McCain was a terrorist when Palin was three years old

Number TEN ~

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/86766/mccain_linked_to_terrorist_lib...

"McCain Linked to Terrorist Libyan Regime

Posted by ZP Heller, Brave New Films at 3:16 PM on May 29, 2008.

The lobbyist ties run deep. Post Tools

A stunning new report from UltimateJohnMcCain.com connects the dots between McCain and the terrorist Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi. According to the report, McCain's newest media adviser is Mike Hudome, who recently took over for Mark McKinnon when McKinnon decided he didn't want to run against Obama. Hudome is married to Randa Fahmy Hudome, a lobbyist who "began working for the Gaddafi government at a time when it was officially designated by the U.S. State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism."

During Bush's first term, Fahmy Hudome served as international policy adviser to then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. In May of 2004, she became a member of the department's external advisory board and landed a sweet $1.47 million consulting agreement with the Libyan government to "strengthen Libyan interests." This conflict of interest only got uglier, as Fahmy Hudome became instrumental in drumming up Arab-American support for Bush's reelection bid.

Conveniently, Bush suspended most sanctions against Libya in April 2004, just before Fahmy Hudome's appointment to the Energy Department's advisory board. And the administration was then compelled to remove Fahmy Hudome in July of the following year, when families of Lockerbie bombing victims and government watchdog groups both cried foul. As UltimateJohnMcCain reminds us, the 1988 Libyan bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland (for which Libya claimed responsibility), killed 270 people was the largest terrorist attack on Americans prior to 9/11.

And still, Fahmy Hudome boasts on the website for Fahmy Hudome International (FHI), her D.C.-based consulting firm specializing in energy issues, of FHI's work to get Libya off the U.S.'s list of state sponsors of terrorism: "After two years of persistent and effective advocacy for Libya, FHI achieved a great success in May of 2006, when the U.S. Department of State removed Libya from its list of countries sponsoring terrorism."

Don't be fooled by McCain's claims to be a Maverick fighting against lobbyists and special interests, which are perpetuated by the corporate media. His top staffers have been connected to brutal dictators. His top economic adviser, Phil Gramm, is a lobbyist for Enron and UBS. And though he has been pressured to purge his campaign of lobbyists, he is still appointing people like Hudome who have lobbyist ties to former terrorist nations. "

Number NINE~

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/mccain-fundraiser-oversaw_n_110...

"Nico Pitney
The Huffington Post
McCain Backer's Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia
July 2, 2008 03:07 AM

The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company's board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University's National Security Archive as an "illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country's most notorious civilian massacres."

Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita's payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.

According to the Justice Department, the payments "were reviewed and approved by senior executives" of Chiquita, who knew by no later than September 2000 "that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization."

Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain's Ohio Victory Team.

While Lindner was CEO of Chiquita, the company began sending money to the AUC through its shipping subsidiary Banadex. A report by the Organization of American States states that Banadex also engaged in arms trafficking, helping to deliver 3,000 Nicaraguan AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to the AUC in 2001. According to federal prosecutors, when company officials realized the arrangement was illegal, they switched to making the payments in cash.

"We believe they saved people's lives," a Chiquita spokesman told Time magazine last year, alleging that the company was simply trying to avoid violence against their employees.

Chiquita's funding of violent paramilitaries does not end with the right-wing AUC. The fruit giant "had been making similar payments to the leftist FARC and ELN guerrillas" since 1989, also on Lindner's watch. Those payments ended in 1997 as "control of the company's banana-growing area shifted" to the AUC, according to the Associated Press.

McCain, who is currently visiting Colombia to promote free trade, has described FARC as "one of the worst" terrorist groups and accused his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, of being unwilling to support Colombian President Uribe's anti-terrorist efforts.

That the Arizona Republican is raising funds from a man whose company once paid that very same terrorist group seems likely to sully his charge.

Aides to the Senator did not return request for comment, though they have repeatedly argued that the campaign does not have direct connections to companies represented by such fundraisers or advisers and, as such, should not be held accountable for their actions or presumed to be persuaded by their interests.

However, in the past, McCain has done favors on Lindner's behalf. Last May, the Washington Post reported that in the late 1990s, McCain "promoted a deal in Arizona's Tonto National Forest involving property part-owned by Great American Life Insurance, a company run by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., a prolific contributor to national political parties and presidential candidates."

Moreover, McCain's chief political adviser, Charlie Black, lobbied for Chiquita on two separate occasions in 2001. According to records, Black was paid $80,000 to work on foreign trade issues.

