McCain: A worse war criminal than I thought

[kpete]

McCain: A worse war criminal than I thought

I've written before (and I think I'm actually the primary source on the web) how John McCain was shot down over Vietnam while bombing a civilian target, a lightbulb factory. And I've also written, and commented, how there were of course more serious war criminals than pilots obeying illegal orders, from the colonels and generals who gave the orders to the Presidents and Secretaries of State and Congresses who sent them there in the first place.

Today I was browsing in a bookstore and picked up a copy of Michael Moore's Guide to the Elections, and, I swear I am not making this up, the book opened to the page where McCain's wartime history was being recounted, and specifically the larger context of that lightbulb factory bombing:

John McCain flew 23 bombing missions over North Vietnam in a campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder. During the bombing campaign, which lasted for almost 44 months, U.S. forces flew 307,000 attack sorties, dropping 643,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam. Though the stated targets were factories, bridges, and power plants, thousands of bombs also fell on homes, schools, and hospitals (Left I note: Moore writes as if factories and power plants are not also civilian targets). In the midst of the campaign, Defense (sic) Secretary Robert McNamara estimated that we (sic) were killing 1,000 civilians a week. That's more than one 9/11 every single month - for 44 months.

Ah, but McCain was still just a pilot following orders, right? Well, not quite:

In his book, Faith of Our Fathers, McCain writes that he had been upset that he had been limited to bombing military installations, roads, and power plants. He said such restrictions were "illogical" and "senseless."

"I do believe," McCain wrote, "that had we taken the war to the North and made full, consistent use of air power in the North, we ultimately would have prevailed."

So McCain was not just a war criminal. He was, and is, a vocal proponent of war crimes.

more at:
http://lefti.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html#1965458219731531053
http://lefti.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_archive.html#111746161273835959

[iiibbb]

1. VietNam was a mistake. If you go to war... you should go all the way to war.

So it's hard for me to distill the advocating what it takes to "win" from advocating something patently criminal.

We should avoid wars that put us in these half-committed positions.

[ieoeja]

2. You got that backwards.

We should have supported South Vietnam. Our mistake was trying to get South Vietnam to support *us*. With our support South Vietnam would have won that war.

[iiibbb]

3. OK... I essentially meant to say "the prosecution of VN" was wrong... kinda like our war on terror.

I support a "war" on terror, but Bush's execution of it has sucked... and may delay victory for some time.

But I'll stand by the idea that if we're going to spearhead something we should go all the way or don't go.

[bobd0]

4. Oh sure. When we attack a country for no reason we should attack it all the way.

And if victory in our unprovoked wars of aggression is only a matter of killing thousands or millions of innocent civilians we should certainly kill them all -- as John McCain would have done if he could. After all, what's more important than U.S. military aggression to protect U.S. corporate interests around the world?

Just in case there is any doubt, this post is not only dripping with the blood of innocent civilians from nations we've attacked for no reason, like Vietnam and Iraq, it's also dripping with :sarcasm:

[iiibbb]

5. Who said Iraq wasn't a mistake?

We went to Iraq for half-assed reasons... and by my calculation that means we shouldn't have gone at all.

I'm not a pacifist... war is a very special circumstance that should only be employed when there there is clarity.

Of course... many people thought we should've never gotten involved in WWII. Hindsight is always 20/20

[bobd0]

7. Iraq AND Vietnam were BOTH mistakes. Both were unprovoked aggression based on lies.

[Overseas]

6. K&R to call attention to McSame favoring massive war,

in which civilians are just collateral damage.

Instead of a longer term approach with Iran, of quietly encouraging democratic elements and seducing them with the fun of American entertainment and free thought seeping in through the internet, he'd rather do massive bombing.

No talk-- just bombs.

They think we would have "won" in Vietnam with even more carpet bombing. More "pacification of villages."
And more "collateral damage." Which would have meant the killing of even more civilians.

We saw the smaller scale version of the pathology of turning enemies into objects, when opponent Obama became a thing-- a "that one."