One Dead McCain, 2.5 Million Dead Iraqis

The grossest thing in American society is the reactionary sentimentality that fill our gossip infected hearts with a chemical reaction every time one of our supposed war heroes moves on to a more peaceful place. The carefully rehearsed statements from useless political figures numb our minds as all those who are sane must collectively wonder what on earth has a fusty bag of bones like John McCain ever done for us? Donald Trump was once new to the political scene and was still capable of burning bridges that were worth burning. It was Mr. Trump’s finest moment when he said that McCain was not a war hero. Such a statement was so necessary one would have to say it was the finest moment the Not-So-Great Pumpkin has ever brought the American people. It goes without saying that the day Trump meets his twisted maker, all politically correct sentimentality for his passing must be resisted.

Donald Trump’s machometer for a war hero was whether or not they got caught. The phrase war hero is a paradox to begin with, so we must forgive the dull Cheeseball for his lackluster definition. His instincts were right. John McCain is no hero.

John McCain was a fierce Zionist, but such a trait is almost as American as apple pie. McCain, more than almost anybody else, pushed for more troops in Iraq. When George W. Bush caved and sent in 20,000 extra troops to Iraq in 2007, Democrats labeled the move “The McCain doctrine”. Americans even dumber than Bush II have begun to label Bush “reasonable”. The reasonable Bush talked of 50 years in Iraq, McCain raised him to 100. McCain was among the most enthusiastic advocates of war in Afghanistan as well. And like his buddy Barack across the aisle, he felt threatened by Libya’s success under Muammar Gaddafi. McCain’s virile posturing against Vladimir Putin has been just as eye-opening as Trump’s bromance with Putin.

It all smelled rotten when John McCain sided with those good ol’ American values and invited his brother from another party Barack Obama to speak at his funeral—presumably to spite Donald Trump. Politicians nowadays like to pretend that the good ol’ boys club of the past was free of Trump’s virulent misogyny. But dig through McCain’s public statements and you will find that there are plenty of sexist ones. Give Trump this: he wastes little time on sentimentality. He believes in nothing and nobody. Trump is the natural next step for a society that is morally bankrupt and relies purely on inauthentic jingoistic kitsch to justify its ridiculousness.

John McCain and his brand of old school Americana died upon the arrival of the wrecking ball Donald Trump. McCain’s body may have stuck around a little longer than we wanted, but it was only a matter of time before he joined his ideology in the grave. Now it is on the Democrats to take up the mantle, and they have done so honorably. Democrats preach an influx of women into the fray, but for a party that is already abandoning #MeToo and reproductive rights, we are left to wonder what this really means. What is clear is that the Democrats have become the safe haven for clean cut self-righteous ex-military/intelligence candidates. The Democrats are the party of McCain now.

I remember the day Osama bin Laden was assassinated. It was hard to find an American who was not in heat. Parades erupted. Bloodthirsty politicians licked their chops. There was a certain pride that it was “our guy” Obama who brought him down. This was enough to make anyone queasy. If this many Americans had a taste for blood then, who was surprised that so many of us have salivated over Donald Trump’s madcap bullying. American culture is just too extreme. We divide everyone into friends and foes. If our friends die, we all have to lie about them. If our foes die, we have a parade. I don’t purpose a parade over John McCain’s death, just a little perspective.

John McCain helped orchestrate the devastation of several countries. Millions of deaths are on his bloody hands. The world is more peaceful with him gone from it. Why didn’t the 22 Yemeni children killed the day before cause the same amount of grief as McCain’s death? The U.S.-Saudi war on Yemen was backed by McCain as well. John McCain will be remembered as a war hero, but if I can paraphrase the merciless hawk Donald Trump, ‘Real heroes don’t go to war.’

Originally published on 2018-08-27

About the author:

Nick Pemberton is a student at Gustavus Adolphus College. He is currently employed by Gustavus Dining Services. Nick was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. He can be reached at pemberton.nick@gmail.com

Source: Counter Punch

Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection & Pinterest.

Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!

Donate to Support Us

We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.

READ MORE!

If this Haitian was Superstitious Like the Clintons

“malè ou swete bèlmè, se manman ou li frape” – the evil you wish upon your mother-in-law strikes your mother, Haitian wisdom The other day, I saw a video excerpt of an October 2012 speech in which Bill Clinton was telling an audience in New-York how his wife, Hillary, possesses the extraordinary psychic ability to speak regularly with the dead, in particular, with the spirit of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.* Today, some U.S. citizens who are still stunned by the election of Donald Trump may be seeking extra insights to help answer many troubling questions. However, I doubt the dead are in any way equipped to help them understand what is happening in the so-called “land of the free and home ...

American Foreign Policy Infuriates Everyone

American foreign policy seems to be designed to infuriate everyone, friend and foe alike, though we realise the word “friend” is a euphemism for “useful for American interests.” In a futile attempt to reassert its world hegemony the American ruling class has ripped up or is forcing changes to, free trade agreements with Canada and Mexico, with the EU and Pacific nations, ignores the World Trade Organisation rules, has reneged on the agreement it forced down Iran’s throat at the point of a gun with regard to a supposed nuclear weapons development, imposed economic blockades on Iran and Russia that ...