Black, as the Huffington Post reported on Tuesday, has represented other controversial clients with operations in Colombia. From 2001 through 2007, his work brought his firm more than $1.6 million in lobbying fees from Occidental Petroleum, a company whose security arm was accused of bombing a Colombian village and killing 17 civilians in 1998."

Number EIGHT~

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/25/195811/157/570/575062

"McCain's terrorist ties
by Daisy Cutter
Mon Aug 25, 2008 at 06:07:16 PM PDT
Official McCain ad:

ROBERTO MARTIN PEREZ: This is Roberto Martin Perez, Cuban political prisoner for 28 years.

The harsh reality is that millions of my fellow Cuban citizens are prisoners in their own country.

Despite this, our spirit remains resilient; and John McCain knows that Raul Castro is like his brother, a man that does almost anything to stay in power, violating the fundamental rights of Cubans.

Now, he allows them to use cell phones and computers, but at the same time, censors the right to speak.

While some support a dialogue with Raul Castro, John McCain believes we should support the courageous men and women who continue to stand up for freedom in Cuba.

Rather than resume relations with Raul Castro, John McCain wants first and foremost for all political prisoners to be released.

As someone who has survived the harsh conditions of the Vietnamese prisons, John McCain knows that freedom in Cuba won't be achieved with concessions to dictatorships.

JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
Daisy Cutter's diary :: ::
Roberto Martin Perez is a Cuban exile who has, let's say, shady ties. He has a longstanding connection to the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). CANF has a long history of controversy and is accused by many of being a terrorist group itself. The notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles even claimed in an interview in 1998 that he received funding from the group in order to set off a series of bombs in 1997 that targeted "hotels, restaurants and discothèques" and killed an innocent Italian tourist.

Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence against this organization is this, a declaration by the CANF of full support for all terrorist actions against Cuba. One of its many signers is none other than Roberto Martin Perez. Keep in mind that this document was published at a time when Cuban hotels were being bombed by mercenaries hired by right-wing terrorists. It is proof that even if Perez is not himself a terrorist, he is an apologist for it.

For more on McCain's shady ties, see the following diaries by me:

John McCain personally donated to Contra terrorists
McCain campaign chairman covered up tech exports to Saddam
McCain and the International Republican Institute
McCain's campaign head lobbied for Nigerian govt. and Argentine politician

Here are some articles from other sources:
HuffPo: McCain Backer's Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia
Arundhaiti Roy: Who put "Macho" onto candidate McCain?
McCain’s Lobbyists In Trouble For Foreign Lobbying "

Number SEVEN~

http://futureofthewhirled.com/sen_john_mccain_supports_ongoing_genocide_...

"Sen. John McCain supports ongoing genocide against the Navajo Nation
Submitted by dcu on Sat, 07/08/2006 - 3:47am.

My wife and I have just returned from visiting Navajo friends in New Mexico and Arizona. Upon returning home I received an email from a friend in Colorado about what John McCain is doing to the Navajo people. Read about it below the fold:

S. 1003 Passes Through the Senate

Sen. John McCain paints on a counterfeit grin as he waves to the crowds that have come to support him. If people knew the clandestine actions taking place behind his practiced pose, they would be throwing eggs at him instead of admiring glances.

McCain, chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is campaigning to put an end to Navajo relocation costs via the S. 1003 bill. This would mean that the government is no longer accountable ethically or financially for the chaos it has inflicted on innocent Navajo people. S. 1003 has now passed the Senate. It is moving fast to the House for approval.

Traditionally nomadic in the Arizona area, the Navajo were coupled with their friends the Hopi and both were forced upon this reservation, located around Big Mt./Black Mesa in the NE corner of Arizona. In 1882 the powers that be at the time knew there were fossil fuels underground. They also calculated that the Native Americans were easier to manipulate then white settlers and thus placed the vulnerable Navajo and Hopi there, knowing that someday the fossil fuels would be harvested from the land. In the 1950’s the push came to get rid of just the Navajo.

The forced exodus of over 12,000 Navajo people ensued which shattered them physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally. Death by grief is a grim reality in this community. Through this forced relocation the federal government has destroyed the subsistence lifestyle of thousands of Navajos, uprooted whole communities, and left the Navajo Nation and Navajo people to bear much of the burden of addressing the extraordinary economic, social and psychological consequences of relocation. Congress never understood the situation of the people living on the land, and refused to see the costs or the heartbreak.

