John McCain: The View from the Middle East

Being on the deadly end of his policies, many Arabs view John McCain in a very different way than the U.S. mass media has presented him, as As’ad AbuKhalil says.  

By As`ad AbuKhalil
Special to Consortium News

It is not unusual that Arabs and Americans look at the same event from divergent lenses. Take, for instance, a scene from John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign when he told  a woman in the audience who had called Obama an Arab: “No, Ma`am. He is not an Arab. He’s a decent family man.” 

That brief exchange has been tweeted and retweeted thousands of time in the last few days following McCain’s death. It has been promoted by people in mainstream media (and think tanks and academia) as evidence of the civility, “classiness”, and lack of prejudice of McCain.  Yet, Arabs saw something entirely different in that exchange.  They saw bigotry from McCain, who was denying that Obama was Arab in the same way one denies that someone is a Nazi.  He clearly implied that an Arab can’t be a decent family man.  In fact, Gen. Colin Powell was the only U.S. politician who pointed this out at the time.  But a new image of McCain is being formulated before our eyes.

For Arabs in the Middle East and in the U.S., the view of McCain does not conform to the hagiography of U.S. media.  People in the region remember well that McCain supported every U.S. and Israeli war, invasion, or attack against any Arab target. They remember that he was a major proponent of invading Iraq and argued for the expansion of U.S. wars into Iran, Libya and Syria in the wake of Sep. 11. 

The destruction of Mosul. (Wikimedia Commons)

While the Washington director of Human Rights Watch was writing tributes to McCain, Arabs were remembering him as a champion of Middle East dictators (except those on bad terms with the U.S. and Israel.) It was not a coincidence that both the official Saudi regime lobby in DC and AIPAC promptly released emotional eulogies for McCain. The English-language, Arab Times (a mouthpiece of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman) dedicated a special issue to him.

McCain never wavered in his conformity with AIPAC’s agenda.  He never had disagreements with the Israeli government except in outbidding them in his hostility to Palestinian rights and the usefulness of negotiations with Arabs.

Yet in the context of Washington politics, McCain was not regarded as the anti-Arab/anti-Muslim that he was, perhaps because there were Arabs and Muslims that he approved of. He championed, for instance, Iraqi opposition figure Ahmad Chalabi (a key fabricator in the buildup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq) and the Afghan Muhajedeen. He was very close to Arab despots and approved arms sales to their repressive armies and intelligence apparatuses. He spoke of democracy but in the way that invading and colonizing states glorify “freedom” to justify conquest.

McCain was a champion of Syrian rebels and pictures of him with Jihadi extremists (in Libya and in Syria) were circulated by Arabs on social media in the last week. while the Washington press corps and Human Rights Watch were paying tribute him as “a defender of democracy.”

Schooled by Scoop

Self-propelled howitzers of the Gaddafi forces, destroyed by French Rafale airplanes at the west-southern outskirts of Benghazi, Libya, in March 2011 in another war backed by McCain. (Wikimedia Commons)

McCain was mentored on the Middle East, according to his biographies, by Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who for years was the dean of ardent Zionists in the U.S. Congress. Those were in the days when a few members—mostly Republicans—dared to challenge AIPAC. McCain’s first trip to Israel was a member of a delegation led by Jackson when McCain was the Navy’s liaison to the Senate.  Typically, like all U.S. politicians who visit Israel, McCain became convinced by  the view from Israeli military helicopters of the vulnerability of “little Israel” and that Israel needed to continue to occupy, invade, attack and assassinate.

In Congress, McCain managed to become associated with AIPAC’s agenda more than his colleagues.  He always argued for more support for Israel. And when Israel and the U.S. both accepted negotiations with Yasser Arafat, he remained skeptical, raising doubts about the intentions of the Palestinians.

After his election to Congress, McCain quickly set himself up as an expert on defense and foreign policy. His first foreign policy posture in Congress was in 1983, when he opposed U.S. intervention in Lebanon, but not on humanitarian grounds. Instead he basically argued that far more force was needed against Syria and its allies in Lebanon. This became a pattern for the Vietnam veteran: that more force is always needed wherever U.S. troops are deployed. Some attribute the “surge” to him, as if the surge really salvaged American fortunes in Iraq.

