Right now America has been held a prisoner of war longer than John McCain was held as a POW by the Viet Cong in Viet Nam. I do not wish to diminish or degrade the torture and the humiliation that McCain faced during his horrible ordeal but none of that seems to be an asset in facing and solving America's current problem -- getting us out of Iraq and keeping us from a coming Depression. In fact, his experience is exactly the opposite of what is needed now to help America deal with its own grave national problems, both economic and social. McCain's experience creates a world of them (the enemy) against us (the good guys) that solves no problem other that of propaganda, and temporarily bolstering national pride.
How many years of rehabilitation will it take for this country before we come back to being what we were before George Bush stupidly, arrogantly, and unpatriotically (read: treacherously if treason be the unwitting degradation of one's own country) dragged America into a Middle East conflict with knowing and unknowing lies?
For McCain to point to Korea, Japan, or Germany as places where America still maintains a peace-keeping army after decades and use these countries as a template for an American force remaining in Iraq is extreme folly. And it reveals a profound ignorance of history. It is this kind of misreading of history that we cannot afford in a president. Japan and Germany -- countries with long histories as independent albeit militaristic nations, were defeated in a world war, and both had truly attacked this country. Real attacks, not the fantasy attacks with which the neo-cons had filled the president's eager ears, glory glazed eyes, and willingly empty head.
In the case of Japan and Germany, America, once victorious, was truly an unapologetic occupying force providing not only real security but true reconstruction for a people who needed and wanted the help offered. Our army and the Marshall Plan provided the security and economic relief that was instrumental in turning these totalitarian countries away from their former militarism towards peaceful, democratic societies. If there were benchmarks for change in these countries they were quickly and willingly met. Nothing we know of the Middle East suggests that this will happen in Iraq, or that this can happen in Iraq, a country crudely pasted together and created by the Brits in order to keep a base in the Middle East to better exploit its resources.
The Republican ads supported by McCain himself call him the "American" candidate -- suggesting without subtlety that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are somehow less American in their positions on the country and the world. Expect to hear this theme over and over; a) because it's dumb enough to be catchy, and b) because it works. Build up the love of country of your candidate, McCain, by degrading that of the opponent; sometimes (as in the case of Obama) not so subtly, but by overtly playing with his Islamic middle name, or with his pastor's fiery rhetoric, his wife's candor, or by Obama failing to wear a flag pin in his lapel, or his inability to bowl like a true blue collar sportsman; but refuse to engage with the candidate's ideas and plans for America. Mockery beats intelligent debate every time in Republican plans. We see the same mockery in such columnists as Maureen Dowd's poison pen musings, or in the smug beltway bleating of a Cokie Roberts -- mockery being the weapon of choice of the professional insider. Strangely, so little of that mockery turns on John McCain.
John McCain has been wrong on so many issues that it staggers the mind that the MSP refuses to call him on them. It is one thing for him to stand before an audience of African Americans and sorrowfully admit his guilt in voting against a holiday honoring Martin Luther King. Another is his failure to explain the true reason why. It doesn't take much to draw the conclusion that McCain viewed MLK as another unpatriotic black man whose views upset the racial status quo, the comfort of white middle class America, McCain's constituency. McCain is no garden variety bigot. He is a complex man who can and has risen above his narrow background, but he carries with him the heavy baggage of that background -- that of the ruling class in America -- a class that is filled with certainty about how right they are, and how wrong everyone else is. There is an ugliness in such certainty which often borders on bigotry. It is not for nothing that his classmates called him McNasty.
Despite his high school reputation as a snarky smart aleck, McCain may have the most engaging personality of all the candidates. There is nothing like a little well placed irony and self-mockery to tickle a reporter's fancy on a long campaign bus ride, or smile and chuckle as one is roasted by a comic on late night television. It is so flattering to watch the candidate make fun of himself while calling you "my friend"; it lures in the reporter, so eager to regard him or herself as worthy of the friendship of the powerful.