Genocide is sometimes fought against by our government in other countries but is deliberate on this Navajo reservation. How dare we preach to other countries when we are doing this to our own people here at home! None of which would be tolerated in mainstream society. These crimes are perpetuated by the corporate media who refuses to highlight this story of Homeland Terrorism.

The Navajo “resistors” who refused to relocate have been harassed to leave by armed police through physical abuse and intimidation. Also being classified as trespassers on their own land, they are denied their basic human rights to practice their religious ceremonies, to fix or build homes through a law named the Bennett Freeze and forbidden to collect wood for their fires. In addition their sheep, cattle and horses are impounded to strip them of their sustenance.

The place that the Dine’ people are relocated to was named the “New Lands.” The name conjures up a rosy image. But in reality the New Lands are lethal to inhabitants because it is downstream from the largest uranium spill in US history. There are former EPA officials who are willing to testify that the New Lands should be made a superfund site and all inhabitants removed. The displaced Navajo just want to go home and live traditionally in peace.

In blind pursuit of the coal, ancient ceremonial sites, petroglyphs, artifacts and burial grounds have been destroyed along with people’s homes, air, land, medicinal plants and water supplies. The harvesting and usage of coal fired power plants is deadly to humans and the earth. As illustrated in Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” America is the biggest polluter globally and much of the pollution is caused by fossil fuel usage.

In sanctioning relocation, our government ignored more humane alternatives for resolving this conflict. A cash settlement to the people affected is the norm when land is taken. If McCain’s bill S. 1003 is made into law, the Navajo will be forcibly removed from the land without compensation and no safe place to go. This is outrageous and in opposition to the United States Constitution. Our government is the bully in this arena and conceals its policy of thrashing its poorest but most sacred residents. Native people are a unique and treasured natural resource. Ancient wisdom and culture is endangered as the cadence of the government spin picks up it’s pace. It is time to unify to rectify these injustices. The time is now.

There are actions that all citizens can take to help the Navajo win this agonizing battle. Mobilize your circles to create a massive flood of faxes then phone calls to your local senators and representatives. In addition to your local congresswomen & men a deluge of communications is needed to be sent to Congressman Rick Renzi who represents the Big Mt./Black Mesa area. Contact Renzi by phone: 202-225-2315 or fax: 202-226-9739. DEMAND a one year study to examine and assess the impacts and effects relocation has had on Navajo people. This assessment will then serve as a policy and fact based tool for developing a humane closure plan. Also demand that the Navajo be allowed to return from the New Lands to their reservation in Big Mt./Black Mesa and to allow all Navajo there to live in peace and harmony.

See this website for more details:
www.blackmesais.org.

Each voice makes a difference-please act today.
*****************************************************
Thank you. ~dcu"

Number SIX ~

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/06/17/randy_scheunemann_mc...

"Cast of Characters
Randy Scheunemann: McCain Adviser Campaigned for War

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) speaks with his director of foriegn policy and national security Randy Scheunemann (L), as they board McCain's chartered plane at Washington's Ronald Reagan Airport, May 16, 2008. (Associated Press)

By Peter Slevin
CHICAGO -- Randy Scheunemann, the foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain who today accused Sen. Barack Obama of a "policy of delusion" toward terrorism, was a prominent advocate of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the lead-up to the war.

In late 2002, Scheunemann helped create The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and became the group's executive director. Its mission, pursued with the Bush administration's blessing, was to build public support for the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

McCain (R-Ariz.) was on the committee, along with Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), former Secretary of State George Shultz, retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing and former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), who described the project at the time as "a group of people who will talk to Americans about why the liberation of Iraq is something the United States ought to do."

Scheunemann is a longtime GOP foreign policy specialist who has also worked on the staffs of former Senate Republican leaders Bob Dole (Kan.) and Trent Lott (Miss.) He was a board member of the neoconservative think tank, the Project for the New American Century, which often reflected the views of Bush administration hardliners.

In recent years, Scheunemann has registered as a lobbyist for several foreign governments, including Georgia, Macedonia and Taiwan, according to published reports. His firm has also lobbied for the National Rife Association and defense contractor Lockheed Martin.

A Washington Post article in November 2002 reported that The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq was being created as the Bush administration was preparing the nation for a likely war that was ultimately launched in March 2003.

The committee's founding coincided with what administration officials called a "new phase" of briefings for foreign policy leaders, Iraq specialists and other opinion makers.