In an article written during his 2008 presidential campaign, The New York Times talked about the McCain Doctrine and referred to his reaction to Sep. 11, when he argued for war on Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan.  For McCain, war was the only recourse for dealing with foes of the U.S. and Israel. And war was not effective for McCain without massive force and heavy troop deployments.

The Senator and the Ikhwan

Homs, Syria

McCain was a champion of the Muslim Brotherhood (Jam’iyat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin), even if that put him at odds with Gulf rulers who he also supported.  This position may seem uncharacteristic given his longstanding fealty to AIPAC and its agenda, and his general unfriendliness to Arabs and Muslims. But McCain may have undertaken this role at the behest of AIPAC. 

In the aftermath of the Arab uprisings, McCain negotiated with leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.  It was after a series of visits from leaders of those movements to Washington that they basically reversed their traditional position on Israel.  Leaders of An-Nahda rescinded their plan to criminalize normalization with Israel, while leaders of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood pledged commitment to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.  Similarly, the stance of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood abandoned any hostility toward Israel and even toward its occupation of the Golan heights.  McCain’s confidence in the ability of the Ikhwan to deliver the interests of Israel and U.S., led him to oppose Sisi’s coup as he trusted that Mohammed Morsi would be able to guard U.S. interests and the interests of the Egyptian-Israeli military-intelligence alliance.

McCain became, in this manner, an unabashed champion of what is called in the West (and in the Gulf regimes’ media) the “Syrian revolution”.  He also trusted the Islamists in the “revolution” and hoped that Israeli interests would be served by a change of regime that would be aligned with the U.S. and Israel.  The risk of promoting Jihadi Islamist rebels was, for McCain and the Israeli lobby, worth the effort.  For that, McCain’s death was mourned by leaders of the “liberal” exile opposition and by Jihadis of the Syrian rebels, including Huthaifah `Azzam, the son of `Abdullah `Azzam (the mentor of Usamah bin Laden). (Huthaifah `Azzam later deleted his post after I drew attention to it).

The career of McCain intersected with the rise of AIPAC on Capitol Hill.  He also benefited from the Reagan and Bush Doctrines, both of which relied on the use of massive force against the enemies of U.S. and Israel. 

The assessment of McCain can’t hope to achieve a measure of balance given the adulation by mainstream media for a man whose political sins were always instantly forgotten.  His reference to Vietnamese by a pejorative term was seen as an example of his frank talk—not of his prejudice. His involvement with Charles Keating was seen as an example of a minor error and not of the corruption of an influential senator.  His endorsement of war, the Israeli occupation, and his embrace of tyrants (especially in the Gulf and North Africa) have not been perceived as inconsistent with the media’s image of a champion of human rights. 

In the end, John McCain was a major face of American empire, just as were two people who attended his funeral–Obama and Bush –and one who did not, Trump.  

As’ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. He is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Lebanon (1998), Bin Laden, Islam and America’s New “War on Terrorism” (2002), and The Battle for Saudi Arabia (2004). He also runs the popular blog The Angry Arab News Service

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46 comments for “John McCain: The View from the Middle East

  1. Bjorn Jensen
    September 6, 2018 at 17:16

    Yes it’s so out there McCain and his military indulgences
    But in an the most morally bankrupt US administration, that spontaneous note of civility toads his audience that Obama was not and Arab followed by he was a decent family man does not. Mathematically or logically mean that McCain intended to mean that Arabs were not decent or family oriented
    He spoke spontaneously to an elderly woman who probably!y couldn’t tell a Greek or a Scicilian or a Spaniard from an Arab
    McCain merely gave her a geographical boundaries she might understand
    Give the guy a break-in even folks you disagree with or despise can surprise you ( I. Know this won’t wash but. Other comparisons to nice warmongers Solomon sure follow
    I have war – but McCai was simply being a gentleman to a very confused elderly woman who thought genuinely that Obama was an Arab probably the only foreign name she had ever heard of

  2. Rubicon727
    September 5, 2018 at 17:36

    Pay NO heed to the US media. They do NOT represent what many Americans realized about McCain.

