Candidate McCain: A Risky Choice

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Candidate McCain: A Risky Choice

By Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay

"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 ’re in Iraq does not understand the military.” Sen. John McCain

"John McCain will make Cheney look like Gandhi." Pat Buchanan.

"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 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.)

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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 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.

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