One goal was to reverse a decline in support for possible military action.

"Despite campaign trail criticism of Iraq by President Bush and Vice President Cheney," the Post wrote on Nov. 4, 2002, "polls released last week showed a decline in support for U.S. military action to topple Hussein. The Pew Research Center found that 55 percent of Americans support an attack on Iraq, down from 64 percent in August. Fox News polls showed a decline to 62 percent from 72 percent."

Pew researcher Carroll Doherty noted a widening partisan divide, with 51 percent of Democrats opposing action in Iraq and 40 percent favoring it. He cited "a great deal of concern about the consequences of war."

Obama, then an Illinois state legislator, delivered a speech in Chicago the previous month opposing war in Iraq.

"There's going to be a huge need in the post-election vacuum to make sure that what happened in August doesn't happen in November and December," Scheunemann said in The Post story, describing administration determination to avoid a repeat of August, when officials found themselves losing ground to opponents of military action in Iraq. Scheunemann said Capitol Hill offices have been "getting a lot of calls against and not many for."

Posted at 4:26 PM ET on Jun 17, 2008 | "

Number FIVE ~

http://www.israelenews.com/view.asp?ID=2229

"Hagee, McCain, Aipac: The Audacity of Cynicism
- on Sunday, January 06, 2008 - By: Gorenberg, Gerson

John McCain was shocked, shocked to know that there were horrid thoughts going on around Rev. Hagee’s brain about the positive side of the Holocaust. These comments, from a sermon on how God used Hitler to get the Jews to return to their land, in case you missed the news all weekend, include:

“How is God going to bring them back to the land? The answer is fishers and hunters,” Mr. Hagee said, referring to how Jews ended up in the modern state of Israel. “A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and forces you. Hitler was a hunter.”

As we know, McCain actively pursued Hagee’s endorsement. As the NY Times notes,

At a speech last year before Mr. Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, he thanked Mr. Hagee for his “spiritual guidance to politicians like me” and said, “It’s hard to do the Lord’s work in the city of Satan.”

Hagee has every effort to make his views public via every media available. His comments expressing empathy for Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin appeared in a book that became a bestseller in its market. The same book looks forward to an apocalypse in which enough blood is shed on Israeli soil to create a river of blood 200 miles long. One of the scholars who introduced me to this literature correctly spoke of the “pornographic violence” of the visions of the end promoted by Hagee and others of his school. The battles, as in every other tract of this sort, are followed by the Jews accepting Jesus.

Hagee is a prominent promoter of the theology known as dispensational premillennialism. It’s the same set of beliefs pushed in the Left Behind novels about the End, which sold in tens of millions of copies, the same beliefs preached by Endtimes populizer Hal Lindsey, by televangelist Jack Van Impe and radio preacher Chuck Missler. All push a “future history,” supposedly based on a literal reading of the Bible, that includes great suffering for all who do not accept their beliefs - but particularly, starkly, overwhelmingly for the Jews. In Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series , a critical development is a world dictator’s orders:

“I will sanction, condone, support, and reward the death of any Jew anywhere in the world,” he says. “Imprison them. Torture them. Humiliate them. Shame them. Blaspheme their god. Plunder everything they own. Nothing is more important.”

The dictator is a demonic character, the Antichrist, but his action is an essential step toward the Second Coming. The scenario, purportedly based on Scripture, allows the believer both to hope for the event and absolve himself, or herself, of responsibility. It’s the same guilt-free glorying in genocide that Hagee justified in his riff on the Holocaust:

That will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended: I didn’t write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth.

Regularly, such preachers talk about how they really love the Jews, even as they look forward to a second Holocaust. As Missler said in one lecture, claiming to interpret New Testament verses:
And those words echo in our ears as we think of Auschwitz, Dachau, the horrors of Europe in the 30s and 40s, and realize that what Jesus is saying is it’s going to be worse next time around, that that was just a prelude…

(For more on LaHaye’s vision and its political implications, see my article at the American Prospect. For more on the ideology of dispensationalists and their supposed support of Israel, see my book, The End of Days:Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount .)

If Sen. McCain really didn’t know about any of this before he pursued Hagee’s endorsement, at the very least it shows absolutely abysmal staff work and research. Utter incompetence is the most charitable interpretation one can give. A more reasonable explanation is that McCain was demonstrating the audacity of cynicism.