    On http://www.zerohedge.com, you should have read the hundreds of vitirolic statements expressed against McCain following his death.
    I’m sure the Vietnam vets, for the most part, despised and hated him even more.

    Sure, there’s the zombified condition all across the US, but there was fierce rhetoric we’ve heard by many other citizens, and those online who have condemned this man as a mass murderer. He was precisely that. Glad he’s one less neo-con the people of the Middle East who will never have to hear from again.

  3. September 5, 2018 at 12:32

    The USA has always made war heroes out of war criminals.

  4. September 5, 2018 at 04:05

    McCain was a faithful servant for the Neocons (and other portions of America’s Israel lobby such as AIPAC), the Neocons being a highly influential group in Washington’s power establishment who help drive the great new wave of American aggressive behavior, including the anti-Russian activities, Russia being seen as a barrier to complete American dominance.

    McCain made his Neocon efforts close to a full-time job, and that earned him many rewards including plenty of campaign fund support, good press in the high-end newspapers, and helpful, influential contacts in his work.

    We saw this in every step he took, in his many trips abroad, in those he supported and opposed abroad, and right up to his meetings with such ugly characters like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

    The Neocons fervently believe an aggressive US is good for Israel, and McCain supported the concept wholeheartedly.

    He held irrational attitudes towards a number of subjects, including Iran and Russia, and these attitudes lack any reasonable explanation except through his alliance with the Neocons. There is no innate reason for a Senator from Arizona to hate Iran as much as he seemed to. He was almost deranged-sounding on the subject.

    It simply reflected the same phenomenon we saw in 2012 when Newt Gingrich tried to get the Republican presidential nomination. Gingrich went around giving speeches in which he said things like, “You know, there really is no such thing as a Palestinian.” It just made no sense, suddenly blurted out and with no connection to any issue anyone cared about, but the reason for its appearance can be found in the fact that American billionaire, and huge Netanyahu supporter, Sheldon Adelson, was reported to have donated the best part of $20 million for his campaign.

    A politician from Georgia concerned with telling Americans that there was “no such thing as a Palestinian” comes from the same place as a Senator from Arizona who goes on and on about the evils of Iran, a country which has attacked no one and a place most Americans couldn’t even locate on a map.

    McCain was completely irreligious, as his personal behavior and language always showed, so the Old Testament mumbo-jumbo about Israel, something which does influence Christian Fundamentalists in America, had no hold on him, and, in 2000, when running for the Republican nomination, he even briefly revealed his contempt for America’s Fundamentalist Christians, big supporters of Israel. That included a harsh attack on Jerry Falwell, an influential Fundamentalist whom Israel’s Netanyahu has in the past sought out to talk with privately.

    The whole big explosion in Florida got McCain lots of press and enabled him to put another notch in his belt as a maverick, but, in classic McCain fashion, as he has done many times, he was apologizing the next day, realizing he might have hurt his political career. He did the same thing with George Bush, who won the nomination, literally performing a public penance of hugging Bush desperately and wet-eyed at the Convention, for having verbally attacked the winner. Even Bush was embarrassed (see photo: http://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/ ).

    Indeed, all the events around McCain’s funeral – the inordinate praise for a man of few substantial achievements, the lavish bestowing of the title hero on someone who most certainly was not one, his virtual beatification in speech after speech and editorial after editorial – point to the influence of his powerful Neocon (and other American Israel lobby) connections.

    You’ll find some other material on McCain: https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/john-mccain-a-matter-of-character/

  5. R Davis
    September 5, 2018 at 03:19

    Interesting Article:

    There Are No Sunglasses – John McCain Has Finally Done Something For The Greater Good — Died by Michael Howard.
    I read this article first on The Crazz Files.

