The Washington Post urges “Washington and the world beyond…to absorb the example that Mr. McCain sets every day.”
In a fawning editorial Saturday (7/22/17), pillar of the national security establishment Washington Post fell over itself to commend a John McCain that never existed, instead lavishing praise on a well-curated PR facsimile developed over decades.
After praising McCain for issuing a “toughly worded criticism” on Twitter of Donald Trump for allegedly ending an entirely pointless, destructive and likely illegal CIA program supporting unnamed “rebels” in Syria (the highest act of moral courage for the Post is gunrunning to CIA proxies), the Fred Hiatt–run editorial board proceeds to paint McCain as the antidote to the problem of “partisan warfare, where politicians will say just about anything at all, true or untrue, to gain an advantage.”
This is clearly meant to be an opaque shot at Trump, but the Post is too cowardly to say so outright, much like McCain was too cowardly to actually vote against any of Trump’s cabinet—aside from the OMB director who McCain only opposed because he believed he would cut defense budgets. Never mind, the Washington Post had a childhood hero to worship:
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. He has frequently welcomed victims of repression to the corridors of the capital, too, giving them succor and encouragement in the fight against tyranny.
One is curious if “all over this world” includes Iraq, which McCain lobbied to invade, resulting in 500,000–1 million deaths. Or Libya, which McCain passionately advocated bombing, turning it into an ungovernable bastion of extremism and slavery. Or Syria, which McCain helped rip apart by pushing for CIA-supported opposition groups for years. Or Gaza, whose destruction by Israeli forces McCain cheerled for in 2014. Or Yemen, which McCain, almost more than anyone in Congress, helped destroy by defending Saudi Arabia’s murderous war there.
The Washington Post doesn’t mention any of these countries; it simply recites platitudes about “authoritarianism” and “human rights.” The millions of Arabs whose lives McCain helped wreck simply don’t register in the Post’s moral calculus. And while it’s clear the editorial is a thinly veiled early eulogy, this does not relieve the Post of basic fidelity to history.
As for McCain’s supposed habit of “speaking out against repression and authoritarianism,” he had such an opportunity in 2015, when The Intercept’s Lee Fang (10/1/15) directly asked him about Saudi’s well-documented, US-backed war crimes in its bombing of Yemen—a siege that has since killed well over 10,000 civilians and lead to a cholera outbreak affecting nearly 600,000:
“They may be bombing civilians, which is actually not true,” McCain said, when asked about civilian casualties in Yemen.
“Civilians aren’t dying?” [Fang] asked.
“No, they’re not,” the senator replied. “Oh, I’m sure civilians die in war. Not nearly as many as the Houthis have executed,” McCain continued, referring to the Shiite militia waging an insurgency against the Sunni government in Yemen.
Asked about the recent reports of Saudi forces bombing a wedding party in Yemen, McCain said, “I’m sure in wars terrible things happen and the Houthis however are an extremist group backed by the Iranians who are slaughtering Yemenis.”
The reality is that McCain uses the rhetorical bludgeon of “human rights” as an arbitrary tool to push for war and demonize US enemies. For reasons that remain a mystery, the promotion and lobbying of war is not itself considered a human rights violation, nor does it sully one’s ability to act as an arbiter of them.
This is in stark contrast to the principles that animated the Nuremberg Tribunals. In his closing arguments, Justice Robert Jackson made clear that “the central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds them all together, is the plot for aggressive wars.”
If one had to sum up McCain’s political career, you could do worse than “aggressive wars”—seeing as how there’s never been one McCain didn’t promote with “verve and tirelessness.”
Nonetheless, the superficial morality being advanced by the Post—that prioritizes CNN posturing and strongly worded tweets over actual actions and voting record—seeks, above all, to promote a US NatSec mythology that positions the US as an indispensable good in the world and McCain as its most visible avatar. To achieve this marketing feat, the Washington Post must rewrite history and torture definitions to fit a childlike narrative of McCain as brave truth-teller, rather than predictable champion of war and empire who occasionally makes toothless references to human rights for the purposes of image curation.
Messages can be sent to the Washington Post at letters@washpost.com, or via Twitter @washingtonpost. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
A man after their own dark heart
And everyone calls him a war hero. That’s not what people who were POWs alongside him said. He is just another lying conniving Republican. Worse as a POW.
Yes, Phil Butler, who was in captivity longer than McCain, was snubbed by McCain because Butler opposed the neocon agenda.
McCain has betrayed veterans in multiple ways and now he is a hero to the left, which just shows how regressive the left is. I don’t agree with everything Trump says but McCain has been hiding behind his POW status and using it to silence criticism for too long. Trump was correct one this one, being captured is a passive state, it does not make you heroic in and of itself and for any liberal to demand that I feel “offended” as a veteran just because they order me to be “offended” shows that deep down liberals despise veterans and think so little of them that they expect them to be offended by hysteria. If liberals had any morality whatsoever, they would have admitted Trump was right to dismiss McCain and his claims to be a “hero” because he was captured once. Instead they insulted the intelligence of every veteran and tried to use this to make it look like they care for vets. I risked a lot and gave up a post-service job at the DOD because I could not go along with the neocon agenda. To watch “democrats” now openly cheer on the neocons disgusts me beyond words.