Ever since Hagee and his fellow travelers started forging links with Jewish groups, some Jews have dismissed their apocalyptic views. Their attitude has been, “We don’t believe this will happen, so what do we care? Right now they’re helping us.” But when people hope for the end of history, they are saying the world is broken and must be fixed. Their vision of how it will be fixed tells you what they think is broken. In the dispensationalist vision of a repaired world, Jews will die or convert. That is, the continued existence of Jews who do not accept Jesus is an unbearable flaw in our world as it is.

At the same time, their reading of the Bible tells them that Jews must return to their homeland and gain independence before Jesus can return. So they support Israel. Hagee’s twist in the sermon that just came to light is that he also justified the real, historical Holocaust - not some imagined future genocide - as serving God’s purpose of returning the Jews to their land so that the End can come.

I should note that the theology implies that all Jews should be ‘ingathered.’ In his 1996 book, “Beginning of the End,” Hagee wrote: “Jeremiah declared that the Jews must return to Israel before Messiah comes.”

So: What methods for encouraging American Jews to return to their land would Rev. Hagee justify as God’s will? Just asking. What he’s already said shows how thin, how blurred, the line is between theological philo-semitism and old-fashioned theological anti-Semitism.

I would suggest that the problem of what Hagee believes about Jews, and what he’s willing to justify, should be raised again and again to Jews who have been willing to build alliances with him: Joe Lieberman , AIPAC , Malcolm Hoenlein (the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations).

In fact, much as I hate to admit it, Jews do owe John McCain thanks: By seeking and getting Hagee’s endorsement, the good senator has finally forced a spotlight on what the pastor thinks, and may have set off a needed debate on the alliance with him and others of his school.

The opinions and views articulated by the author do not necessarily reflect those of Israel e News. "

Number FOUR ~

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/13/172137/707/441/456202

"John McCain personally donated to Contra terrorists
by Daisy Cutter
Wed Feb 13, 2008 at 06:05:40 PM PDT
Washington Post, 9 February 1988:

Nicaraguan rebel leaders, scrambling for a survival strategy in the wake of congressional refusal last week to appropriate new aid funds, pleaded today for independent financial contributions from U.S. supporters to two private foundations based in Washington.

The contra leaders said Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole recently contributed $500 to rebel coffers, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) donated $400.
1987 HRW report on the Contras:

''They still engage in selective but systematic killing of persons they perceive as representing the Government, in indiscriminate attacks against civilians or in disregard for their safety, and in outrages against the personal dignity of prisoners,'' the report said. ''The contras also engage in widespread kidnapping of civilians, apparently for purposes of recruitment as well as intimidation.''
More below.

Daisy Cutter's diary :: ::
HRW report cont.:

The escalating brutality of contra practices leads Americas Watch to conclude that disregard for the rights of civilians has become a de facto policy of the contra forces.
If you do a search for "Contras" and "McCain" in Lexis-Nexis, Google News Archives and/or the NYT archives, you'll find a lot of stories about McCain's support for this particularly savage group of terrorists.

Here's a verbatim quote from the straight-talker himself:

Historians will look back and view the vote that cut off military and humanitarian aid to the contras as a low point in United States history.
Really?

Another NGO compiled a year's worth of Contra atrocities, which included murder, rape, torture, maiming children, cutting off arms, cutting out tongues, gouging out eyes, castration, bayoneting pregnant women in the stomach, and amputating genitals.

An eyewitness to a Contra raid in Jinotega province said: "Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken, their testicles cut off and their eyes poked out. They were killed by slitting their throats and pulling the tongue out through the slit."

Well, McCain is a surelya a decent enough man to realize that illegally selling weapons to the fundamentalist regime of Iran, illegally giving the proceeds to the Contras, and illegally destroying related documents is wrong, right?

Oh, wait:

One of the key figures in the Iran-contra scandal is now endorsing Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), but is McCain endorsing him back?

This morning the McCain campaign helpfully circulated a column Oliver North had penned in the Washington Times, extolling the senator's virtues, under the heading "In Case You Missed It: Oliver North on John McCain."
[...]
That prompted The Trail to ponder a simple question: Is McCain pleased to receive North's endorsement, given the fact that the failed GOP senatorial candidate was convicted in 1989 of shredding documents, accepting an illegal gratuity and aiding and abetting in the obstruction of Congress?
[...]
The McCain campaign's response? "We'll let the comments in the release stand," wrote spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker in an e-mail. "Thanks."
Glad to know that McCain is going for the felon vote as well as the foreign terrorist vote."