  6. Ralph Kramden
    September 5, 2018 at 01:00

    Most people who criticize McCain remember his war crimes. Let us not forget his bigotry at home: “No ma’am. he is not an Arab; he is a decent family man.” This anti-Semitic remark is tolerated in the US of A as long as it is directed against Arabs anything goes. If he had said: “No ma’am he is not a Jew; he is a decent family man,” that would be different. For years he voted against the MLK birthday. He was always the lackey of Big Pharma. In spite of his record on Civil Rights, Obama chose to join his funeral and not that of someone who had fought for Civil Rights: Aretha. All the attacks on unions and the poor had the backing of McCain.
    Graduated fifth from the bottom from that high-school level Naval Academy. He crashed three planes and barely made it to the carrier on a fourth when in one of his pranks he caused a black-out in several towns in Spain. Read about his version of the Forrestal fire as opposed to eye-witnesses. Within 30 hours of the fire he was heading to Saigon for R&R while the fire was still burning. He lied about how his plane managed to drop the bomb on the deck of The Forrestal. Fellow prisoners report that McCain was never tortured in Hanoi, that he made that up to appear heroic.
    Sad how the empire needs to manufacture heroes. The delusional aspect of the empire is pathological. The Wizard of Oz becomes the USA.

    • Ralph Kramden
      September 5, 2018 at 01:20

      Forgot to mention the corrupt sob and his dealings with Keating. 9 times him and his family flew all-expenses-paid to the Bahamas getaway of Keating.

    • September 5, 2018 at 04:14

      America desperately wanted a hero coming out of the moral filth of Vietnam.

      Mccain, as son and grandson of Admirals, was a natural choice for getting the acting role.

      He did a good job with the boyish smile and always phony words, words most people were not in a position to check.

      And he received strong press support. After all, America’s press is cheerleading crowd for America’s many imperial wars.

      He truly was a nasty piece of work in totality.

      Nothing about him was authentic except his dishonesty and violent temper.

    • Known Unknown
      September 5, 2018 at 16:38

      His “not an Arab” remark was the first thing mentioned in the article. Reading…so old fashioned.

  7. KiwiAntz
    September 5, 2018 at 00:35

    “Death” seems to be a great career move for John McCain? Pity it took as long as it did to happen! Never has there been such a disgusting, sycophantic & revisionist display of hogwash that has ever been displayed by lying Politicians, ignorant people & of course the deceitful MSM once this old man shuffled of this mortal coil on his one way trip to HELL, where all tyrants & murderers go to! Even in my home Country of NZ we’ve been bombarded with this Media driven tripe, that McCain was some sort of hero & saint! It’s sickening to think that this warmonger is being eulogied like this! The MSM verbal diarrhoea to canonise this decrepit, mean spirited brute of a man to the divine status of a holy relic & American saint is a complete joke! But what can you expect from a Country that creates its own deluded History by invention, like a Hollywood production in which they are the good guys, always wearing white hats, stepping in to save the World while everyone else wears black hats & is the enemy! This simpleton, John Wayne, way of thinking mentality which results in the mindless, blind Patriotism Americans are renowned for, as a result of thinking that they & the US are the exceptional nation, a exceptional people, the Nation above all others, is leading all of us into a Third World War? The only thing that they are exceptional in, is STUPIDITY, but stupid is, what stupid does, to quote Forest Gumps Mama! The Militarised US thuggery that McCain loved to endorse & promote, will result in the eventual downfall of the American Reich & its Empire!

  8. Catman
    September 4, 2018 at 22:34

    Hmmm. An ardent supporter of AIPAC, treated as a hero by the MSM. Surprised?

  9. Zoli
    September 4, 2018 at 22:26

    The fact that socialists sing him praise, says something about both , McCain and themselves

    • Known Unknown
      September 5, 2018 at 16:41

      You mean “socialists” or so-called socialists. Sanders and whatshername are neoliberal frauds like the rest of the Democrapublican crowd.

