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John McCain: For Tyranny Before He Was Against It

By Doug Bandow on 4.22.11 @ 9:52AM

Sen. John McCain is off in Libya striking a heroic pose promoting another unnecessary war for America. Reports ABC:

U.S. Sen. John McCain, one of the strongest proponents in Congress of the American military intervention in Libya, said Friday that Libyan rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi's troops are his heroes.

The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee made the remark after arriving in Benghazi, a city that has been the opposition capital in the rebel-held eastern Libya.

McCain said he was in Benghazi "to get an on the ground assessment of the situation" and planned to meet with the rebel National Transition Council, the de-facto government in the eastern half of the country, and members of the rebel military.

It is worth remembering that Sen. McCain was for Qaddafi before he was against the dictator. Nearly two years ago Sen. McCain, along with Senators Graham and Lieberman, was supping with Qaddafi in Tripoli, discussing the possibility of Washington providing military aid. That is, assistance for the military now fighting the heroic freedom fighters being visited by Sen. McCain. Andrew McCarthy reports on the ludicrous episode, revealed by WikiLeaks:

On and on it goes, made all the more nauseating by the reality that nobody was under any illusion that Qaddafi had truly reformed. McCain made a point of telling the press that "the status of human rights and political reform in Libya will remain a chief element of concern." Note the gentle diplomatic understatement: Qaddafi is - and was, as McCain well knew - a savage autocrat. Yet this brute fact was softened into "an element of concern" regarding "the status of human rights and political reform."

But that was then. Now Sen. McCain is outraged by the tyrant's misbehavior.

Sen. McCain was physically courageous in Vietnam. But, unfortunately, his geopolitical judgment--like wanting Americans to confront nuclear-armed Russia over the country of Georgia, in a war actually started by Georgia--has never been as impressive. His determination to get America more deeply involved in its third conflict in Middle East in a decade demonstrates an impulsive recklessness that would not have served Americans well in the presidency.

View all comments (24) | Leave a comment

Sean| 4.22.11 @ 11:01AM

McCain is an idiot it is that simple. I don't know how Republicans can keep sending him to the Senate as well as nominate him for President.

USSAlabama| 4.22.11 @ 11:19AM

I second that, Sean.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.22.11 @ 11:21AM

When I saw that news item that McCain was headed to Libya to "meet with the rebels" I could only wonder how Arizona was stupid enough to send him back to the Senate. He has no principals and he caves on every side of every issue.

Politically, he's a kaleidoscope.

Big Jim| 4.22.11 @ 11:44AM

Yet he's better than what we have now.

J.C.Eaton| 4.22.11 @ 12:04PM

Not so fast. Obama is a sorry burlesque of a president and is a living emblem of all things antithetitcal to good government, but McCain is a posturing fool who would've set back the Conservative cause 50 years minimum. Best,

Too Many Tims| 4.22.11 @ 12:47PM

McCain and Hillary, Obama said he was sending in his predator drones...

Canon| 4.22.11 @ 1:17PM

Did you see the kankles on that one?

Jack in Wi.| 4.23.11 @ 12:23AM

McCain Libermann, and Graham or should we say Moe, Larry and Curley. Those 3 guys never met a war they didn't love.

dixie in sc| 4.24.11 @ 2:35PM

You would think a man who saw war and spent time in a Vietnam prison would want us in a war which was absolutely necessary, but this macho nut doesn't think twice about using young men in a careless way. Vote him out!

Emily| 4.23.11 @ 3:28AM

This is the man who crossed the Senate floor with the few Republicans he had rallied, to vote for the barbaric and brutal completely illegal attack on the people of Yugoslavia.
The 78 days and nights of 'bombing back to the stone age ' a defenseless civilian population.
(Gadaffi is an amateur.)
All over drug trafficking and oil pipelines and based on the CIA/KLA false flag at Racak.
Check Racak out - it belongs with the Gulf of Tonkin and the Maine.
McCain belongs before the war crimes tribunal together with his mates the Clintons, Albright and the rest of that criminal administration.
It was the start of the rot tha has turned the US into an international criminal and terrorist state.

jaczar| 4.24.11 @ 10:10AM

Amen, sister! McCain supports the military - industrial complex in all wars, foreign and domestic. They provide him campaign funds (bribes).