Number THREE ~

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/20/politics/main2709937.shtml

"McCain's "Bomb Iran" Joke Draws Fire
Liberal Group MoveOn.Org To Air Ad Attacking Republican Presidential Hopeful

WASHINGTON, April 20, 2007

(AP) The liberal group MoveOn.org is launching an ad against Republican John McCain and his joke about bombing Iran, arguing that the nation "can't afford another reckless president."

The group plans to spend about $100,000 to air a commercial on network and some cable television stations in Iowa and New Hampshire, states that hold early contests in the presidential nomination process, spokesman Alex Howe said Friday.

McCain, campaigning Wednesday in South Carolina, answered a question about military action against Iran with the chorus of the surf-rocker classic "Barbara Ann."

"That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, 'Bomb Iran,'" he said. "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway, ah ..."

His audience laughed, but MoveOn.org called the comment dangerous.

"America has lived through six years of a reckless foreign policy," an announcer says in the ad. "We're stuck in Iraq. More than 3,000 Americans are dead. And thousands more wounded.

"Now comes John McCain with his answer to what we should do about Iran. John McCain? We can't afford another reckless president."

McCain defended the joke during a campaign stop in Nevada on Thursday.

"Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends," he told reporters in Las Vegas. "My response is, Lighten up and get a life."

Asked if his joke was insensitive, McCain said: "Insensitive to what? The Iranians?"

The McCain campaign had no immediate comment to the ad on Friday.

The head of MoveOn said McCain displayed "more out-of-control bravado."

"At a tense moment, when cooler heads in his own party and many retired military leaders are calling on the president to negotiate with Iran, Senator McCain's outburst isn't merely inappropriate; it's dangerous," Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, said Friday.

McCain's comments, posted on YouTube.com, had been viewed at least 118,056 times as of Friday morning. "

Number TWO ~

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080612_john_mccains_chilling_proje...

"John McCain’s Chilling Project for America

Posted on Jun 12, 2008

AP photo / LM Otero

By Elliot Cohen

John McCain has long been a major player in a radical militaristic group driven by an ideology of global expansionism and dominance attained through perpetual, pre-emptive, unilateral, multiple wars. The credo of this group is “the end justifies the means,” and the end of establishing the United States as the world’s sole superpower justifies, in its estimation, anything from military control over the information on the Internet to the use of genocidal biological weapons. Over its two terms, the George W. Bush administration has planted the seeds for this geopolitical master plan, and now appears to be counting on the McCain administration, if one comes to power, to nurture it.

The Road Map to War

The blueprint for this “new order” was drafted in February 1992, at the end of the George H.W. Bush administration when Defense Department staffers Paul Wolfowitz, I. Lewis Libby and Zalmay Khalilzad, acting under then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, drafted the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG). This document, also known as the “Wolfowitz Doctrine,” was an unofficial, internal document that advocated massive increases in defense spending for purposes of strategic proliferation and buildup of the military in order to establish the pre-eminence of the United States as the world’s sole superpower. Advocating pre-emptive attacks with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, it proclaimed that “the U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.” The document was also quite clear about what should be the United States’ main objective in the Middle East, especially with regard to Iraq and Iran, which was to “remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region’s oil.” The Wolfowitz Doctrine was leaked to The New York Times and The Washington Post, which published excerpts from it. Amid a public outcry, President George H.W. Bush retracted the document, and it was substantially revised.

The original mission of the Wolfowitz Doctrine was not lost, however. In 1997, William Kristol and Robert Kagan founded The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a nongovernment political action organization that sought to develop and advocate for the militant, geopolitical tenets contained in the Wolfowitz Doctrine. PNAC’s original members included Wolfowitz, Cheney, Khalilzad, Libby, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, William J. Bennett, and other soon-to-be high officers in the Bush administration.

McCain’s Ties to PNAC

John McCain’s connection to PNAC can be traced back to before its formation in 1997. In fact, he was president of the New Citizenship Project, founded by Kristol in 1994. This organization was parent to PNAC, and served as its chief fundraising organ.

McCain also worked cooperatively with PNAC and Wolfowitz in attempting to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. In 1998, he co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act—drafted by PNAC—which decreed “regime change” in Iraq to be U.S. policy, and which appropriated $97 million in U.S. military aid to the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The INC was a group of anti-Hussein Iraqi militants whose purpose was to instigate a national uprising against Hussein. It was led by Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi informant whose subsequent faulty intelligence—claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida—was used to sell the Iraq war to the American public. In 2004, in response to accusations that he deliberately misled U.S. intelligence agencies, Chalabi glibly stated, “We are heroes in error.”

