On Apr 20, 12:53 pm, Thaddeus Stevens <thaddeussteph...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> CounterPunch Diary
> "Hero" John McCain as Phony and Collaborator: What Really Happened When
He=
Was a POW?
>
> By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
>
> John McCain=92s been getting kid-glove treatment from the press for
years,=
ever since he wriggled
> free of the Keating scandal and his profitable association =96 another
col=
laboration, you might
> say -- with the nation=92s top bank swindler in the 1980s. But nothing
equ=
als the astounding tact
> with which his claque on the press bus avoids the topic of McCain=92s
coll=
aborating with his
> Vietnamese captors after he=92d been shot down.
>
> How McCain behaved when he was a prisoner is key. McCain is probably the
m=
ost unstable man ever
> to have got this close to the White House. He=92s one election away from
i=
t. Republican senator
> Thad Cochrane has openly said he trembles at the thought of an unstable
Mc=
Cain in the Oval
> Office with his finger on the nuclear trigger.
>
> What if a private memory of years of collaboration in his prison camp
gnaw=
s at McCain, and
> bursts out in his paroxysms of uncontrollable fury, his rantings about
=93=
gooks=94 and his
> terrifying commitment to a hundred years of war in Iraq. What if =93the
he=
ro=94 knows he=92s a phony?
> Doug Valentine has written the definitive history of the Phoenix Program
i=
n Vietnam. He knows
> about the POW experience. His dad, an Army man, was captured by the
Japane=
se and sent to a POW
> camp in the Philippines for forced labor. Many of his mates died. Doug
wro=
te a marvelous book
> about it, The Hotel Tacloban.
>
> Now Valentine has picked up the unexploded bomb lying on McCain=92s
campai=
gn trail this year. As
> he points out, he=92s not the first. Rumors and charges have long
swirled =
around McCain=92s conduct
> as a prisoner. Fellow prisoners have given the lie to McCain=92s claims.
B=
ut Valentine has
> assembled the dossier. It=92s devastating. We=92re running it in our
curre=
nt CounterPunch newsletter
> and we strongly urge you to subscribe.
>
> Some excerpts from Valentine=92s indictment.
>
> =93War is one thing, collaborating with the enemy is another; it is
a=
legitimate campaign
> issue that strikes at the heart of McCain=92s character. . .or lack
thereo=
f. In occupied countries
> like Iraq, or France in World War II, collaboration to that extent
spells =
an automatic death
> sentence.. . .The question is: What kind of collaborator was John
McCain, =
the admitted war
> criminal who will hate the Vietnamese for the rest of his life?
>
> =93Put it another way: how psychologically twisted is McCain? And
wha=
t actually happened to
> him in his POW camp that twisted him? Was it abuse, as he claims, or was
i=
t the fact that he
> collaborated and has to cover up? Covering-up can take a lot of energy.
Th=
e truth is lurking
> there in his subconscious, waiting to explode. =94
>
> =93McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to
the=
infamous Hanoi Hilton
> prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain=92s own account, after
t=
hree or four days he
> cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, =93I=92ll give you military
i=
nformation if you will
> take me to the hospital ...
>
> =93His Vietnamese captors soon realized their POW, John Sidney
McCain=
III, came from a
> well-bred line in the American military elite. . .The Vietnamese
realized,=
this poor stooge has
> propaganda value. The admiral=92s boy was used to special treatment, and
h=
is captors knew that.
> They were working him.=94
>
> =93. . .two weeks into his stay at the Vietnamese hospital, the
Hanoi=
press began quoting
> him. It was not =91name rank and serial number, or kill me=92. as
specifie=
d by the military code of
> conduct. McCain divulged specific military information: he gave the name
o=
f the aircraft carrier
> on which he was based, the number of U.S. pilots that had been lost, the
n=
umber of aircraft in
> his flight formation, as well as information about the location of
rescue =
****ps.=94
>
> =93=85McCain was held for five and half years. The first two
weeks=92=
behavior might have been
> pragmatism, but McCain soon became North Vietnam=92s go-to
collaborator=85=
...McCain cooperated with
> the North Vietnamese for a period of three years. His situation isn=92t
as=
innocuous as that of
> the French barber who cuts the hair of the German occupier. McCain was
rep=
aying his captors for
> their kindness and mercy.
>
> =93This is the lesson of McCain=92s experience as a POW: a true
polit=
ician, a hollow man, his
> only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain=92s campaign
cont=
ributors today,
> protected and promoted him, and, in return, he danced to their tune. .
.=
=94
>
>
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> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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>
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> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ =
+ + + +
>
> Finally, the campaigns of 1793 and 1794 set Clausewitz on the path
of=
recognizing war as a
> political phenomenon. Wars, as everyone knew, were fought for a purpose
th=
at was political,
> or at least always had political consequences. Not as readily apparent
wa=
s the implication
> that followed. If war was meant to achieve a political purpose,
everything=
that entered into
> war =97 social and economic preparation, strategic planning, the conduct
o=
f operations, the
> use of violence on all levels =97 should be determined by this purpose,
or=
at least accord
> with it. Even though soldiers had to acquire special expertise, and
functi=
on in what in some
> respects was a separate world, it would be a denial of reality to allow
th=
em to carry on
> their bloody work undisturbed until an armistice brought their political
e=
mployer back into
> the equation. Just as war and its institutions reflected their social
envi=
ronment, so every
> aspect of fighting should be suffused by its political impulse, whether
th=
is impulse was
> intense or moderate. The appropriate relation****p between politics and
war=
occupied
> Clausewitz throughout his life, but even his earliest manuscripts and
lett=
ers show his
> awareness of their interaction.
