A lot has happened since I started this piece which was be Part Two of a series focusing on the advisors of the candidates in both political Parties. Since there are only two, yes two, Republican candidates left, and only one has any real relevancy in the race at this point, I decided to focus on John McCain who is the current media sweetheart and self proclaimed war hero.
One of the biggest misconceptions about McCain, thanks in part to a media that goes out of its way not to challenge the paradigm of the moment, is that he is the most "liberal" of all the Republican candidates Even some Liberals have swallowed the Kool Aid on this one. But looking at McCain’s proposed policies and the inside personalities that he surrounds himself with, it becomes painfully obvious that he is every bit the Neo Con that Bush is and maybe even more. In fact he has aligned himself with the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and other players in the Project for the New Century who support the remaking of the world in the image of the United States.
As reporter Robert Dreyfuss noted on"Democracy Now", McCain wishes to form “The League Of Democracies” which would by-pass the United Nations when it comes to going to war with various countries and build a stronger front in NATO against Russia in Central Asia. This group would re-establish US unilateralism against his version of the “Axis of Evil” with what he calls, “Rogue State Roll-Back.” This means targeting Governments which McCain sees as being hostile to the United States. The McCain plan would allow the US to overthrow these Governments and install those leaders that are sympathetic to the Neo Con agenda. The most often cited countries are Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria. He is now looking to become increasingly more antagonistic towards those countries that challenge US dominance in the world, most notably, Russia and China.
In fact McCain has already called for the removal of Russia from the G8 along with inviting several former Soviet nations, like the Ukraine and Georgia into the governing body. Such a move would send a firestorm throughout Moscow. McCain said that he would forward the Bush plan of building a satellite missile systems in Poland and other Eastern European countries but he would not concern himself with Moscow. Such an act would strain the US relationship with Russia to the point that we find could ourselves in a no-win situation in some of the world’s problems including those throughout the Middle East and, equally important we could find ourselves in another arms race with Moscow.
Those who think that voting for John McCain is a vote against the neoconservative agenda, should take a look at his advisers. The following is a detailed look at some of the men who shaped the ideas and plans that McCain the Neo Con is now pushing under the guise of “keeping out country save.”
On top of the list is Terry Nelson, a Bush-Cheney insider. According to the group Media Matters, Nelson has been linked to some perverse scandals surrounding the Republican Party in general and Tom Delay in particular. Perhaps most infamous was campaign ad aimed at Rep. Harold Ford Jr, an African American candidate for Congress in Tennessee. The ad closed with a white woman telling Ford to call her, an obvious attempt to incite rage from white conservative communities of Tennessee. Questions also surround Nelson’s involvement in a phone jamming operation in 2002 used to disrupt Democratic campaigns in New Hampshire.
Then there is William Kristol, ultra-conservative writer for the “Weekly Standard” and one of the architects of the neo-con think tank, falls in line with the rest of the cohorts in the far right wing media and political spin doctors, believe in American hegemony on a global scale. Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union Kristol stood at forefront of the Republican radical fringe calling for the reshaping of the global politic to serve US interests, even at the expense of the international community.
Like Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and others, Kristol saw Iraq as a starting point for what has become the march for the US’s expanded empire. He has long been promoting the idea in article after article in the Standard. In 1998 he signed onto a letter With Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld which urged the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In the letter, the group floated the erroneous claim of Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction and his intent to use them against US interests. They claimed that the Iraqi government could cause the largest crisis in Middle East since the end of the cold war, “We are writing to you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War…” For the full contents of the letter go to http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm.
After Bill Clinton snubbed the request, the group sent a letter to Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, saying that the US should build and maintain a strong presence in the area. The letter can be viewed through the link. http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqletter1998.htm. To their dismay Bill Clinton absolutely rejected the proposal to overthrow the man that George H.W. Bush put into power in 1963. The authors of PNAC had to wait a few more years before they got their man George W Bush.
Every time we hope that Henry Kissinger once and for all finally disappears into the great ether of horrid war criminals, he always seems to come back. Kissinger, certainly the least deserving of recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is quietly doing what he does best inside the McCain camp. For those who know Kissinger's history, there are far too many examples of war crimes connected to Richard Nixon’s right hand man to fit into one blog. They range from his support for the invasions East Timor and Cambodia to the attempted cover up of the Mai Lai Massacre to the bloody ascent of Augusto Pinochet in Chile in the early 1970s. Given this history one must really be worried about the possible war with Iran under a John McCain presidency. Kissinger has never seen a war crime that he doesn’t support as long as it moves forward an agenda. Up until the late 1980s, he rationalized the US support for General Suharto with the excuse that it was necessary to "fight Communism". Today he will most certainly use the generic tag of “the war on terrorism” when discussing any future violations of human rights.
While the great PR firm which calls itself the media has been transfixed on comments made by Barack Obama’s former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright, there seems to be limited interest in speeches made by controversial reverend and John McCain supporter John Hagee. The Texas preacher is well known among the Catholic community. He is best known for calling the Roman Catholic church as the “great whore,” apostate church," the "anti-Christ" and "a false cult system" that inspired Adolph Hitler to initiate the Holocaust.
Recently McCain was asked about the support he received from Hagee, during ABC’s news show, "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." Host Stephanopoulos asked McCain if it was a mistake to solicit and accept the endorsement of such a figure. At first, McCain said it was a mistake but seconds later contradicted himself by saying, that he is happy to have it. According to a report by Glen Greenwald of salon.com, Tim Russert had a chance to press the issue of the support but instead, seemed content with the kid gloves approach when dealing with the issue. This came after a show where Russert continued to weigh on Obama to denounce the support he received from the Reverend Louis Farrakhan, which Obama did.
John McCain has often praised Hagee as an honest man and was proud to receive his support. But lets keep in mind Hagee's Catholic comments are actually one of the more benign statements he has made over the years. Here are some of Hagee's Greatest Hits. On Terry Gross’s show on NPR, John Hagee stated that “All Muslims are killers and we can thus never negotiate with any of them.”
During the same interview, he claimed that “God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before and was filled with sexual sin.” Then there is this little number, “The End Times Rapture is imminent and the U.S. Government must do what it can to hasten it, which at minimum requires a war with Iran and undying, absolute support for a unified Israel, including all Occupied Territories.”
So while Barack Obama has been forced to explain comments and connections to Wright, McCain can openly hug Hagee with no real in-depth questions from any of the major networks. But this has been the pattern of the media's handling of John McCain; not only with Hagee but with all of his advisors. Let one of the Democratic candidates slip up, however, and you're guaranteed that gaffe is all you will hear for months afterwards.
But John McCain, as stated above, has become the media’s new darling, to the point where they are willing to sell McCain "the moderate" while McCain the Neo-Con furthers the Project For The New American Century’s radical agenda.
Until next time.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/28/hagee/index.html
http://mediamatters.org/items/200612130001
http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold02192003.html
http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/John_McCain_China.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/21/politics/main3958889.shtml
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a7GaNy_qwACo&refer=us
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/26/a_century_in_iraq_replacing_un
http://www.antiwar.com/bandow/?articleid=12559
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&domains=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org&q=John+McCain%27s+Advisors&btnG=Search&sitesearch=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org
http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=Max+Boot&btnG=Google+Search
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/05/inner_circle_john_mccain.html
http://www.zpub.com/un/wanted-hkiss.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0611-03.htm
