28,
August 2018 John McCain
John
McCain has had a very checkered life. He began his decades long career as a
naval pilot in Vietnam where he was shot down in Hanoi in 1967.He spent the
next two years in solitary confinement and
twice attempted suicide. In order to escape the harsh conditions of his
confinement he signed a confession admitting
to, “crimes against the Vietnamese
country and people.”
His harsh treatment made him a lifelong opponent of
torture and as such he vigorously opposed the nomination of Gina Haspel as
director of the CIA who favored “enhance interrogation of prisoners”.
Sadly,
McCain was an unapologetic war hawk, supporting President Nixon’s bombing of
Cambodia. He firmly believed all problems could be solved at the barrel of a gun
and supported both the first Gulf War, the
wars in Afghanistan , Iraq , and Libya and favored bombing Iran. These
wars have plunged the Middle East in utter
chaos and created a huge refugee crisis.
He
faced withering criticism for his choice of
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008.
McCain deserves credit for reaching across the aisle
helping normalize relations with Vietnam and voted “thumbs down” against the
Republican-effort to repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
McCain’s
hostility with Trump is legendary and his family specifically requested Trump
not attend the eulogy services.
Media
reports have omitted the darker aspects of McCain’s public life. For example,
his involvement in a massive financial
scandal in the late 1980s. He was part of the Keating Five, the
savings-and-loan debacle.
He flew multiple combat missions in Vietnam killing
tens of thousands of innocent men. women and children in, a war that is now
considered immoral. He offered no contrition for his role.
He also was a good friend of Mohammad bin Salman and
the Saudis, the architects of 9/11, who presented McCain with a special award
for his support for the Saudi invasion of Yemen which has created the worst
human crisis in the world.
John McCain was not the embodiment of civility in
U.S. politics, nor was he the bastion of decency. He called war resisters “low
life scum”. He mocked Chelsea Clinton as ugly. He made jokes about rape and
spousal abuse. He famously called his Vietnamese captors “gooks” and said, “I
won’t apologize for that.” He was cranky, rude and abusive and even used
insulted his wife in public using the C-word.
According to Time,
McCain campaign staffers
in Virginia were teaching volunteers to see Barack Obama as having terrorist
‘friends,’ and then providing these volunteers with arguments for “persuading
voters that Sen. Obama, like Osama Bin Laden, shares responsibility for
bombings of the Pentagon. These “gutter” tactics were used effectively in
Trump’s bid for the presidency in 2016.
26, August 2018 US
Complicit in Saudi War Crimes
In examples of mind
numbing hypocrisy, President Trump and his officials, ambassador to the UN
Nikki Haley, and his National Security Advisor John Bolton, like to stand in
front of cameras and lecture other nations about the “need to change behavior”, while
simultaneously aiding and abetting Saudi
Arabia’s war crimes in Yemen.
The 500-pound
laser-guided MK 82 bomb, which the coalition dropped on August 9, killed 51
people, including 40 children.
In May 2017, on his
first stop abroad after taking office, Trump gleefully signed a $110 billion
arms deal with the Saudi king in Riyadh unconcerned of the devastating impact
on Yemini civilians.
British officials
should also be targeted for public shaming, because of their government’s
prominent role in supplying offensive munitions to the Saudi Kingdom. US
economic sanctions are also responsible for the premature death of untold
numbers of children around the world. This week, the UN and various civilian
aid agencies warned that North Korea was facing a “food crisis” because
Washington is stepping up its economic sanctions.
The medieval use of
sieges on populations to starve them into submission is a heinous use of
coercion and is an extreme violation of international humanitarian law.
On April 23, 2018, Saudi
aircraft dropped cluster
bombs made by Raytheon on a wedding in Yemen, killing 22 people, including many
children. These weapons are banned by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which
prohibits all use, stockpiling, production and transfer of cluster munitions.