Yepper, more neocon crap.
Too many admirals in his family for them to dis him.
His whole cavalier attitude toward war may have been summed up in his bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran rendion of the famous Beach Boy song.
Read your version of this piece in the LA Times where you wrote McCain is a “…conservative who loves war…”, in the 2nd sentence mind you. I’m a Leftist Peace Activist and even I don’t believe that McCain “loves war”. Whatever valid points you have to make, and you do have more than a few, you lose a lot of credibility with that kind of remark right off the bat. McCain doesn’t love war. Adam, try to be Fair and Accurate in the future.
Oh, and McCain just cast the decisive vote shooting down the “Skinny Repeal”. McCain’s political courage to vote against his party is impressive to say the least. Adam, clearly you’re not a good judge of what McCain can or can’t do. I disagree with McCain and his politics most of the time but right now McCain, once again, is an American Hero and most people on the Left would agree.
Let us not forget that McCain also bombed innocent Vietnamese – a war crime. And as the Nuremberg war crimes Tribunal found after the Second World War, obedience to orders does NOT excuse such barbaric actions.
Dear Sir :
I agree with you completely that wars are cruel, and should not be the basis of our policy, and I agree with you in particular about the wars waged in Iraq and , Afghanistan, Gaza, and with some reservations on the other mentions entities and locations.
I also agree with you that the CIA program should be terminated, but differ with you about the reason, as I have a somewhat different perspective about what is the real agenda of the CIA, and deep government int he region. I want to venture here to say that the deep government, including the CIA did not mean to topple the Syrian regime, or help the Syrian people with the terminated program, as much as to put a skeleton program that makes no sense and serves no purpose other than defeat the Syrian people in their struggle for freedom, and keep them under dire circumstances to give up on their rights in freedoms and human rights : the support program was the Trojan horse to deflate the Syrian revolution,and allow the Syrian regime to kill Syrians with impunity, with a friend like this the Syrians needs no more enemies.
I want to venture more to say that the deep government including the CIA , has worked for years to give Iran the upper hand in the region to create a continuous battle between the Shiaa minority and the Sunni majority, as well as encourage some of the ethnic groups such as the Kurds to get more power and ask for separation from their mother countries ( the same DOD that gave arms to Saddam Hussain in the 80’s to gas the Kurds are now supporting and arming the Kurds, and giving them the upper hand to take lands even where Kurds are a minority to form their own entities and do not tell me it is a humanitarian jesture ) , those two complimentary processes will destruct the area and divide it into fighting cantons based on religious and ethnic divisions so Israel will become the super power in the region and control all the surrounding areas and becomes the absolute power without any limits .
This started long before even the invasion of Iraq , by supporting Khumaini, against the Shah of Iran, at the time of Carter administration, as shown by the recently declassified material, which confirms the cooperation between them, to allow Khumaini to take control, regardless of the slogans used for local consumption both in US and in the Area, but did not become clearly manifested until the US invaded Iraq and put the Maliki “who is basically the Iranian man/agent in Iraq” in charge of the country for many years, despite all the human rights violations and other crimes including bribery and corruption and manifest sectarianism that he had . at the time of Obama administration, the administration ignored for years the intervention of Hezbollah and other Iran affiliated Militias in support of the Assad and his , mafia-like regime , and provided empty words to the opposition , gave them enough arms to barely survive, and keep the ongoing war , but depriving them from any effective arms and support that can help them win and defeat Assad or at least to stop his old fashioned Helicopters from bombing civilians on a daily basis for six years during Obama’s two terms of presidency, and when he made the mistake of the chemical weapons redline, to Assad, he had to lick and swallow back his spit after a sudden visit of Benjamin Netanyahu to D/C, and he has to accept a face lifting solution that keeps the ongoing war, and not mention the chemical weapons again despite the recurrent use of chemical weapons by Assad multiple times after the chemical weapons deal agreement was signed .
The same seems to have happened in the current administration, as it seems that Donald Trump started acting up initially to stop the chemical attacks, but stopped after that and started acting in the same direction of the previous administrations .
So the plot is not against the Syrian regime or the other regimes defying the US policies in the area, these regimes appear to just happened to be there as bystanders, the real plot is against the people of Syria , and other people in the whole region to create continuous “low grade” wars that burn the people and takes their hopes of having freedom, democracy and dignity and succumb to leaders that care less about the fate of their people and more about their own positions , Meanwhile the arms companies sell more arms in the hundreds and possibly trillions to all the sides of the conflicts until they drain their wealth and exhaust their resources . eventually creating the final new entities, i.e. small fighting emirates, and cantons, that have no say whatsoever about their own destiny under the complete control of big brother, which is in this situation is going to delegate that to the only close ally in the area, the “greater state of Israel” .
Hope you do not disregard my letter as crazy thought , because all the events seems to point in that direction, and i will be interested in hearing what your input about these ideas .
Sincerely,
Dr Ahmed Sakkal