McCain also was co-chair (with Sen. Joseph Lieberman) of The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI). Established by PNAC in late 2002, this committee continued to finance Chalabi’s INC with millions of taxpayer dollars, until shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, when it was discontinued. In 2004, McCain became a signatory of PNAC, ironically signing on to a PNAC letter condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy for its return to the “rhetoric of militarism and empire.”

McCain has accordingly been a foot soldier for PNAC from its inception, and, although this organization is no longer in existence, its ideology and its signatories (many of whom now serve as advisers to the McCain presidential campaign) are still very much active.

The Master Plan

In September 2000, prior to the presidential election that year, PNAC carefully formulated its chief tenets in a document called Rebuilding America’s Defenses (RAD). This document, which was intended to guide the incoming administration, had a substantial influence on the policies set by the Bush administration and is likely to do the same for a McCain administration if McCain becomes president. Here are some of the recommendations of the RAD report:

Fighting and winning multiple, simultaneous major wars

Among its core missions was the rebuilding of America’s defenses sufficient to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.” And it explicitly advocated sending troops into Iraq regardless of whether Saddam Hussein was in power. According to RAD, “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”

The RAD report also admonished, “Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region.” Therefore, it had both Iraq and Iran in its sight as zones of multiple, simultaneous major wars for purposes of advancing “longstanding American interests in the region”—in particular, its oil.

McCain’s recent chanting of “bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran” to the beat of an old Beach Boys tune, his suggestion that the war with Iraq might last 100 years and his recent statement that the war in Afghanistan might also last 100 years—all of these pronouncements are clearly in concert with the PNAC mission to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.”

RAD also stressed the need to have additional forces equipped to handle ongoing “constabulary” duties such as enforcement of no-fly zones and other operations that fell short of full theater wars. It claimed that unless the military was so equipped, its ability to fight and win multiple, simultaneous wars would be impaired. Along these same lines, McCain has recently stated, ‘’It’s time to end the disingenuous practice of stating that we have a two-war strategy when we are paying for only a one-war military. Either we must change our strategy—and accept the risks—or we must properly fund and structure our military.’’

1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE >>> ..."

Number ONE ~ McCain IS one

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/waroniraq/95906

"Michael Moore Dares to Ask: What's So Heroic About Being Shot Down While Bombing Innocent Civilians?

Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet at 11:35 AM on August 21, 2008.

Like Iraq, Vietnam was not a noble cause. It's time we stopped letting politicians and the press perpetuate the McCain War Hero myth.

This post originally appeared in PEEK's blog.

Confession: I have not yet read all six (short, illustrated, large type) chapters of Mike's Election Guide 2008, Michael Moore's, latest work of jaunty political opinion. Am I supposed to discuss it with him on "Meet the Bloggers" tomorrow? Yes. But I'm not worried. It's a breezy read, has already made me laugh out loud, and besides, I may have already found the best part in Chapter One.

The title is "Ask Mike!" and, in it, ordinary voters, old and young, pose questions about politics and current events. Some are more serious than others ("If Iran has weapons of mass destruction, we should invade, right?"), which does not make Moore's answers any more subtle. ("Excuuuuuse me? Did you say the words, 'weapons of mass destruction?' Take it back. I SAID TAKE IT BACK!") Of course, the "questions" are really satirical jabs at the media -- "When a Republican wears a little American flag lapel pin, what is he trying to say?" "If Obama can't bowl, can he govern?" -- but there's one in particular that is worth paying attention to -- especially if you happen to be a member of the press and have been utterly unwilling to take McCain's supporters and opponents alike to task for perpetuating a narrative that would be central to a McCain victory, and which has already become a dominant theme in this election: The McCain as War Hero canard.

The "question" is posted thusly:

"Why did the Vietnamese shoot down John McCain and put him in prison for five years? He seems like such a nice guy."

ANSWER: I'm guessing, in spite of his anger management issues, he is a nice guy. He has devoted his life to this country. He was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of our nation. And for that, he was tortured and then imprisoned in a North Vietnamese POW camp for nearly five-and-a-half years.

That's the set-up. It gets better. Moore proceeds, not to question, as Wesley Clark recently did to so many shrieks of criticism, whether McCain's capture really makes him qualified to be president of the United States -- the answer, any thinking person realizes, is "no" -- but whether the Vietnam war was a conflict that can really be said to have produced the breed of "American hero" McCain is so often celebrated as.

