Monday, June 2, 2008
"I
believe that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators."
Sen. John McCain, (March 20,
2003)
"As you know, there are al Qaeda
operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and
they're moving back into Iraq."
Sen. John McCain, 2008 presumptive Republican
presidential nominee, (In Amman, Jordan, March 18, 2008)
“Iran obviously is on the path toward
acquiring nuclear weapons." ...“At the end of the day we cannot
allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
Sen. John McCain
“Anyone who worries about how long we [the United States]’re in Iraq does not understand the
military.”
"John
McCain will make [Dick] Cheney look like Gandhi."
Pat Buchanan, journalist and political
figure
"McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped
laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What
happened when they [the missiles] get to
the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain
never gets into those issues."
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.)
Many people write to me
asking what I think of the current batch of presidential candidates in the U.S.
—First, let me make a general observation. The American political
process, especially at the presidential level, is inhuman and inefficient. It
is a gruesome meat grinder where candidates have to campaign for months in
primaries or caucuses in all 50 states, raise tens of millions dollars and see
their private lives exposed and criticized. With such a system, it is no wonder
that few Americans with high intellect and character are willing to submit
themselves to such an ordeal. The current batch of presidential candidates is
the result of such a system. You will find no great personalities of the
caliber of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower or John F.
Kennedy, even though the more nutty ones have been eliminated. The three
remaining candidates are not the best of what America can offer and afford.
Let me begin with the
presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain (R-AZ).
My appreciation is, on the whole, relatively negative.
On the positive side, Senator McCain has built a long
history of independence in the U.S. Senate, so much so that he is often
referred to as a maverick. For example, Sen. McCain has displeased many
Republicans by supporting political finance reform, by denouncing state torture
and even by criticizing initially the way the Bush-Cheney administration
launched the Iraq war. On the last issue, however, it can be said that Sen.
McCain has since backed off and he has aligned himself more closely with the
current Republican White House.
On the question of torture, Sen. McCain has promised
to close the detention center in
Guantanamo Bay. He has declared that he
would engage more actively in climate talks (as long as China and India agreed
to emissions cuts). It can also be said that Sen. McCain does not consider
himself a “religious” candidate, and I doubt very much that he will
be holding weekly Bible sessions,
as George W. Bush is reported having done within the
walls of the White House. These may be inconsequential differences with the
current administration, but I think they are real.
On the negative side, however, the issues on which
Sen. McCain agrees with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney
are much more numerous and much more important. On most of the important
issues, it would be “more of the same” with John McCain. That is
why President George W. Bush has said that he is ready to do anything to have
Senator John McCain elected president
and that he is going to raise funds for him. Bush knows
perfectly well that a McCain presidency would be like a third term for his own
failed presidency. Indeed, people who like what Bush has done or undone during
the last eight years should vote for McCain with little fear of being disappointed.
In particular, they would love his militarism and his bellicose character. On
the other hand, those who have felt betrayed or have been the victims of the
Bush-Cheney administration, and that includes the 81 percent of Americans who
believe their country is on the wrong track,
should think twice before de facto
extending the disastrous Bush presidency one day further than necessary.
Let us look at the situation.
For one, Sen. McCain is expected, as one commentator
put it, to behave as a George W. Bush on steroids.
Some go as far as depicting him as a candidate who
aspires to become President McBush, because so many of his policies
would duplicate Bush's policies. For example, Sen. McCain is partisan of the imperial presidency theory,
advanced and practiced in recent years by the Bush-Cheney administration. As
recently as last May 6, he confirmed that if he were elected President, he
would enthusiastically throw out the restraint on power established by the
constitutional checks and balances and would embrace
the Bush-Cheney's claim of near absolute executive power.
McCain is especially worried that the courts could stick to the letter and
spirit of the U.S. Constitution and reject attempts by the President to
establish a quasi dictatorship while dismissing Congress' prerogatives. In
McCain's words, presidential executive power in the U.S. is
too constrained by a judiciary that "show[s]
little regard for the authority of the president." On this very question, however, Sen. McCain seems to want it both
ways. Is this sincere or is it
solely a way to create confusion? For instance, on May 15, he tried to distance
himself from the Bush-Cheney administration and professed that he now embraces
the constitutional concept of checks and balances.
Which McCain is the real McCain? Obviously, further clarifications are urgently
needed.
Secondly, on foreign policy more than anywhere else,
McCain can be expected to be a McBush plus. He can be expected to be a mixture
of a simplistic George W. Bush and of a rabidly nationalistic and
interventionist Dick Cheney, the last two always ready to immorally bomb people
and ask questions later. McCain stands ready to continue the Bush-Cheney's insane foreign policy.
Therefore, no one should expect that he would be much different than what this
duo has stood for over the last eight years, which is aggressive global interventionism,
disastrous unilateralism and excessive militarism.
Under McCain, the United States would still be the global bully of the planet.
