John McCain is a Harbinger of Death, Stop Calling Him a Hero
John McCain is a Harbinger of Death, Stop Calling Him a Hero
UPDATE: John McCain died on August 25, 2018.
(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) was
recently diagnosed with
glioblastoma, a serious form of brain cancer. In preparation for the
inevitable end to McCain’s life, career, and legacy — whether he
succumbs to cancer or old age — the mainstream media has come out in
full force to educate us about the major lessons we should take away
from McCain’s illustrious lifelong accomplishments.
The
Washington Post writes:
“And all over this world, Mr.
McCain is associated with freedom and democracy. He has championed human
rights with verve and tirelessness – speaking out against repression
and authoritarianism, and inviting – no, cajoling – his colleagues, both
Republicans and Democrats, to bear witness with him on trips abroad.”
Let’s work our way backward.
In mid-February of this year, Mr. McCain made a
secret trip to
Syria that only came to light after he had already taken the visit. One
can only wonder how many Republicans and Democrats he invited on this
trip considering Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s independent visit to Syria was
severely lambasted by both sides of the political spectrum. As
CNN reported at the time, Mr. McCain “
argued for more aggressive military involvement in the Syrian Civil War,” a move that currently has no international legal basis and certainly has nothing to do with human rights or democracy.
In 2012, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, gave a slideshow presentation that explained the true nature of
America’s military involvement in Syria.
According to the
New York Times, Dempsey said imposing a no-fly zone, as many establishment
politicians have
advocated,
“would
require as many as 70,000 American servicemen to dismantle Syria’s
sophisticated anti-aircraft system and then impose a 24-hour watch over
the country.”
At the time of Dempsey’s estimate, the Russian military had not yet
intervened to bolster Assad’s forces in Syria. But this week, Russia
signed a law ratifying a deal with the Syrian government allowing Russia to keep its air base in Syria for almost half a century, meaning the military
commitment Mr.
McCain has been advocating would require a full-scale war with Russia.
In this context, the least dangerous scenario possible would require
over 70,000 Americans to risk their lives in the Syrian conflict against
a military heavily defended by Russia and Iran, all while the U.S.
keeps fighting wars on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan).
In 2013, Mr. McCain
met with General Salem Idris,
the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army
(FSA) in another “surprise” visit. He also met with other leaders of
Free Syrian Army units. As far back as 2012,
Reuters reported that the FSA was
heavily embedded with extremists. FSA
commanders also admitted on record to conducting joint operations with al-Nusra, Syria’s
official al-Qaeda branch, whom they referred to as their “brothers”.
Idris was effectively
ousted in 2014 and replaced by a military commander whose aim was to not only topple the Assad government but also to
work together with anti-Iranian groups to topple Iran.
Some years later, we
learned that the majority of Syrian rebels share
ISIS’ core ideology and have the express intention of establishing
Sharia law, according to a think tank commissioned by the Tony Blair
Foundation. We also learned that Syrian rebels cannot be divided into
moderates and extremists because they all work together on the ground,
anyway.
The
Washington Post’s David Ignatius
bragged that
these CIA-backed Syrian rebels had killed 100,000 Syrian soldiers and
their allies over the years – as if this is something to celebrate.
Whether we like it or not, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is defending its
country from a foreign-backed insurgency spearheaded by the United
States, and in 2016 it was the most
heavily engaged entity fighting ISIS. The fact that 500,000 Syrians
have returned to
areas liberated by these SAA soldiers is a testament to the fact that
the CIA-backed rebels are not liberating Syria but are in fact the very
types of people that hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have been
fleeing the country to escape in the first place.
Has this changed Mr. McCain’s position on Syria? Not at all. In fact,
Donald Trump’s decision to end the covert CIA program that trains and
arms these fanatic rebels was met with
strict condemnation from
Mr. McCain, who argued that Trump has handed a “concession” to Russia.
Mr. McCain appears to believe that attempting the same failed strategy
over and over will one day lead the world to an inevitable success.
After
advocating for and subsequently
praising the assassination of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Mr. McCain
tweeted a confrontational statement to then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that read
“Dear Vlad, the Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you.”
