midst of an ideological conflict that can be terribly violent, but it is beginning to more closely resemble another historical debacle, The 30 Years War -- the protracted 17th Century European slaughter between Catholics and Protestants for the supremacy of a religious/philosophical idea -- than any invasion-based conflict in history.

McCain has thrown down a heavy gauntlet on Iraq. His withdrawal-amounts-to-defeat attitude plays pretty much as "win or die." His religious devotion to the "success" of the surge ignores the fact that 20% of the pre-war population of Iraq is either displaced, in refugee status outside the country, or dead. It is all about war to McCain, and these statistics are merely collateral damage. Perhaps the worst slur he's hurled at Senator Obama is the accusation that Obama would rather lose a war if it meant winning an election.

McCain doesn't know much, but the one thing he knows for sure is that no one in his family will any longer have to pay that ultimate price of victory. Your families on the other hand....? Well, that's another matter.

Comments

[SEQUOIABISON]

No doubt about it we are dealing with Quick Draw McGraw who is a throw back to the cold war era and surrounds himself with neocons that laugh at diplomacy when it is easier to bully nations that protest our incursion with US Might.

Obama/Clark

[thirteen13]

Can you say the words MILITARY DRAFT?

John McCain, stop calling me your friend. I am not your friend and I am not a "Georgian".

[70sFez]

What bothers me the most is that a person like McCain has a chance to run our country. This tells me that there are possibly 50% of the voters with the same ideals as McCain. I shutter at the thought.

[eden4barack08]

Insightful!

And you're not the only one to believe this about McC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee4XoVSMsJo

[MitchParadise]

Thanks Eden4. And thanks for the youtube link. Let's see if we can get it on the campaigns list of "must media" for the fall.

[bluevillage]

Re McCain on George & Russia: He would rather start a war than lose an election.

[MitchParadise]

Well put, Bluevillage.

[marthlois]

Mitch - I thought this piece was brilliant. I hope you're very proud
of it - because it truly is the essence of John McCain. It should be there for all to see.
Let's do our best to buzz it and digg it.

[MitchParadise]

Thanks, marthlois. Tell your friends.

[FullChat]

RE: Conditions on the Ground - whose evaluation of these conditions do you trust - McCain's or the President of Iraq?

[PumaAnn]

I disagree with you. I agree with McCain over this particular issue. I think it's outrageous that Russia issued a demand to the US today to "choose.

I think O's stance IS naive. Scary naive.

And I think Putin issued a challenge to our electorate on this issue.

We have to choose.

[MitchParadise]

What exactly is it you want to choose, PumaAnn? Perhaps a full-scale invasion of Russia?

[mydogshakespeare]

Mr. Paradise,

You have it ALL WRONG about John S. McCain III. Why just today, he denounced the Russian invasion of Georgia (I think), by admonishing "In the 21st Century, countries don't invade other countries!" So, you see, he is really a born-again man of peace.

[Gma11]

This man is seriously scaring me.

And when we should be working together, our candidate is getting attacked by the Clintons and by infantile progressives demanding THEY have the right to choose the vice presidential candidate.

I'm scared by the right - and scared by the left.

[MiddleRoadLiberal]

"...infantile progressives demanding THEY have the right to choose the vice presidential candidate."

Yeah! Who are these voters that think they get to pick their elected officials?

[Lemeritus]

Can the last Democrat to leave please turn off the lights and lock the doors against those marauding progressives? Oh! And make sure you put the liberal trademark in the safe -- they've been trying to steal it from us for the last 16 years.

Thank you

[dadw5boys]

Rushing into war has nearly bankrupted the USA and there is no war on Terror if we go bankrupt just ask the Soviet Union.

Oh you can't ask the Soviet Union !!!

THEY WENT BANKRUPT IN AFGANISTAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Will you vote for history to repeat it's self ?

[mikeydrew]

Our Commander-In-Chief"s uniform is a well-tailored business suit. He doesn't dress like Noriega, or Qhadaffy or Castro or Saddam Hussein. That"s because OUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IS A CIVILIAN, WHOSE FIRST RESPONSIBILITY IS TO PROTECT THE CITIZENRY, the economy, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, NOT TO WAGE WAR. And that"s the major problem with John McCain as commander-in-chief. As long as he talks of national security with that navy cap perched upon his head and wearing modified navy fatigues, he"s not commander-in-chief, but a soldier first, who should be taking orders, not giving them.

[MsDoc]

Yes...

Additionally, I just don't believe that McC is smart enough to be POTUS. Most of the Presidential decisions have nothing to do with the military ( or at least one would hope so ) and in that arena McC just can't cut it. His advisors all seem to have strong ties to big business, so we can pretty well guess where the decisions will be made and to whose benefit.

[Kirk59]

Exactly right Mikey. I am sick and tired of this "Commander-in-Chief" talk and how the "situation on the ground" should dictate our policies. This is all macho code words which attempts to devolve our President into some kind of military dictator, not the Chief Exec of a Constitutional Republic.