This will lead to more geopolitical instability worldwide, more debt for the
United States, and more economic disruptions in trade, especially for oil and
commodities. There will be a high economic price to pay with a McCain
presidency, make no mistake about it. The current slowdown or recession may be
only a harbinger of things to come.
Indeed, listening to him, one has the feeling that Sen. McCain
has never met a war he didn't like. For instance, if it were only up to him,
American soldiers would still be in Vietnam, where he was a pilot, flying
fighter-bombers that dropped bombs over North Vietnam. He has also said that he
would like to intervene even more directly in South America. And in the Middle
East, he has said that he would not mind having an American military occupation
of that region for another one hundred years. In McCain's
view, Iraq is an American colony
forever, thus making sure there will be permanent war and permanent
military occupation in that part of the world. In 1999,
McCain even lobbied the Clinton administration to have the U.S. invade
Yugoslavia with ground troops. America's Founders would be turning in their graves
if they could see their cherished republic becoming a militaristic empire!
Thirdly, Sen. McCain does not seem to know or care
about international law. Indeed, not
only is Sen. McCain constantly confusing the Sunnis and the Shi'ites in Iraq,
after all these years, but he seems to be completely lost as to the true
meaning of "preemptive" war versus
"preventive" war. A preemptive
war or a preemptive strike is a self-defensive measure
which is taken against a foreign country that poses an imminent and inevitable
threat because it is about to invade, or is threatening to attack shortly. A
preventive war
is rather a war of choice or a war of aggression that is launched in
anticipation of a loss of security or strategic advantage in a more or less far
away future, or to gain foreign territories and resources. While a preemptive
war is essentially defensive in nature, a preventive war is fundamentally
imperialistic. In McCain's vocabulary, the two notions are confused since he
says that he would not rule out launching preemptive wars, when in fact
he means launching preventive wars of aggression “against future enemies” who pose no immediate
threat to the United States.
A preemptive war can sometimes be legal and justifiable,
and be in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
But a preventive war, because it is a planned and overt act of aggression, is
never legal according to international law.
Fourthly, it seems that Mr. McCain is a man who has a
chip on his shoulder, which is also reminiscent of George W. Bush, and that
makes him a dangerous man to be trusted as leader of a heavily armed country
like the United States. For example, remembering his days as a Navy pilot and a prisoner during the Vietnam War, nearly fifty years ago, he now says that he would
like to go to Cuba to “punish” those Cuban soldiers who hurt his
buddies in Vietnam.
The Cuban government has answered him that there were no Cuban soldiers in
Vietnam, but he keeps the grudge.
Another parallel with Mr. Bush is the fact that Mr.
McCain, who will be 72 years old in August, attended a naval
academy at Annapolis where he ranked near the
end of this class, 894th out of 899 students. Thus, he cannot be
expected to be a "philosopher president," and would be expected to lead
with his guts rather than his head.
Fifth, Sen. McCain is a neocon candidate. The Israel Lobby, indeed,
and the Neocons, that is to say the
small clique of misguided ideologues
who have whispered advice into George W. Bush's ears for years, and who have
begun whispering into McCain's ears,
would be delighted to have a militarily hawkish and
neoconservative McCain in the White House. For them, this would be a
dream come true. Their pet project—a war against Iran—would become
a reality.
Sen. McCain was born on a U.S. military base in a
foreign country (Panama), and he is the son and grandson of military career
individuals. That may explain why he is enamored with anything military. This
is a man who believes there is a military solution to any political problem. He
would be expected to follow the neocon-inspired so-called "Bush Doctrine."
He would also be expected to embrace the Neocons'
imperialistic and extreme Right Wing Project for the New American
Century (PNAC) that
calls for American global dominance. Armed with these two
“doctrines”, Sen. McCain, if elected President, would stand ready to launch future gratuitous and illegal wars of
aggression around the world to ensure American supremacy. Those who liked
George W. Bush will love John McCain. They will get all the fireworks and more.
Whether this approach is good for the United States, for its economy and for
its reputation, and for stability in the world, is another matter.
Sixth, a John McCain as president would be a gift from
heaven to the American military industrial complex.
It's easy to see why. —Sen. McCain is on record for advocating to
increase the size of the U.S. armed forces from the current 750,000 to 900,000
members. Under his governance, the Pentagon and a host of defense contractors
would see the U.S. defense budget,
already bloated to a point of being larger than the defense spending of all 191
other countries taken together, would increase even further. Another red flag
is the fact that McCain has surrounded himself with a host of far right lobbyists to run his campaign and raise money. This means that if ever he is
elected, he will be a prisoner of these far right elements. Not a promising
perspective.
Seventh,
Senator John McCain has supported George
W. Bush's huge tax cuts for the rich, which have resulted in large budget
deficits and which have contributed so much to placing the United States in its
current precarious economic situation, that is to say, being saddled with a falling currency
and a spreading financial crisis.
It is no wonder that George W. Bush has enthusiastically endorsed John McCain,
although such an endorsement could prove to be a double-edged sword, since
Bush's approval rating in the U.S. is the lowest of any American president,
while a large majority of Americans believe their country is heading in the
wrong direction.
