See disclaimer at page bottom
The Senator from Arizona
John McCain
United States Senator from Arizona.
Allegedly a moderate in the Republican Party.
Son of an admiral or general of the Vietnam War era.
Decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War.
Years-long prisoner of war who had been quartered in the infamous Hanoi Hilton.
A role model of unflagging loyalty for his refusal under agonizing torture to denounce and even to question the purpose of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, after he was singled out by the North Vietnamese enemy—who knew of his important high-ranking father.
He was apparently a candidate for president of the United States, running against Al Gore, the vice president and faithful running mate of the intelligent and popular president in Bill Clinton, himself someone who questioned the role of America in the Vietnam War.
Imagine the contrast that perhaps McCain must have been imagining himself when he decided to run for president.
Here’s Bill Clinton, one of the war’s protesters, trying to get America to think about what wars should be fought, what wars are worth fighting years ago when he was a young man.
And then there’s John McCain, who as a young man probably never questioned why our country should go to war, and who went because he said his country called him. And I don’t suppose McCain’s father, a high-ranking member of the military, ever allowed his son to consider questioning the notion that when the country calls, you do nothing but come a runnin’.
So many people were saying that McCain was a credible, laudable, and much more honorable candidate than a candidate of someone the likes of a despicable, cowardly, traitorous Bill Clinton.
I mean, McCain could have had no other thing to do that day except to surrender to the demands of a loyal following that he be drafted to run, right?
Hmmm? Whom?
Today, I see McCain standing at the Council of Foreign Relations before a lectern, delivering televised remarks of his support for the status quo in Iraq. Expressing his support for the current troop deployments in Iraq. Expressing his support for Bush and Rumsfeld. Expressing his support for our illegal invasion of a country that did not attack us, expressing his support for the illegal invasion of a country that did not even threaten to attack us, and thus expressing his support for the invasion of a country for which our nation could not justify such invasion based on a traditional understanding between nations going back centuries respecting each other’s sovereignty.
I heard McCain emphasize that Iraq was not Vietnam.
Really, Senator McCain?
In what respect? Where were the differences?
Was the Vietnam War a war declared according to the United States Constitution? Or was the invasion of Iraq a constitutionally declared war?
Or is McCain saying that Iraq was not Vietnam, because in Vietnam, we were helping the indigenous army, but whereas in Iraq, we are the colonial occupying power outright?
Or is McCain saying that Iraq is not Vietnam, because in Vietnam, the populace who resented the presence of the United States, and the guerrillas who were the resistance to the United States, had lots of tropical vegetation to hide behind, and in Iraq, it’s a great deal easier to hunt down a kill the massive resistance to U.S. occupation in the barren sands of Iraq?
Or is McCain saying that Iraq is not Vietnam because we learned a great deal about managing news of the war and to take away the fuel for the engine of political opposition to wrong and illegal wars fought in America’s name?
Is it the case that Iraq is not Vietnam because:
Of course there is one difference between Vietnam and Iraq: the latter has strategic interests for the United States. It is, after all, hard to ignore all that precious mineral deposited beneath the sands of Iraq, and the opportunity for our nation to make the investors and Cheneys of Halliburton, KB & R, and Bechtel realize a fortune in controlling it, in acquiring its ownership. If something is worth fighting for, isn’t it that? God bless the volunteer army, standing up for the Cheneys and other such Americans as they are.
Here was a man renowned as the epitome of unquestioning faith-of-Job loyalty. The evidence is there in the legendary story of his time as a prisoner of war, of how he held up under torture, and how he refused to renounce the war, his generals, and the policy of the nation of routing out communists in an era where Joe McCarthy still had a lot of respect.
And here he is today demonstrating that same character. Not one criticism of the party, or of its leader Bush. Even though the sincere, democratic, and righteous opposition to Bush today is hardly comparable to sophisticated North Vietnamese practitioners of torture during the era of the war, McCain still stands fast and intrepidly to re-iterating the party line.
Most importantly, he represents the values obviously instilled—I hesitate to use the word “beaten”—into him as a youth. And that is the America-Right-Or-Wrong attitude. That is the America that never admits it is wrong, or the America that re-evaluates the correctness of a course of action, especially when it comes to war.
McCain’s speech had that “We follow you resolutely, Mr. Bush” quality.
And indeed it was apparent to me, watching McCain on the television, the man I had heard of from a distance while living abroad, that McCain was in fact a follower.
A resolute follower.
And thus being a follower, not much of a leader.
Who do we have to thank for the fact that he was not and is not and hopefully never will be president?
Mavi
Gözler
American Patriot
5 November 2003
Minor revisions January 2006
