McCain-As-War-Hero Myth

[SHRED]

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Of course it is a myth.
The mainstream corporate owned media loves illusion and fantasy.
The myths are propped up on the idiot box 24/7 365.

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McCain-As-War-Hero Myth

Nothing Honorable About the Vietnam War

By Ted Rall

17/07/08 "ICH" -- - NEW YORK — Every presidential candidacy relies on a myth. Reagan was a great communicator; Clinton felt your pain. Both storylines were ridiculous. But rarely are the constructs used to market a party nominee as transparent or as fictional as those we’re being asked to swallow in 2008.

Still more laughable than the notion of Obama as the second coming of JFK is the founding myth of the McCain campaign: (a) he is a war hero, and (b) said heroism increases his credibility on national security issues. “A Vietnam hero and national security pro,” The New York Times calls him in a typical media blandishment.

John McCain fought in Vietnam. There was nothing noble, much less heroic, about fighting in that war.

Some Americans may be suffering another of the periodic attacks of national amnesia that prevent us from honestly assessing our place in the world and its history, but others recall the truth about Vietnam: it was a disastrous, unjustifiable mess that anyone with an ounce of sense was against at the time.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20299.htm

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[leftchick]

1. very true

Last week I was talking to the nail gal at my Hairdressers. Her parents are from Laos but she was born in the US. She has been back to Laos to visit relatives over the last few years and I asked if they have recovered from the US bombings 40 years ago. She said it is just devastating the poverty they live in. The lack of clean water and there are still reminders of the US bombings everywhere in many different forms. Yes, the US media always ignores the devastation to others cultures the US has been inflicting for decades now.

:(

more from Ted....

<snip>

Not even General Wesley Clark, shot four times in Vietnam, is allowed to question the McCain-as-war-hero narrative. “Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president,” he argued. The Obama campaign, which sells its surrogates down the river with alarming regularity, promptly hung the former NATO commander out to dry: “Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain’s service, and of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark.”

Even in an article criticizing the media for repeatedly framing McCain as a war hero, the liberal website Media Matters concedes: “McCain is, after all, a war hero; everybody agrees about that.”

Not everyone.

I was 12 when the last U.S. occupation troops fled Saigon. I remember how I–and most Americans–felt at the time.

We were relieved.

[SHRED]

2. Criticizing his service

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Bottomline is that McCain hypes it and uses it as a campaign slogan.
He then, in my opinion, makes his service "fair game" for critic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQsckD9trn4

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[groovedaddy]

3. David Hackworth on McCain's "heroism"

DEFENDING AMERICA
BY DAVID H. HACKWORTH
ARE McCAIN'S HANDLERS PLAYING THE WRONG CARD?
John McCain is being hailed by the press as a "genuine war hero." But is he a war hero in the conventional sense like Audie Murphy and John Glenn?
Or is his "war hero" status the creation of a very slick publicity campaign that plays on flag, duty, honor and country?
For sure, McCain has the fruit-salad -- a Silver Star, a Legion of Merit for Valor, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Stars , two Commendation medals plus two Purple Hearts and a dozen service gongs.

On a purely medal count basis, he out-weighs Murphy and Glenn, who both for years repeatedly performed extraordinary deeds on the ground or in the air against an armed enemy.

McCain's valor awards are based on what happened in 1967, when during his 23d mission over Vietnam, he was shot down, seriously injured, captured and then spent 5 1/2 brutal years as a POW.
In an attempt to find out exactly what the man did to earn these many hero awards, I asked his Senate office three times to provide copies of the narratives for each medal. I'm still waiting.
http://www.hackworth.com/25jan00.html

[sourmilk]

4. I see his Vietnam service as TRAGIC, rather than HEROIC.

Dumped what - five, six bombers? Captured, comprimised, capitulated...called himself a "war criminal" for bombing innocent women and children...

Then turned his back on his fellow POW/MIAs.

Wish someone could come up with those 32 CLASSIFIED "press release" speeches he gave for his VietCong buddies during his tenure in hospital / prison...

[indepat]

5. As bad as McCain might have been treated by his captors, I've often wondered what Americans

would have done to a captured flyer had the situation been reversed, what we would have done if a foreign power was bombing us into oblivion by dropping more tonnage of bombs on us than were dropped in Europe in all of WWII. :D

[NC_Nurse]

6. Did he save anyone else? That's always been my definition of a war hero...

I mean, yes, he survived POW camp, but did he actually SAVE anyone else? American or Vietnamese?

And what's up with the fact that he still says he "hates the gooks"? Do people want a president who hates an entire race on the planet?


:wtf:

[Captain Hilts]

7. Refusing early release was heroic. Getting shot down wasn't.

As an anti-war retired Marine Corps colonel I know said, "the whole purpose of going to Vietnam was to get home alive."

Yes, the war produced heroes who saved lives at the risk of their own. Most had no choice but to be there. There was an economic draft and poor kids had to go.

Yes, there were heroes who fought in Vietnam.

[Buzz Clik]

8. Ted Rall is now an editorial writer? No.

Ted, your cartoons are designed to eventually deeply offend everyone. You clearly have no particular ideology you embrace, which is fantastic for a cartoonist. Unfortunately, that disqualifies you as a decent writer of editorials.

Nice try. Don't give up you day job.