Paving the Road to the End of NATO

It's no secret that President Trump believes NATO is an anachronism. It's also no secret that French President Emmanuel Macron wants a Grand Army of the EU and a single EU Finance Minister to further integration of the EU into the United States of Europe. He and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have been championing these two things since the day after Macron took office. They are both pushing hard for the EU to conduct independent foreign policy, framing Trump's belligerence as the catalyst for its need now. So, I’m not surprised in the wake of Merkel’s garden summit with Russian President Vladimir ...

An Isolated Tyrannical Regime – Not Pyongyang, It’s Washington

If Pentagon chief James Mattis was seeking to reassure the world of American restraint in the North Korea crisis, he clumsily did the opposite. The US Defense Secretary was speaking after intense discussions with President Trump and other senior military officials in the White House Situation Room following the sixth nuclear test carried out by North Korea on Sunday.Mattis emerged from the meeting to say that any threat from North Korea to the United States and its allies would be met with an «overwhelming military response». He then added – with a weirdly presumed ethical tone – that the US «was not looking to ...

70 Years of Disinformation: How the CIA Funded Opinion Magazines in Europe

When an intelligence agency arranges to disseminated fake news it is called “disinformation” and it is a subset of what is referred to as covert action, basically secret operations run in a foreign country to influence opinion or to disrupt the functioning of a government or group that is considered to be hostile.During the Cold War, disinformation operations were run by many of the leading players in both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in the opposition Warsaw Pact. Sometimes the activity and the sponsorship were clearly visible, as when Radio Free Europe and Radio Moscow would exchange barbs about ...

Armistice Day & Remembrance Day

The world has just honored yet another Armistice Day – Remembrance Day – Veterans Day for all those who lost their lives in armed defense of their nation’s right to exist and remain a free people. Nation’s like the United States, Canada and Israel pay constant tribute to those key battles and wars that once determined their continued existence and survival. But what of nation’s like Palestine reduced to mere fragments of what they once were, their once prosperous, happy villages, towns and cities filled with happy children, families and the commerce of a viable way of life, now turned ...

The Illegitimacy of Israel’s Colonization

‘If you buy fruit from Israel you deprive another human being of water and life’. Israel’s comparative economic success is essentially based on water stolen, since 1967, from Syria’s eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee – that provides Israel’s current primary source of fresh water. Rainwater from the Golan’s catchment area feeds into the River Jordan to provide about 30% of Israel’s current water supply. Without this stolen water there would be no citrus fruit, melons, avocados or dates available for export under the label of ‘Produce of Israel’. And that is why the Netanyahu government is determined – with help ...

Kosovo History – First Part

In the thousand year long-history of Serbs, Kosovo and Metohia were for many centuries the state center and chief religious stronghold, the heartland of their culture and springwell of its historical traditions. For a people who lived longer under foreign rule than in their own state, Kosovo and Metohia are the foundations on which national and state identity were preserved in times of tribulation and founded in times of freedom.The Serbian national ideology which emerged out of Kosovo’s tribulations and Kosovo’s suffering (wherein the 1389 St. Vitus Day Battle in Kosovo Polje occupies the central place), are the pillars of ...

** FILE ** President Bush declares the end of major combat in Iraq as he speaks aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast, in this May 1, 2003 file photo. Democratic congressional leaders on Tuesday, May 1, 2007 sent Iraq legislation setting timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals to President George W. Bush and a certain veto. On the fourth anniversary of the president's "Mission Accomplished" speech, Senate Majority Democratic Leader Harry Reid said that Bush "has put our troops in the middle of a civil war. A change of course is needed." (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

9/11: The Questions

Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection & Pinterest. Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement! Donate to Support Us We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.

Serbia: Parliamentary Elections for the NATO/EU’s Membership

Author’s note: a draft version of the article was originally written at the end of December 2015 and published in March 2016. This is the extended article’s version. On April 24th, 2016 Serbia faced three-level elections: for the national parliament, local municipalities and Vojvodina’s autonomous provincial administration. The elections did not cover Kosovo province as current Serbia’s pro-NATO/EU’s government already two years ago de facto recognized in its negotiations with the EU and Pristina’s government that this province is not any more an integral part of the legal and administrative system of the Republic of Serbia. Nevertheless, these elections were in ...

The Disaster That Bill Clinton Created in Bosnia by Backing Muslims Against the Serbs

Two decades later Bosnia is still suffering the consequences. ISIS has declared the Balkans the next front for the Islamic Caliphate, and in remote mountain villages, Muslims are already flying the ISIS flag.Central Bosnia in 2015Russia Insider (h/t Maksim) The Balkans is the latest arena where the West is trying to circumcise any attempt of Russia to regainits influence. This anti-Serbian resolution and initiative is the part of the broader strategy and the latest Western attempt to demonize Serbs and delegitimize pro-Russian Republic of Srpska (Serbian part of Bosnia) in an effort to forcefully centralize Bosnia and give the driving seat to ...