"Sadly," he writes, "McCain's sacrifice had nothing to do with protecting the United States. He was sent to Vietnam along with hundreds of thousands of others in an attempt to prop up what was essentially an American colony, South Vietnam, which was being run by a dictator whom we installed."

Lest we forget, the Vietnam War represented a mass slaughter by the United States government on a scale that sought to rival our genocide of the Native Americans. The U.S. Armed Forces killed more than two million civilians in Vietnam (and perhaps another million in Laos and Cambodia). The Vietnamese had done nothing to us. They had not bombed or invaded or even sought to murder a single American. President Johnson and the Pentagon lied to Congress in order to get a vote passed to put the war in full gear. Only two senators had the guts to vote "no."

But the parallel between Iraq and Vietnam is not the only point Moore is making. He makes it personal.

John McCain flew 23 bombing missions over North Vietnam in a campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder. During this 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 (roughly the same tonnage dropped in the Pacific during all of World War II). Though the stated targets were factories, bridges, and power plants, thousands of bombs also fell on homes, schools, and hospitals. In the midst of the campaign, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara estimated that we were killing 1,000 civilians a week. That's more than one 9/11 every single month -- for 44 months.

What's not heroic about that? Is it any wonder all politicians speaking in public about John McCain are required to preface their remarks with a fawning admiration for his war service?

Alas, McCain does have some regrets about Vietnam. As Moore points out, in his memoir Faith of Our Fathers, McCain called it "illogical" and "senseless" that he was limited to bombing only military targets.

"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."

In other words, McCain believes we could have won the Vietnam War had he been able to drop even more bombs.

When McCain was shot down, on October 26, 1967, he was busy bombing what he would describe as a "heavily populated part of Hanoi."

What follows is a a rather entertaining passage in which Moore then asks what you would do to a man who "fell out of the sky" after dropping bombs on you or your children. But the most important question comes at the end:

John McCain is already using the Vietnam War in his political ads. In doing so, it makes not just what happened to him in Vietnam fair game for discussion, but also what he did to the Vietnamese … I would like to see one brave reporter during the election season ask this simple question of John McCain: "Is it morally right to drop bombs and missiles in a 'heavily populated' area where hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians will perish?"

Of course, no member of the "mainstream" media is going to ask John McCain that question. (And given his famous quips on "Bomb-bomb-bomb-ing Iran" or, when asked to comment on the U.S. exporting cigarettes to the country, on the speculation that "Maybe that's a way of killing them,", the answer may be too disturbing to bear.) Regardless, this is the same press that obligingly calls McCain a "maverick" and McCain's campaign bus the "Straight-talk Express." Going after his war hero credentials? Why, that would be ... un-American.

Luckily, in the absence of an effective media -- or one that takes its cues from Michael Moore -- there are some people who are uniquely qualified to ask tough questions about the war hero John McCain, and they can't all be considered "surrogates" for Barack Obama. One of them is a man named Phillip Butler, who, on AlterNet today, has an article whose point, really, is laid out in the title:

I Spent Years as a POW with John McCain, and His Finger Should Not Be Near the Red Button

Originally published on Military.com, it's a scathing, point-by-point indictment of McCain that punctures the war hero mythology he has so successfully insulated himself in.

It is part fact-check ("Was he tortured for 5 years? No. He was subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first 2 years, from September of 1967 to September of 1969"), part much-needed perspective ("Because John's father was the Naval Commander in the Pacific theater, he was exploited with TV interviews while wounded. These film clips have now been widely seen. But it must be known that many POW's suffered similarly, not just John. And many were similarly exploited for political propaganda"). But perhaps its most compelling characteristic is that it is written by a former POW of a misbegotten war, who has seen the death and destruction firsthand, and who is fearful of what McCain would do as commander in chief. "I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that

red button."

Now that's a quote. Maybe it's time for a new 3 AM ad.

Tagged as: iraq, vietnam, torture, john mccain, ran

Liliana Segura is a staff writer and editor of AlterNet's Rights and Liberties and War on Iraq Special Coverage."

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=mncswlqo2D0

"Radio Interview with John McCain by the Notorious G Gordon Liddy, convicted of his role in the Watergate Scandal that cost President Nixon his Administration. A Personal Friend and finacial supporter of John McCain."

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=v_tUPnNtXsw

The Real Manchurian Candidate:

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/