Threats of murder and or/toppling the governments of other world
leaders aren’t democratic, nor are their motives rooted in human rights
concerns. In the years leading up Gaddafi’s death – brought about by a
campaign that Mr. McCain strongly
supported despite the absence of congressional approval for the
American-led intervention – Libya had the
highest standard of living out of any country in Africa and
provided its people with state-sponsored health care. It also had an
inclusive participatory system that involved decision-making at the local level. This system was
observed by the
New York Times in 2009, and though the
Times was heavily critical of this experiment, the system was almost certainly better than the state of Libya today. Over
2 million children are out of school, and the country has
rapidly fallen on the U.N. Human Development Index rating.
In the very same year the
New York Times observed Gaddafi’s democratic experiment, in a
private meeting with Gaddafi and his son, Mr. McCain
offered to sell weapons to Gaddafi to “
provide Libya with the equipment it needs for its security.”
Ironically enough, it was Mr. McCain and his cohort of hawkish
lawmakers that ended up posing the biggest threat to Libyan security
when they advocated for bombing Libya back into the Stone Age in 2011
(there’s always an arms deal to be made in there somewhere, though).
NATO even
bombed a Libyan water factory that supplied 70 percent of the country’s water, and as the U.N. noted, it was the
Libyan government that was attempting to fix the problem — not the other way around.
Mr. McCain
voted in favor of the Iraq war in 2003, and this was not just a mere policy mistake. He even wanted
military action in
Iraq shortly after 9/11 even though Iraq had nothing to do with the
attacks that took place that fateful day. The invasion of Iraq in 2003
and the decisions that were made during that invasion
directly fueled the rise of ISIS, led to the deaths of
over one million Iraqi civilians, and from the point of view of the U.N., were
completely illegal.
McCain has also been the biggest
advocate of confronting Russia in Ukraine,
heavily supporting that country’s descent into
turmoil. The man who was backed by the U.S. to take over Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko,
previously worked as
a mole for the U.S. State Department with the aptly coined nickname
“our Ukrainian insider.” His approval rating currently sits somewhere
around 17 percent. In his bid to promote ‘democracy’ in Ukraine, Mr. McCain
met with known neo-Nazis with incredibly fascist policy ideas, particularly in relation to Ukraine’s Jewish population.
Democracy, human rights, freedom.
All around the world.
Speaking of championing human rights, why does Mr. McCain have
such strong ties to Saudi Arabia, a nation the U.S. State Department
admits is responsible for a host of human rights abuses? Why did he
work so hard to
make sure Trump’s multi billion dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia went
through even though Saudi Arabia is launching a war of aggression in
neighboring Yemen and
committing countless war crimes in the process?
Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world. Its people need food
and an uplifted blockade, not billion dollar death machines that target
the
vital remaining elements of their infrastructure.
Why does Mr. McCain
heavily support Israel’s
brutal occupation and relentless bombardment of the Palestinian people
if he truly champions human rights across the world? One does not need
to be anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, or even pro-Palestinian to
recognize the horror Israel has unleashed on Gaza’s civilian population.
As a person, Mr. McCain is nothing short of repugnant. As the
Intercept’s Mehdi Hasan explains:
“He [McCain] once compared the president of Iran to a monkey and still insists on calling his Vietnamese captors ‘gooks’
(the fact that they brutally tortured him does not excuse his repeated
use of a crude racial epithet). Then there is his poor wife. As
journalist Cliff Schecter recounts in his 2008 book ‘The Real McCain’:
“In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail
by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant
Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and
said, ‘You’re getting a little thin up there.’ McCain’s face reddened,
and he responded, ‘At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.’”
Upon hearing the news of Mr. McCain’s recent diagnosis, Barack Obama
stated on Twitter that John McCain is an American hero and a brave fighter.
“Cancer doesn’t know what it’s up against. Give it hell, John,” the former president concluded.
This is all the while, McCain receives taxpayer-funded treatment (it
was taxpayer-funded health insurance that detected his cancer in the
first instance)
only to leave his treatment as soon as possible to
fly thousands of miles to cast a vote ensuring that millions of
Americans could never receive such a treatment if they needed it.
Therefore, it’s safe to say that most of America probably doesn’t
know what it’s up against, either, nor does the rest of the world
considering Mr. McCain’s ability to interfere in egregious and illogical
ways across the global chessboard.
If he does depart this earth, at least he will take his warmongering and cowardly legacy with him to the grave.