UN, France & US in Libya and Ivory Coast: Using Violence and Islamic Forces Just Like Kosovo

Albanian terror in Kosovo against the Serbs from June 1999 up to the end of 2000 The current problems in Libya and Ivory Coast are complex and clearly the opposition has different aspirations. After all, both sides are involved in a bloody conflict and the use of violence is being used by each faction in these divided nations. Therefore, it appears that the “new democratic warriors” of peace and freedom carry guns and kill their enemies, just like their enemies would kill them. This article is not about defending the leaders of either nations and clearly the leader of Libya is known ...

“Mafia State”: Kosovo’s PM Accused of Running Human Organ, Drug Trafficking Cartel

In another grim milestone for the United States and NATO, the Council of Europe (COE) released an explosive report last week, “Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo.”The report charged that former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) boss and current Prime Minister, Hashim Thaçi, “is the head of a ‘mafia-like’ Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe,” The Guardian disclosed.According to a draft resolution unanimously approved December 16 in Paris, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights found compelling evidence of forced disappearances, organ trafficking, corruption and collusion between ...

President Trump Welcomes Egyptian Dictator – The “Butcher of Cairo”

President Donald Trump Monday, April 3, 2017, welcomed the Egyptian military dictator, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who assumed the title of Field Marshal after arresting and deposing the democratically elected President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013. After the meeting Trump told the press: “We agree on so many things. I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President el-Sisi. He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation.” By “a fantastic job” Trump was apparently referring to the massacre of hundreds of innocent Egyptians in the aftermath of US-endorsed coup ...

Russophobia and the Specter of War

Could global warming pose the greatest threat to the future of life on the planet? Quite possibly, if we believe the international (and scientific) consensus, despite a widening stratum of debunkers, deniers, and skeptics. What about the prospects of thermonuclear war between the United States and Russia, two countries armed to the max and seemingly moving toward the brink of military conflict? Where does that rate? If the question is asked of most any Beltway denizen, the response might be something along lines of “sounds frightening, but right now we have other priorities, and we can’t lose sight of the ...

The United States as Destroyer of Nations

In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 – an invasion which many Iraqis believe left their country in the worst condition it has been since the Mongol invasion of 1258 — there was much discussion in the media about the Bush Administration’s goal for “nation-building” in that country. Of course, if there ever were such a goal, it was quickly abandoned, and one hardly ever hears the term “nation-building” discussed as a U.S. foreign policy objective anymore. The stark truth is that the U.S. really has no intentions of helping to build strong states in the Middle ...

A Geopolitical Convergence Between the US and Russia

The end of the Cold War era in 1989 brought during the first coming years a kind of international optimism that the idea of the „end of history“ really can be realized as it was a belief in no reason for the geopolitical struggles between the most powerful states. The New World Order, spoken out firstly by M. Gorbachev in his address to the UN on December 7th, 1988 was originally seen as the order of equal partnership in the world politics reflecting „radically different international circumstances after the Cold War“.[1] Unfortunately, the Cold War era finished without the „end of ...

Ukraine Provocation in the Black Sea is Directed Against Russia

Ukraine is a virtual US colony – the way it’s been since the Obama regime’s February 2014 coup, replacing democratic governance with fascist tyranny in Europe’s heartland. Ukraine shares a near-1,500 mile land and sea border with the Russian Federation, the longest Western frontier with the country. The regime running things is a hotbed of militarized extremism, waging war on its own people, committing appalling human rights abuses – with full support and encouragement from Washington and key NATO countries. Stop NATO’s Rick Rozoff earlier explained that Ukraine is “the decisive linchpin in plans by the US and its NATO allies to effect ...

How Britain Helped Create ISIS

Britain is gripped by fear, panic and anger, after being struck by three terror attacks in the space of three months. Innocent men, women and children have been killed in the terror rampage, filling many homes with tragedy and despair. Martial law has practically been declared in many regions of the country, with troops now being a common site on the streets of Royal Britannia. Many are looking for someone or something to blame, as rage is increasingly triumphing over reason. Lost in all this hysteria however, there sits a glaring connection that needs to be illuminated: the connection between these ...

The Responsibility to Protect the World … from the United States

One of the most ingenious propaganda weapons ever developed is that the powerful nations of the West—led by the United States—have a moral responsibility to use military force to protect the rights of people being repressed by their governments. This “responsibility to protect” (R2P) always had a dubious legal standing, but its moral justification also required a psychological and historical disengagement from the bloody reality of the 500-hundred-year history of U.S. and European colonialism, slavery, genocide and torture that created the “West.” This violent, lawless Pan-European colonial/capitalist project continues today under the hegemony of the U.S. empire. This then begs the ...