What’s wrong with John McCain?
Maverick, war hero and saviour of the American people?
Or a reckless, volatile sociopath who will do or say anything to be America’s next commander-in-chief? Rolling Stone has a 10-page investigative report on the Republicans’ US presidential candidate. It’s a fascinating and disturbing read.
Here’s one extract, examining McCain’s behaviour during a major explosion and fire onboard the USS Forrestal in 1967 - an incident in which 134 servicemen died, and another 161 were injured:
Although he would soon regale The New York Times with tales of the heroism of the brave enlisted men who ’stayed to help the pilots fight the fire,’ McCain took no part in dousing the flames himself.
After going below decks and briefly helping sailors who were frantically trying to unload bombs from an elevator to the flight deck, McCain retreated to the safety of the ‘ready room,’ where off-duty pilots spent their non-combat hours talking trash and playing poker.
There, McCain watched the conflagration unfold on the room’s closed-circuit television — bearing distant witness to the valiant self-sacrifice of others who died trying to save the ship, pushing jets into the sea to keep their bombs from exploding on deck.”
So not only is McCain economical about the truth of his own war record, he’s also a hot-head with extreme neo-con views.
No wonder three members of his own party have decided that he’s too dangerous to be president. John H. Johns, a former US military brigadier-general who has known McCain since his military college days, describes the idea of a McCain presidency thus:
He’s going to be Bush on steroids. His hawkish views now are very dangerous. He puts military at the top of foreign policy rather than diplomacy, just like George Bush does. He and other neo-conservatives are dedicated to converting the world to democracy and free markets, and they want to do it through the barrel of a gun.”
Scary stuff. Voting in US presidential election takes place on Tuesday 4 November.
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