Is
John McCain Morally
Fit To Be President?
By Thomas Riggins
05 April, 2007
Countercurrents.org
In
less than two years the American people will be going to the polls to
elect a new president. The country is in the middle of one of the worse
crisis it has faced since Vietnam. It has been engaged in an illegal
war in Iraq, for the purposes of taking control of than nation’s
vast oil reserves, under the pretenses of fighting terrorism and tyranny
and spreading democracy and
freedom.
Initially the American people
were conned into supporting the war effort only because the president,
vice president, secretaries of defense, and of state (as well as many
members of Congress) knowingly lied to us about the reasons for attacking
Iraq.) A now popular slogan in the anti-war movement sums this up nicely
with the chant “Bush lied, people died!”
At this time it appears that
the American people have decisively rejected Bush and his phony war.
The stage is set for the Republicans to lose control of the White House
in 2008. Losing the White House puts the neocon plans for the Middle
East, and Iraq especially, in jeopardy-- it threatens the war profits
of the big American corporations that are part of the military-industrial
complex, especially the defense and oil sectors.
These ultra-right elements
are searching for a candidate that they hope will be able to keep control
of the White House for the Republicans. One of these potential candidates
is Senator John McCain of Arizona. Senator McCain is a big supporter
of the war, and of Bush’s recent escalation (the “surge”),
and thus finds himself in the position of having to support or condone
the lies that Bush has put forward to justify his position.
I think that McCain’s
recent pronouncements in Iraq, widely reported in the mass media, disqualify
him as a viable presidential candidate. In truth, he is not fit to be
a U.S. senator. We have had a president lying to us on a daily basis
for over four years about this war and we don’t want another one
to lie us for the next four years after the elections.
I am going to quote McCain
(and some of his fellow Republicans) from their recent press conference
in Iraq as reported in the New York Times (“McCain Wrong On Iraq
Security, Merchants Say” by Kirk Semple, NYT 4-3-2007).
After a brief tour of Baghdad’s
central market by the McCain delegation (appropriately on April Fool’s
Day) in which the delegation observed the conditions on the ground and
talked with Iraqi merchants and others about their existential conditions,
McCain and his group announced to the press that things were looking
good and Bush’s new plans were working out.
When reporters went back
to the market and told the Iraqi’s what McCain had said they got
a typical responses such as “What are they talking about?”
What indeed? Well here is what McCain and others in his delegation said
about their visit to the market.
Representative Mike Pense
(R-Indiana) said it was “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana
in the summertime.” Since he and the others were wearing bulletproof
vests during the entire visit, I don’t think I’d want to
check out the summer markets in his state.
Pense also noted that, “The
most deeply moving thing for me was to mix and mingle unfettered.”
Part of being unfettered was due to the fact that U.S. troops cleared
the area for the delegation by redirecting away traffic and by having
“restricted access to the Americans.” The Iraqis were fettered.
“They paralyzed the
market when they came,” one merchant remarked: “This was
only for the media. This will not change anything.” By this he
meant that as soon as McCain tripped off back to the Green Zone and
the campaign trail, the market would revert to being bombed and people
would be being killed again.
Despite the fact that everyone
complained to McCain’s delegation about the lack of personal safety
and the dangerousness of the market , McCain was upbeat. He said on
a radio show, about the visit he had made to the market, “Things
are better and there are encouraging signs. Never have I been able to
go about into the city as I was today.”
Well, he went to a tiny area
of the central market, cleared by U.S. troops just for him, he wore
a bulletproof vest, and was accompanied by “more than 100 soldiers
in armored Humvees-- the equivalent of an entire company.” And
that's not all. Attack helicopters circled around over head “and
sharpshooters were posted on the roofs.”
I’m happy for the Senator
that he was so encouraged about how safe it was for him to go about
in the city. This was all so he could come back to the States and carry
on his war propaganda. “Why I can tell you [ I can envision him
saying ] the press is all wrong. I just returned from Iraq and believe
you me things are getting better. I walked about feeling perfectly safe,
just like
a spring day in Phoenix.”
After hearing what McCain
had said about his trip to the market, another merchant remarked that,
“He is just using it for himself. They’ll just take a photo
of him at our market and they will just just show it in the United States.
He will win in America and we will have nothing.”
I hope he doesn’t win.
What he did was, in my opinion, doubly immoral. He lied about what he
actually saw and was told by the Iraqis and he intends to lie to the
American people about this war and what is really happening because
he is in the pocket of the military and industrial complex. What is
more troubling is that the insurgents make a point of attacking and
blowing up
places the Americans and the Iraqi government tout as safe and secure
and evidence that Bush’s plans are working.
By running his media circus
and inspection scam to further his presidential ambitions, McCain has
endangered the lives of all those Iraqis in the market he visited. In
the coming months, while they face death and maiming as a result of
his sordid opportunism, he will be safe and sound in the U.S.A. telling
his supporters how much better its getting in Iraq. And remember, he
is only for war because he loves peace.
Thomas Riggins is
the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at [email protected].
or google Thomas Riggins Blog.
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