If
the paeans to McCain by diverse political climbers seems detached
from reality, it’s because they reflect the elite view of U.S.
military interventions as a chess game, with the millions killed by
unprovoked aggression mere statistics.
by
Max Blumenthal
Part
2 - Being Lauded as a Hero
On the
occasion of his death, McCain is being honored in much the same way —
as a patriotic hero and freedom fighter for democracy. A stream of
hagiographies is pouring forth from the Beltway press corps that he
described as his true political base.
Among
McCain’s most enthusiastic groupies is CNN’s Jake Tapper, whom he
chose as his personal stenographer for a 2000 trip to Vietnam. When
the former CNN host Howard Kurtz asked Tapper in February, 2000,
“When you’re on the [campaign] bus, do you make a conscious
effort not to fall under the magical McCain spell?”
“Oh,
you can’t. You become like Patty Hearst when the SLA took her,”
Tapper joked in reply.
But the
late senator has also been treated to gratuitous tributes from an
array of prominent liberals, from George Soros to his soft
power-pushing client, Ken Roth, along with three fellow directors of
Human Rights Watch and “democratic socialist” celebrity Alexandra
Ocasio-Cortez, who hailed McCain as “an unparalleled example of
human decency.” Rep. John Lewis, the favorite civil rights
symbol of the Beltway political class, weighed in as well to
memorialize McCain as a “warrior for peace.”
If the
paeans to McCain by this diverse cast of political climbers and Davos
denizens seemed detached from reality, that’s because they
perfectly reflected the elite view of American military interventions
as akin to a game of chess, and the millions of dead left in the wake
of the West’s unprovoked aggression as mere statistics.
There
were few figures in recent American life who dedicated themselves so
personally to the perpetuation of war and empire as McCain. But in
Washington, the most defining aspect of his career was studiously
overlooked, or waved away as the trivial idiosyncrasy of a noble
servant who nonetheless deserved everyone’s reverence.
McCain
did not simply thunder for every major intervention of the post-Cold
War era from the Senate floor, while pushing for sanctions and
assorted campaigns of subterfuge on the side. He was uniquely
ruthless when it came to advancing imperial goals, barnstorming from
one conflict zone to another to personally recruit far-right fanatics
as American proxies.
In Libya
and Syria, he cultivated affiliates of Al Qaeda as allies, and in
Ukraine, McCain courted actual, sig-heiling neo-Nazis.
While
McCain’s Senate office functioned as a clubhouse for arms industry
lobbyists and neocon operatives, his fascistic allies waged a
campaign of human devastation that will continue until long after the
flowers dry up on his grave.
American
media may have sought to bury this legacy with the senator’s body,
but it is what much of the outside world will remember him for.
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