The arrogance of John McCain when asked about how his military service prepared him for the Presidency is appalling. Not that he cares for his fellow veterans in arms, let alone the wounded warriors in Iraq, who can't even get basic pensions and care.
Who the fuck does John McCain think he is, claiming that the Presidency is somehow his divine right while his fellow veterans are bleeding and suffering? He can brag all he wants to about purpose, as he does in his latest ads, yet the McCain Doctrine is drifting along without purpose while more and more people are dying and suffering in Iraq.
Instead of supporting our veterans and giving them the care that they were promised when they signed up, John McCain has thrown them under the bus in a grab for the Presidency. I suppose the reason he can't answer these questions is because he can't face up to the fact that he sold own fellow veterans out by voting against a $19 billion plan to help improve treatment at Walter Reed and other places. Who the fuck does he think he is kidding when he talks about "purpose" when he refuses to give our veterans any kind of purpose?
It is pretty sad that 1960's peaceniks treated our Vietnam vets with more decency than John McCain, for all his braggadocio about "purpose" did. John McCain thinks that our veterans are no more than fodder, to be thrown away when politically expedient. Our forefathers took in thousands of Vietnam vets, including John Kerry, who became some of our strongest voices against the war and who helped bring this war to an end. John McCain's choice of corporate welfare and tax breaks for the rich over taking care of his fellow veterans amounts to spitting on our troops. This is the same sort of attitude that led Valentinian III to kill his best general, Aetius, and seal the doom of the Western Roman Empire.
This sort of arrogance and contempt for our troops shows the kind of person John McCain is -- use people for human fodder and then destroy them when he has no more use for them. Only a person who sees people as human fodder would vote to abolish the Federal Minimum Wage. Only a person who sees women as baby factories would appoint radical right-wing judges to the bench and make forced pregnancy the law of the land. Only a person who sees people as fodder for future wars would call for the invasion and occupation of Iran -- something that would require a draft to accomplish.
By his own admission, John McCain simply didn't care about the conditions about Walter Reed. If John McCain's service really prepared him for the Presidency, then how is it that all this happened on his watch? This sort of stupidity may be endearing to his lapdogs in the media, who is the same media that lied about Iraq. But this sort of stupidity has real-life consequences. And John McCain, from the New York Times article, could care even less about the suffering of Iraqi troops, who are in even worse shape than our own veterans:
A number of the half-dozen badly wounded Iraqis interviewed for this article said they had been effectively drummed out of the Iraqi security forces without pensions, or were receiving partial pay and in danger of losing even that. Coping with severe injuries, and often amputations, they have been forced to pay for private doctors or turn to Iraq’s failing public hospitals, which as recently as a year ago were controlled by militias that kidnapped and killed patients — particularly security personnel from rival units.
No one knows the exact number of wounded Iraqi veterans, as the government does not keep track. In a 2006 report by the Congressional Research Service, Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, the American commander in charge of Iraqi police training, said that in just two years, from September 2004 to October 2006, about 4,000 Iraqi police officers were killed and 8,000 were wounded.
Veterans who were interviewed for the New York Times article said that the Iraqi govenment is lying about their treatment of Iraqi soldiers wounded in battle. There are people like Hussein Ali Hassan, whose leg has been amputated, was unable to leave Iraq because of rapidly mounting violence in 2003, who spent $13,000 of his own money to have needed surgery, and who makes barely $165 per month for his 23 years of military service. And here is another more horrifying example:
Nubras Jabar Muhammad, a 26-year-old soldier, was shot by a sniper in May 2007 as he was on duty at a Baghdad checkpoint. He nearly bled to death, losing a kidney and part of his liver, while suffering damage to his right hand. His torso is scarred, and two fingers are locked in a permanent curl.
He says he still has shrapnel lodged in his back, and rarely sleeps through the night. He has trouble digesting food. But the army refused him a disability pension, claiming he was able-bodied, and he was forced to return to active duty after nine months. He says he has already spent about $2,100 of his own money on operations, selling jewelry and a pistol to raise the cash.
And yet, he is forced to serve in the army despite his injuries, just one more piece of fodder for the travesty known as the McCain Doctrine. And on top of that, there are hospitals that are controled by the various militant factions in Iraq, where people have to either try to escape or risk being killed by Frankenstinian methods if they stay. Others have the choice of staying in the army with their war wounds and making $600 per month or leaving and trying to make ends meet on $200 per month.
John McCain has prostituted himself by throwing his fellow veterans under the bus in a quest for the Presidency, and then HE has the gall to say we can't question him on how his service qualifies him for the Oval Office? Given his mental laziness on this issue, the fact of the matter is that John McCain is the perfect man to continue the Culture of Corruption that has taken hold of Washington since George Bush took office. No intellectual curiosity, no attention to detail, and no willingness to supervise the people under him -- these are the hallmarks that will be part of a McCain presidency, as evidenced by his failure to do his job and oversee Walter Reed as part of his duty as chair of the Armed Services Committee.
And the John McCain 100 year Rebuilding Plan for Iraq will likely show similar lack of attention to detail -- lack of planning, lack of oversight, and lack of good people to run the plan. Perhaps he could pick Isaiah Thomas as his Vice President and put him in charge of a nice little 25-year rebuilding plan for the Veterans Administration while he's at it. And then, John McCain has the nerve to turn around and call it "purpose." He can't have it both ways -- if the "purpose" of this country is really to address our energy needs, then why does he still champion perpetual warfare in Iraq? Yeah, sure -- Isaiah had "purpose" as well; look where it got him. Never mind the broken relationships and shattered lives that were left in the wake in both instances -- one thing will be clear in both their minds -- they never did anything wrong.
John McCain may fancy himself a conquerer who can finish what George Bush started. But he is not worthy to kiss the feet of people like Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Attila, Genghis Khan, or other such people. The problem is that for all their bluster about Stay the Course (TM) and Victory, the fact of the matter is that they are both cowards who lack resolve -- the conquerers I mentioned were willing to act with great brutality in order to achieve their ends. Bush and McCain both lack the resolve to act with the kind of brutality that the conquerors throughout history did, and they lack the resolve to admit we have done all that we can accomplish.
The days of empire and conquest are over. For McCain to try to follow the footsteps of past conquerors would simply create a holocaust like World War II, where all the world would band together in outrage and stop the American Menace similar to what we did when we turned back the Axis powers. Countries all over the world would put their differences aside and fight the common menace -- us. Barack Obama has already shown courage when he opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq at the outset. This shows that Obama would have the courage to lead us out of Iraq and into the promised land of energy independence so that we will never have to fight another war for oil again.