Abu-Jamal/Zubaydah '08!
Republicans mock Barack Obama for presiding over an empty cult of personality, but their geriatric dog-and-pony show in St. Paul consisted almost entirely of paens to John McCain's personal heroism as a POW during the Vietnam war. Health care? Jobs programs? Global Warming? Iraq Exit Strategy? Who needs that shit, this dude was a fucking prisoner of war for like, five years. The entire argument for McCain's candidacy consists boils down to this: He was a POW for five years. You people owe him.
Beyond the fact that this is a punishingly stupid and mendacious way to pick a president (Mumia Abu-Jamal has been in a tiny cell for a lot longer than John McCain ever was. Write in!), it speaks to the historical amnesia and immorality that goes into the way McCain's time in the Hanoi Hilton is remembered.
In the bathetic introductory video to McCain's speech Thursday night, Fred Thompson gurgled his way through this line: "When you spend five years in a box, you dedicate yourself to making sure other people don't have to live in that box." As though John McCain's top priority as president will be safeguarding American citizens from being taken prisoner by Vietnamese communists. You know what, John? I'm not too worried about that happening. There's pretty much zero chance that I'll be taken prisoner by the Vietnamese...because I'm not going to drop a bunch of fucking bombs on their country for no good reason!
None of the billion or so retellings of the John McCain imprisonment story told during the RNC contained any sort of context. He wasn't kidnapped by the SLA or something. He was shot down on during his 23rd bombing mission over Vietnam. A duty that he volunteered for. McCain wasn't some poor bastard drafted off of the back of a tractor. He was the son of an admiral who was already 30 years old, a man who could write his own ticket in the Air Force and chose to fly payload after payload of explosives into the heart of a third world country that had never attacked the United States, in order to help prop up a corrupt illegitimate government that wouldn't have lasted a day if free elections were held. His endurance and sense of personal honor are certainly impressive, but it doesn't abnegate the fact that he willingly participated in an air war that killed around three million Vietnamese people. Even scarier is the fact that McCain seems to take his suffering as proof of the righteousness of his actions.
In any event, it was certainly surreal watching a gaggle of red meat Republicans celebrating the bravery and character of someone who was tortured and imprisoned. Ninety miles off the coast of Florida the U.S. government has got a bunch of guys who've been jailed for longer than McCain, subjected to many of the same "enhanced interrogation techniques" as McCain, and all are being held on far flimsier pretexts. Something tells me, though, that the Gop-bots wouldn't say that Abu Zubaydah is ready to lead.
Beyond the fact that this is a punishingly stupid and mendacious way to pick a president (Mumia Abu-Jamal has been in a tiny cell for a lot longer than John McCain ever was. Write in!), it speaks to the historical amnesia and immorality that goes into the way McCain's time in the Hanoi Hilton is remembered.
In the bathetic introductory video to McCain's speech Thursday night, Fred Thompson gurgled his way through this line: "When you spend five years in a box, you dedicate yourself to making sure other people don't have to live in that box." As though John McCain's top priority as president will be safeguarding American citizens from being taken prisoner by Vietnamese communists. You know what, John? I'm not too worried about that happening. There's pretty much zero chance that I'll be taken prisoner by the Vietnamese...because I'm not going to drop a bunch of fucking bombs on their country for no good reason!
None of the billion or so retellings of the John McCain imprisonment story told during the RNC contained any sort of context. He wasn't kidnapped by the SLA or something. He was shot down on during his 23rd bombing mission over Vietnam. A duty that he volunteered for. McCain wasn't some poor bastard drafted off of the back of a tractor. He was the son of an admiral who was already 30 years old, a man who could write his own ticket in the Air Force and chose to fly payload after payload of explosives into the heart of a third world country that had never attacked the United States, in order to help prop up a corrupt illegitimate government that wouldn't have lasted a day if free elections were held. His endurance and sense of personal honor are certainly impressive, but it doesn't abnegate the fact that he willingly participated in an air war that killed around three million Vietnamese people. Even scarier is the fact that McCain seems to take his suffering as proof of the righteousness of his actions.
In any event, it was certainly surreal watching a gaggle of red meat Republicans celebrating the bravery and character of someone who was tortured and imprisoned. Ninety miles off the coast of Florida the U.S. government has got a bunch of guys who've been jailed for longer than McCain, subjected to many of the same "enhanced interrogation techniques" as McCain, and all are being held on far flimsier pretexts. Something tells me, though, that the Gop-bots wouldn't say that Abu Zubaydah is ready to lead.
posted by matthew christman at 5:42 PM
1 Comments:
McCain / 3 Million Dead Gooks '08 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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