  10. Gina Bugni
    September 4, 2018 at 18:46

    My immediate reaction to that exchange was, being Arab isn’t an insult, that’s racist. Someone should have called it out, right there. Many recognize this- Irish dogs, Italian wops, negros, Spics, gooks, Chincs, wetbacks, Gyps- cringe-worthy.
    I’d bet they rehearsed their debates. I suspect the old woman was a plant. Ten years ago I might’ve thought it was just handled poorly, giving the old woman a pass, but now I look at these campaigns and know they’re theatrics, like all the rest of it. They have access to information, intelligence, experience and a lot of money. To throw it away with Palin? Or now- pied piper+ appealing to Republican voters? These people flourish, dividing and ruling, with plausible deniability. That’s their game.

  11. Ben
    September 4, 2018 at 17:47

    Thank you for your article.
    Ukrainians aloswould have a lot to say about war criminal John McCain, self-titled “hero” by the real corporate fascists and their media in America.

  12. Abe
    September 4, 2018 at 17:39

    John McCain: The View from Reality
    http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/search?q=McCain

  13. September 4, 2018 at 16:27

    Good poem, Stephen, says exactly what is ‘honor’ among war criminals. There is a 1950 book, “All Honorable Men” by James Stewart Martin about Wall Street’s collaboration with Nazis. I also started reading “Rise and Kill First” by Ronen Bergman about the development of Mossad, based on a Talmudic exhortation to kill your enemy before he kills you. The moral center is lacking in such people, they justify their impulses for convoluted personal reasons. With McCain, it seems he actually relished the wars he incited, even got off on them. “Mc” in Irish means “son”, and metaphorically he was the son of Cain, who murdered his brother Abel in the Biblical account. He clearly loved stoking aggression.

    I have decided to refer to the war McCain participated in as the Vietnamese people say, “The American War on Vietnam”. I shall do the same for “The American War on Iraq”, “The American/NATO War on Libya”, and “The American/Israel War on Syria”, when I speak of these unspeakable atrocities. I was also startled that Dick Cheney is still alive and attended McCain’s funeral, although he has long been dead in consciousness.

  14. Deniz
    September 4, 2018 at 13:35

    Thankfully, McCain is dead and given the average American’s attention span, I give it 6 months until people start to forget who McCain was. The silver lining is that perhaps Michelle and Shrub’s giggling photo captures a visual that might help to convince the Left that Bush and Obama were always playing on the same side.

    Meanwhile, WW3 appears to be brewing on the shores of Syria.

    • mike k
      September 4, 2018 at 14:00

      WW3? Yeah, I can feel it coming. There’s a crazy subpersonality in me that says, “Bring it on! Go ahead Putin give the bastards what they are asking for – blow their damn aircraft carriers out of the water, and snuff their cities too, if that’s what it takes! Then I can have revenge on all those who wouldn’t listen to my warnings; they’ll get what they deserve.”

      I really need to work on that crazy part of me, and keep it locked safely in the cellar of my mind. It’s really quite contrary to the parts of me that are working to develop unconditional love for all beings…..

      • Deniz
        September 4, 2018 at 14:15

        US ships were passing through the Bosporus over the weekend to save ISIS from the Russians; I wish I was joking.

    • Realist
      September 4, 2018 at 18:24

      I thought your remark about WW3 was just hyperbole until I visited the Sputnik Russian news site.

      https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201809041067752447-US-Turkey-Syrian-Idlib-Unacceptable/

      “Now, it appears that the State Department is expanding the White House’s red line. While Trump cautioned against a “reckless attack,” the State Department, in conjunction with the Turkish Foreign Ministry, is calling “any Assad military offensive” in Idlib “unacceptable.”

      So, any defensive action by a sovereign country against the head-choppers sent in by America means war with Syria, Russia and Iran? Washington’s arrogance and recklessness is stunning. For Syria to back down is to cede another big chunk of its territory–this one close to Damascus and the main population centers–to Washington’s aggression. Sadly, I can see both fleets in the Mediterranean in Davy Jones’ locker within an hour’s time if the crazies in Washington act on these words. Then the nukes start flying and life on the planet ends. For what? Neocon hubris? If we can’t run the whole world, nobody can?