> The ease with which this link =97 always acknowledged in the
abstract=
=97 can be forgotten in
> specific cases, and Clausewitz=92s insistence that it must never be
overlo=
oked, are
> illustrated by his polite rejection toward the end of his life of a
strate=
gic problem set by
> the chief of the Prussian General Staff, in which every military detail
of=
the opposing
> sides was spelled out, but no mention made of their political purpose.
To =
a friend who had
> sent him the problem for comment, Clausewitz replied that it was not
possi=
ble to draft a
> sensible plan of operations without indicating the political condition
of =
the states
> involved, and their relation****p to each other: =91War is not an
independe=
nt phenomenon, but
> the continuation of politics by different means. Consequently, the main
li=
nes of every major
> strategic plan are largely political in nature, and their political
charac=
ter increases the
> more the plan applies to the entire campaign and to the whole state. A
war=
plan results
> directly from the political conditions of the two warring states, as
well =
as from their
> relations to third powers. A plan of campaign results from the war plan,
a=
nd frequently - if
> there is only one theater of operations - may even be identical with it.
B=
ut the political
> element even enters the separate components of a campaign; rarely will
it =
be without
> influence on such major episodes of warfare as a battle, etc. According
to=
this point of
> view, there can be no question of a purely military evaluation of a
great =
strategic issue,
> nor of a purely military scheme to solve it.=92
>
> Everyman=92s Library, 1993 ISBN: 0679420436 On war /by
Clausewitz,=
Carl von, 1780-1831.
> Knopf, 1993. From the introduction by Peter Paret, Pg7
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> The U-2 is a jet-powered reconnaissance aircraft specially designed to
fly=
at high altitudes
> (i.e., above 70,000 ft [21 km]). It was used during the late 1950s to
over=
fly the Soviet
> Union, China, the Middle East, and Cuba; flights over the Soviet Union,
th=
e primary mission
> for which the plane was designed, ended in 1960 when a U-2 flown by CIA
pi=
lot Gary Powers
> was shot down over the Soviet Union. This event was a major political
emba=
rrassment for the
U.S.http://www.espionageinfo.com/Te-Uk/U-2-Spy-Plane.html
>
> Soviet Prime Minister Khrushchev's reaction to the overflights
which=
were discovered
> just before a summit conference in Paris with President Eisenhower: "It
wa=
s as though the
> Americans had deliberately tried to place a time bomb under the meeting"
.=
. ."How could
> they count on us to give them a helping hand if we allowed ourselves to
be=
spat upon without
> so much as a murmur of protest?" The only solution was to demand a
formal =
public apology
> from Eisenhower and a guarantee that no more overflights would take
place =
. . .
> But the apology Khrushchev was looking for would not come. Despite
h=
aving trespassed
> on the Soviet Union for the past four years with scores of flights by
both=
U-2's and heavy
> bombers, the old general still could not say the words, it was just not
in=
him. . . A time
> bomb had exploded, prematurely ending the summit conference. . .
> Back in Wa****ngton, the mood was glum. The Senate Foreign
Relations =
Committee was
> leaning toward holding a closed door investigation into the U-2 incident
.=
. . In public,
> Eisenhower maintained a brave face. He "heartily approved" of the
congress=
ional probe and
> would 'of course fully cooperate,' he quickly told anyone who asked. But
i=
n private he was
> very troubled. For weeks he had tried to head off the investigation. His
m=
ajor concern was
> that his own personal involvement in the overflights would surface,
especi=
ally the May Day
> disaster. Equally, he was very worried that details of the dangerous
bombe=
r overflights
> would leak out. The massed overflight may in fact, have been one of the
mo=
st dangerous
> actions ever approved by a president.
> pg. 51-55 ~Body of Secrets; Anatomy of the Ultra Secret National
S=
ecurity Agency
> James Bamford
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> "Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history
of =
the progress of
> human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims,
ha=
ve been born of
> earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating,
all-absorbing=
, and for the time
> being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does
no=
thing. If there is
> no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and
y=
et depreciate
> agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they
want=
rain without
> thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of
its =
many waters."
>
> "This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it
may=
be both moral and
> physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a
dema=
nd. It never did and
> it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and
yo=
u have found out the
> exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them,
and =
these will continue
> till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The
limit=
s of tyrants are
> prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of
th=
ese ideas, Negroes
> will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long
as =
they submit to those
> devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men
m=
ay not get all they
> pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If
we=
ever get free from
> the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their
removal. =
We must do this by
> labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the
l=
ives of others."
>
> http://www.buildingequality.us/Quotes/Frederick_Douglass.htm
> Frederick Douglass, 1857
> - - - - - -> More political discussion continues
athttp://www.politicsus=
aweb.com/
>
> ----------------------
>
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>Looks like people who have served in Vietnam had better not brag about
it!
First John F. Kerry..and now POW John McCain..does that go for all the
other
POWs that were in VN..or just those running for president?!
|