Eighth, McCain's personal character is open to
question. He is known, and this from his early childhood, to be prone to sudden
and uncontrollable fits of temper
tantrums. It is reported by biographer
Robert Timberg (“John McCain: An American Odyssey”) that right up into his twenties, he remained a strikingly
violent man, "ready to fight at the drop of a hat". This rage seems
to be at the core of his personality: describing his own childhood, McCain has
admitted to having a quick temper and a short fuse (see his book “Worth
the Fighting for: A Memoir”) and he
has confessed that as a youngster “at the
smallest provocation I would go off into a mad frenzy, and then suddenly crash
to the floor unconscious. When I got angry I held my breath until I blacked
out!” Then, his parents would be forced to soak him in cold
water, clothes and all, to wake him up.
A man with such a character is a dangerous man to be
entrusted with the responsibility of custody of nuclear weapons. Even some of
his Republican Senate colleagues say that he is too reckless to be
commander-in-chief. And this is on top of his aggressive militarist
stance in foreign policy and his obvious and avowed lack of knowledge in
economic matters.
Ninth, there is the legitimate question of his age and
personal health. The New York Times has
recently been complaining about the lack of medical information regarding the
presumptive Republican candidate and how little people know about his health.
After all, this is not a trivial matter, since Sen. McCain will be 72 years old
in August and he is recovering from an August 2000 surgery for a melanoma cancer,
the deadliest of all cancers. A recently released medical report
does not alleviate a bit concerns about this very issue.
And ten: Since the media have criticized Senator Barak Obama for
his close association with an outspoken black minister, it is worth noting that
Senator John McCain has also been endorsed by probably one of the worst right-wing
religious bigots in the U.S. today, Texan anti-Catholic televangelist John Hagee.
Let us remember that televangelist (San
Antonio megachurch) leader John Hagee, has said that the 2005 hurricane Katrina was God's punishment to New Orleans; he has
also referred to the Roman Catholic Church as "the great whore" and
called it a "false cult system" and "the apostate church." (There
are 60 million Catholics in the U. S. and they could resent such insinuations.)
And to top that, he has also declared that God sent [Adolf]
Hitler to perpetrate the Holocaust
in order to force Jews to move to Israel!
Therefore, it is certainly legitimate to
ask why there is all the media attention on Senator Barack Obama's association
with a controversial pastor, and hardly any directed at Senator McCain's
association with another controversial pastor. Does this not smack of double
standards?
In conclusion, when all the dots are connected, it
would seem to be clear: Senator "100 Years" John McCain must be
considered a man too dangerous and too unpredictable to be entrusted with the
presidency of a heavily armed country. Do Americans really want a man whom some
call "Senator Hothead",
to become "President Hothead" and place him in a position of high
responsibility? Let's hope that enough Americans will reflect about all that
before the events unfold, not after. If Americans really believe that their
country is headed in the wrong direction, does it really make sense to line up
behind a candidate who wants to go even further in the same direction?
There are many more important issues regarding Mr. McCain that the
media should raise, but they don't.
For example, let me point out that Senator McCain is still against
public regulation of corporate fat cats who have in the past, and who continue
today to milk the public for billions of dollars. For instance, Sen. McCain
recently opposed a
farm bill because the bill proposed to regulate energy futures trading, a
market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s
electricity prices in 2001, and robbed Californians of hundreds of millions of
dollars.
Let
us also remember that about twenty years ago, Sen. McCain was accused of
corruption after it was discovered that he was deeply involved in the Savings & Loans scandal,
after it was found that he and four other senators had intervened to prevent
necessary regulation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board of some of the most
risky thrifts and loans companies, such as the Lincoln Savings and Loan
Association of Irvine in California. Indeed, Sen. McCain and the other four
senators (the Keating Five: John McCain plus John Glenn and Alan
Cranston, Don Riegle,
and Dennis
DeConcini) had received $1.3 million in campaign contributions from
chairman Charles Keating of the Lincoln Saving and Loan Ass. —Sen. McCain
was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor
judgment" for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of
Keating. The other four senators have since quit politics, but McCain is still
running strong and is the presumptive Republican
candidate in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
Let's
keep in mind that Sen. McCain has been behind Bush's Iraq War from
day one. Indeed, Sen. John McCain is the very one who
delivered a response to Sen. Robert Byrd's magistral denunciation of Bush's
war, on March 19, 2003, and who defended the Bush-Cheney administration's
decision to go to war. Therefore, those who opposed the Iraq War cannot vote
for McCain, lest they betray their own conscience. Those who like unprovoked
wars of aggression should vote for McCain.
They
are many skeletons in Sen. McCain's closet. If only the media were doing their
job, the public would know better before voting for him. This does not seem to
be the case.
Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University
of Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
He is the author of the book 'The
New American Empire'
Visit his blog site at: www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com/
Check Dr. Tremblay's coming book "The Code for Global Ethics" at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com/
Posted, Monday, June 2, 2008, at 5:30 am
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http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/tremblay=1088
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