      • Dunderhead
        September 4, 2018 at 21:44

        Well just remember, China is also going to have something to say about that and for a lot of reasons, not that there’re any white horse mind you. One also needs to remember the hyperbole these jackass neocons not to mention Trump rely on in the high command does not like to lose ships or significant assets, even a small war just involving Syria and Iran would likely yield significant casualties on our part not to mention hardware. Remember our guys have actually fought the real thing and they know the difference, unlike the Israelis who are all bluster as long as it’s other people doing the fighting, of course they got the stones to shoot unarmed Palestinians, Real standup guy’s those. Anyway it’ll be much BS beating about the bush US and Israeli air raids but this dog is almost dead.

    • Dunderhead
      September 4, 2018 at 21:29

      Well Americans is stupid for sure, I doubt these Dopey Gus’s have any recollection that al Qaeda was the sheep dip idiots we blamed for 9/11 especially now that where they’re Air Force in Syria and Yemen.

    • Ed
      September 5, 2018 at 13:23

      6 months before most people forget who McCain was, and the rest of the people never even heard of him. There exists a significant number of Americans who don’t know the names of more than one or two members of Congress, if they know that many.

  15. Donna Bubb
    September 4, 2018 at 12:56

    His life, his time in the government, his words, his funeral, all disgustingly demonstrate loudly totalitarianism and empire, absolutely
    not democracy.

  16. September 4, 2018 at 12:39

    September 2, 2018
    “There they were…”

    There they were, some war criminals and some hypocrites
    Praising one of their own: unctuous and complicit
    The media also parroted their praise and propaganda
    Making a “role model” of a “warmonger” going to the hereafter

    The papers and the airwaves spread B.S. for days
    If lies are told often enough, then the lies stay
    Truth is not present when war criminals speak
    Hypocrisy and lies bring their supporters to their feet

    Applauding and nodding their heads in agreement
    And on and on giving more fawning compliments
    People who suffered have a very different story
    Than what is portrayed by the promoters of baloney

    Do we live in world today, where truth has become lies?
    Are the marketers of evil dressed in a “good” disguise?
    They pretend all is wonderful and that they all really care
    That’s why some war criminals and some hypocrites were there…
    [more info on this at link below]
    http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/09/there-they-were.html

    • mike k
      September 4, 2018 at 13:43

      Thanks Stephen. I love your truth poems.

      • September 4, 2018 at 18:45

        thanks mike k. The propaganda peddlers are spreading their B.S. endlessly.
        Cheers Stephen J.

    • September 4, 2018 at 15:23

      The sophomores of sophistry have already pronounced the innocence of John McCain; I heard it recently and it goes something like this: ‘the critics of John McCain who blame him for warmongering and for always seeming to want the next war don’t understand that he really was for peace, that he was actually a great man of exceeding vision who would never let his guard down against the forces of tyranny around the world that seek to destroy us. He stood – almost alone – as the most worthy and ever-reliable defender of freedom that we should be glad we had as our champion, knowing that he would always be courageous on our behalf, and in it for the long game, and never – never – back down in the face of any threat.’

      Now that is some creative hero-making right there. How do you start to unpack that? Who is defining threat and its causation?

      I can almost hear John say, in self-rationalization, that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”

      • September 4, 2018 at 20:41

        He was a disgusting warmongering classist racist pig, and every American who knows what he was but attended his funeral, or lauded him in the media, etc., is a disgusting pig.

        Also, he tried to ban Mixed Martial Arts.

    • September 4, 2018 at 16:23

      Stephen, I really like your poetry! You manage to get complicated ideas across while rhyming at the same time. Impressive. I look forward to the next.

      • September 4, 2018 at 18:48

        Thanks ranney.
        Cheers Stephen J.

  17. September 4, 2018 at 11:20

    “McCain was a champion of the Muslim Brotherhood (Jam’iyat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin),… This position may seem uncharacteristic given his longstanding fealty to AIPAC and its agenda, and his general unfriendliness to Arabs and Muslims. But McCain may have undertaken this role at the behest of AIPAC.”