Yes, McCain has served his country nobly in the past, all of which may work in his favor in a general election where the Republicans will throw up their usual smokescreens of code words and confusion. McCain's failure to understand the diversity of ideas that nourish a democracy, and to recognize that American power is best expressed as a moral and not a military force; it is this failure of McCain's that will diminish American political and economic power in the years to come should he win the coming election. Under a McCain presidency we will see the further erosion of American democracy here and abroad, and it will keep us all prisoners of war. Scary times ahead, "my friends."
NOW ON TO THE SUBJECT AT HAND: JOHN McCAIN, let us look at his alleged capativity while he served in Nam.
LOOK AT THE VIDEO OR STILL'S OF HIS RELEASE IN APRIL 1973. FOR A POW OF OVER 5 YRS IS THAT HE LOOKS REMARKABLE ROBUST AN HEALTHY FOR HIS INCARCERATION.
THE 17 POW'S THAT MY UNIT (THE WIDOWMAKERS ie: black berets) EXTRACATED AND RETURNED TO THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT WAS MUCH LIKE THAT OF THE POW'S RELEASED DURING WW II, EMANCIAPATED, AN MERE SKELETONS, OF A HUMAN.
SO IT IS OF MY OPINION THAT JOHN McCAIN WAS A COLABERATED WITH THE NVA BECAUSE OF HIS GRANDFATHERS POSITION IN THE U.S. MILITARY
FOX NEWS HAVE BLASTED THIS SITE AS A LEFT WING FANATAICAL SITE
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FREEDOM OF SPEECH
I totally believe you. John McCain was treated differently from the other prisoners of war, because he was different -- his father was the 4-star Admiral in charge of the Pacific Theater of the Vietnam War. John McCain was treated with "kid gloves" by the North Vietnamese, because he was considered "military royalty". He got special medical treatment because of this. And he can't claim otherwise.
He's basically a smart-aleck bad pilot (he lost or crashed five planes) and he held his mud in prison. Good for him. That doesn't make him a hero (those are the guys who shoot the enemies'Â planes down, not the ones who get shot down themselves).
McCain then proceeded to cheat on his first wife, who stood by him in prison, and then, after numerous adulterous affairs, married a much younger, prettier, and richer woman, Cindy, whose family beer fortune financed McCain's political career. Hero? Or Opportunist?
The man only spent 20 hours in combat and he's still living off that 50 years later. John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, and Chuck Hagel are far bigger "heroes" than John McCain. All he is is a big mouth with a rich wife.
Likewise, he was a bad pilot who crashed several aircraft, failed to follow Navy SOP during his bombing run and got HIMSELF shot down. Any idiot who disregards his own radar monitoring system while on a run DESERVES to get shot down. He is not a hero but an incompetent officer and soldier, hardly the makings of a good president and "commander in chief."
He gets little respect from rank and file VN veterans and has very little support among active duty soldiers. Why not expose the real facts and point out that while there may be many VN vets who are heroes in thier own right (though unrecognized by you guys who are enamored with McCain's image) McCain isn't one of them. Moreover, he never had to suffer the indignities of other returning vets, job discrimination, unemployment, homelessness, etc. Give us a break!
Also, regarding your final paragraph, when will we stop kow-towing to those who SERVE in the military? IF this is a democracy, IF all are created equal, IF all are to be treated equally, then why is only one group of people considered "serving" their country? IF we are law-abiding citizens, we are serving our country as citizens. IF we are rearing law-abiding citizens, then as parents of the future generation we are serving our country. IF people are employed and paying taxes to pay the salaries of the military, then those employed Americans are "serving" their country. Enough.
The military are employed workers in our country just like other employed workers. Sometimes they do their jobs well. Other times they don't. Take the emotion out of our verbal genuflection to military personnel. Or as Plato wrote about Socrates' question to Euthyprho (paraphrased): Is piety pleasing to the gods because it is pious or is something pious because it is pleasing to the gods?