Right-wing hitman Ted Sampley famously accused John McCain of being the "Manchurian candidate" when McCain challenged George W. Bush in the 2000 GOP primaries. Sampley's vile character assassination foreshadowed the swift boat attacks on John Kerry in 2004 and were just as baseless, but fallacious as that may have been, McCain does have an unspoken and under-reported agenda that is surprisingly transparent and solidly documented. While perhaps not a member directly, he orbited like a satellite around that now-defunct neocon flagship, the Project for the New American Century.
"Follow the money," the fictionalized cinema Deep Throat told Redford and Hoffman. In the modern right-wing labyrinth of think tanks, political action committees, and advisory councils, the admonition morphs into "follow the members". In 1994 Bill Kristol, evil spawn of Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb, and former Chief-of-Staff to Vice-President Dan Quayle, founded the New Citizenship Project.
New Citizenship Project (also New Citizenship Project, Inc.) is a non-profit organization funded by large right-wing foundations. Founded in 1994, NCP initiated the Project for the New American Century, one of the key behind-the-scenes architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy. According to his senate biography, John McCain served as a president of NCP, "an organization created to promote greater civic participation in our national life."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/...
Shortly before the founding of the New Citizenship Project, things were afoot in the Papa Bush White House involving some now old, familiar faces.
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."
http://www.truthdig.com/...
Kristol and other NCP principals along with Cheney's Bush I DoD'ers later founded the Project for the New American Century, with funding through NCP and sharing many of the same members. Besides the aspen-like connections between their memberships, they also – according to NCP's Wikipedia entry -- shared "the same address, suite, and kitchenette as PNAC ".
While McCain was apparently not formally a member of PNAC, he did sign on to their September 28, 2004 Letter to the Heads of State and Government of the European Union and NATO. And his other connections are labyrinthine.
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/...
Member or not, though, McCain is well connected to the PNAC crowd:
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."
http://www.truthdig.com/...
Now, about that quote above that McCain "co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act—drafted by PNAC—which decreed "regime change" in Iraq to be U.S. Policy," it's noteworthy that it was not just any PNAC member who drafted the Iraq Liberation Act.
Randy Scheunemann, who had drafted the Iraq Liberation Act and was on the board of Kristol's Project for the New American Century (PNAC), became McCain's foreign policy adviser. One person who has worked closely with Kristol says of Kristol and McCain, 'They are exceptionally, exceptionally close'" (New Republic, October 16, 2006).
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/...
That's McCain's top foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, as the news reports described the lobbyist for Georgia after we goaded the former Soviet republic into confronting the Russians in South Ossetia.
Scheunemann isn't the only familiar name that pops up in connection with McCain and PNAC:
Today, the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998" was introduced into the Senate and House. Those introducing the bill in the Senate were Sen. Majority Leader, Trent Lott, [R, Miss], Sen. Bob Kerrey, [D. Ne], Sen. John McCain [R, Az], Sen. Joseph Lieberman [D Conn] and Sen. Jon Kyl [R, Az].
http://www.globalsecurity.org/...
After all, three days later, McCain and Joe Lieberman went on Meet the Press (on October 21, 2001) and both strongly suggested that we would have to attack Iraq. Lieberman said that the anthrax was so complex and potent that "there's either a significant amount of money behind this, or this is state-sponsored, or this is stuff that was stolen from the former Soviet program."
http://www.salon.com/...
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.
http://www.truthdig.com/...
Is your head spinning yet?
And do you know who to put your money on in the Republican Veep sweepstakes?
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John McCain said he wouldn't have a problem staying in Iraq for a hundred years. He spins the notion as if others have gotten us into this mess and he's just trying to make the best of a bad situation. Bullshit. Don't be fooled by the chaff spewing from McStraightTalk's mouth; his actions speak volumes, and they all say, "Project for the New American Century".. McCain and his PNAC buddies have lusted after that base of operation in the Middle East from which to "project American power" over the region and secure its "strategic resources" (AKA "oil") for the US so we can keep consuming a quarter of the world's fossil fuel resources. Now they've got it.
John McCain worked too hard to get into Iraq – he has no intention of getting out. Ever.
He's there to stay – and it's only just the beginning.