    This actually makes perfect sense since the Zionist power configuration along with the bloody Washington militarists have been using the fundamentalist Sunni mercenary lunatics to destabilize, subvert and topple ANY state leader who happens to: a.) generally run his country outside the dictates of the IMF, Wall Street and Fortune 500, and/or b.) provide diplomatic and other substantive support to the oppressed and helpless Palestinians, and/or c.) upbraids and condemns the racist, elitist, paranoid and hegemonic criminal state of Israel.

    No contradiction at all, none whatsoever. McCain spent his entire career as an errand boy to the biggest empire the globe has ever seen. That he spent the last decade of his life glad-handing and supporting psychopathic mercenary terrorists who are currently doing the dirty work for the Saudi-Zio-Washington militarist machine is as natural as the sun rising in the east.

    Notice that these Sunni fundamentalist mercenary crazies never seem to go after Israel or Tel Aviv; isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that bizarre? Give me a break. They are part and parcel of the Zionist power configuration and the Washington imperial infrastructure!

    Putin, Assad and Rouhani can’t liberate Idlib fast enough!

  18. Jeff Harrison
    September 4, 2018 at 11:06

    I am endlessly amused. Obama isn’t an Arab. He’s a Heinz 57 variety – African, Celtic, but no Arab that I’m aware of. McCain was an unrepentant war monger. But he was, I think, an honorable man which isn’t to say that I liked what he did nor would I have supported him. But he played the game by the rules as he saw them. That’s all you can ask anyone to do. It would have been better if the rules that he learned were more sustainable and less invasive to others.

    • TomG
      September 4, 2018 at 11:13

      We need a better definition of honor in this country. Here are my final thoughts on Mr McCain and my stirrings on the service in the National Cathedral.

      The grand Cathedral
      hosts the final stage play as another war-monger
      is finally embalmed and buried.
      Canonized by the faithful as a
      great American
      true patriot.
      The fountain of praise bubbling over for days.

      Here’s the problem.

      If Jesus loves the little children
      red and yellow, black and white
      how is it our great patriots never do?
      Their boiling cauldron of destruction
      our gift
      to all the little children of the world.

      If only they could die out once and
      for all.
      How long will our clergy, deans and bishops
      sanctify the evil?
      ‘Ego te absolvo’ – no confession required.

    • mike k
      September 4, 2018 at 13:47

      We are responsible for which rules we follow. “Just following orders” won’t cut it. McCain chose to be a murderer and a liar. There is no honor whatever in that.

    • Walter
      September 4, 2018 at 16:56

      Would that honor be the honor he got for collaborating and making radio broadcasts from Hanoi, or would it be the honor of his wetstart nearly sinking Forestall and killing over a hundred shipmates?

      The evidence is open and public, friend. Look, See. And Shame the Devil…

  19. TomG
    September 4, 2018 at 09:26

    Air traffic controllers are required to retire at age 56. As a retiree myself, I say we should do the same for congress, judges and the presidency. If we can’t trust our skies to possible impairments of age why do we trust our world to them? Such an age restriction would have spared us a quarter century of the great McCain–bigot and warmonger. If they grew in wisdom (as an elder is supposed to) it would be one thing but it is my observation that the powerful only grow more (overtly or covertly) vicious and self-serving as the age. McCain now their patron saint.

    • September 5, 2018 at 10:23

      McCain was a war monger from way back. It was in his genes. You can’t blame that kind of evil on age.

  20. Joe Tedesky
    September 4, 2018 at 09:11

    Watching McCain’s human transition to American legend, has been mightily revealing. Now, I see how previous American mythical hero’s were canonized into their godly status. This explains the difference between American official history, as opposed to the not so told ‘Untold’ history. Here I can see where the lone cynic, who had a different version of Davy Crockett, may have been more truthful with their retelling of the Alamo than it’s promoted version. While many around me are deafening with their support for this confused mortal McCain, I on the other hand see a man who’s very words while he was alive left little doubt he has no credibility to be an honored once living soul. May he and his Maker settle all scores, and may we living somehow learn the truth. McCain’s story should be great material for Kuznick & Stone, to tell the Untold History of the United States of America.

    • irina
      September 4, 2018 at 19:49

      The same thing happened with Saint Reagan. Those of us who lived through his tenure (well, actually, George HW Bush’s first two terms, assisted by the ever-undead Dick Cheney) were amazed at how his image was burnished into that of a Heroic Leader.

    • Joe Tedesky
      September 4, 2018 at 21:10

      I just wish John McCain would have confronted this when he was alive. Pay particular attention to the date of Tony Cartalucci’s investigative report.

      https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/search?q=John+McCain+founding+father+of+terrorist

  21. mike k
    September 4, 2018 at 07:07

    After all the efforts the media and the establishment made to tell us that McCain was a great hero of America, you mean to say there are other ways to look at him?! Surely CNN, Obama, Joe Biden and all those praising him couldn’t be brazen liars? If we can’t believe these pillars of society, what are we to think? Surely no one expects us to think for ourselves, or seek contrary opinions? Thinking different thoughts than others is surely insane, and most probably a crime. Asking uncomfortable questions would only serve to get us in trouble, and possibly ostracized from our social circles.

  22. backwardsevolution
    September 4, 2018 at 06:26

    “McCain did a great deal to destroy America. He devoted his entire lifetime to American destruction. To start with, he was quite effective as a protester against America’s genocidal war on the people of Vietnam. Other Americans just marched around ineffectually, waving banners and shouting antiwar slogans, but not McCain! His own father had a lot to do with starting that war, but McCain made up for that by destroying 26 American war planes. That’s quite something! If every American flyer crashed as many planes, countless innocent lives would have been saved. […]

    Internationally, McCain was a stellar performer when it came to meddling in the affairs of other nations, often in ways that helped undermine America’s standing in the world. Whenever he visited a foreign country, the likelihood of civil war breaking out there went up by a notch, sometimes by two. He always had a warm place in his heart for terrorists—be they Ukrainian neo-Nazis or the homicidal maniacs of the Islamic Caliphate (a.k.a. ISIS). He managed to perform in spite of not being very smart: in 2013 he published an article on the website Pravda.ru, thinking that it was Russia’s main newspaper (which was at that point two decades defunct).

    He was one of the prime architects of the Ukrainian government’s ‘anti-terrorist operation’ against its own citizens in the east of the country. His actions helped assure American defeat and Syrian victory in Syria and set the Ukrainian government he had helped install in 2014 on a course for self-destruction. Russia owes him a debt of gratitude for its reunification with Crimea after its two lost decades in the Ukrainian wilderness. He was also a champion of America’s own self-destruction through national bankruptcy, always being in favor of its profligate, fantastically corrupt and otherwise ineffectual defense spending.”

    https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-senator-masquerading-as-gas-station.html

    As someone in the “Comments” said:

    “McCain’s crowning achievement is doing well by his Arizona-based constituents: Lockheed Martin, ATK Orbital, Boeing, Raytheon, et al. He was richly rewarded.”

  23. Realist
    September 4, 2018 at 05:59

    I picked up on the implication of McCain’s remark to the woman as soon as he said it. The whole notion that he is graciously “defending” Obama lies in the assumption that Arabs are all dangerous enemies of America. Oh, no, my honorable opponent Mr. Obama is not as bad as one of them. He’s a family man… blah, blah, blah. This is effective only because the American media and America’s leadership have cultivated the whole notion of Arabophobia and Islamophobia, just as it has promoted non-stop Russophobia. In America, Racism is “bad” only if directed at specific targets. In other contexts, it may be considered commendable. It also depends upon who expresses the racism before it’s judged in America. For McCain to support Islamophobia was considered patriotic, especially when he directed it at Iran. For Trump to display bias against these same groups, as in his visa policies, is strictly verboten and evidence of moral depravity. Never look for consistency of logic in American thinking.

  24. Brad Owen
    September 4, 2018 at 04:51

    To elevate McCain to Sainthood is to endorse the righteousness of war-mongering of the MIIC Deep State, plain and simple. That is the sole purpose of all of this unseemly hagiography, to keep the people mesmerized.

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