Bill| 4.23.11 @ 12:27PM

"McCain was physically courageous in VietNam".

Dropping bombs from a jet aircraft on a hapless population in Vietnam, halfway around the world is not courage. It is wanton murder and McCain should not be praised as a hero.

the Lion| 4.23.11 @ 1:07PM

Just cast your mind back to the time Georgia attacked Russian troops in Nth Ossetia and it own supposed citizens in Sth Ossetia, McCain wanted NATO to unilaterally attack Russia for doing what the UN mandated Russia to do, act as a UN peace Keeping force which they still are mandated to do by the way. McCain's then Presidential Campaign Manager was in fact in receipt of Lobbying funds from Georgia and it was he who advised McCain.
The wisdom he showed in relation to Georgia, just shows how wise he has always been, totally stupid, pick a fight with the only country on the Planet capable of making a serious dent in the Population of the United States, yes the US is a Superpower but Russia even now isnt such a slouch I am sure they have the capacity to make a lot of the US glow without lights for decades to come, and McCain wanted to attack Russia to defend Georgia. Risk Nuclear War for 4 million dollars in Lobbying funds!

rick| 4.23.11 @ 2:27PM

Why wasn't lieberman with mccorpse in Libya? I thought they were joined at the hip?

Matt X| 4.23.11 @ 4:33PM

I think it's possible to label all wars as unnecessary for the most part. The American revolution was not necessary...we didn't have to pick a fight with the Brits, could have just paid the big taxes and dealt with the other stuff as well. The North could have just let the South go their own way. We didn't have to help liberate Europe in WW2.

I think to assert that the was in Afghanistan and Iraq were unnecessary is missing the boat a little. We have no national security interest in get involved in Libya, but there was a national security interest in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite what Ron Paul types tell you.

Canon| 4.23.11 @ 7:19PM

It wasn't so much the intervention as it was the attempted "nation building" that was disastrous for us. How is bankruptcy in our national interest?

I don't know why more Americans don't see that we are in a very dangerous fiscal emergency. It's outrageous really.

bahmi| 4.24.11 @ 6:52AM

Yes, we need to steal Iraqi oil to pay for our war incursions there and elsewhere. The US is a warmongering sewer of a country, what makes you think we are to arbitrate in governmental decisions all over the world? Clearly, you are a neocon, of the Rumsfeld/Cheney mold. This makes you pathetic. Why don't you enlist your sons in this noble search for democracy, they would look swell in military uniforms.

Canon| 4.25.11 @ 7:39PM

What Iraqi oil have we stolen, moron? We're out one trillion dollars you ahole.

Don't lecture us about democracy sewer rat.

jaczar| 4.24.11 @ 10:17AM

Sorry Matt, there was NO compelling national security interest in Iraq, and only bin Laden as he passed through Afghanistan on his way to Pakistan. We could have sent a company of Marines after him, not 100,000 + troops to occupy and terrorize the whole country. How has that worked out by the way?

Robert Tinker| 4.23.11 @ 6:22PM

Why is taxpayers money wasted on that zombie McCain? What in &^%$ is he doing there?! McCain will say and do anything that he is told by his handlers. He is not a patriot. He is a fraud.

Andor| 4.24.11 @ 12:57PM

On the other hand Obama was AGAINST all wars (even got the Nobel Prize for Peace!) before he's become FOR all wars...

j r| 4.24.11 @ 2:02PM

This stupid old fool doesn't know what he's for. Me neither.

Strider| 4.24.11 @ 7:59PM

I'm convinced that the Communists "turned" McCain while he was a POW. No better way to explain his sponsorship (with Feingold) of the hideous law effectively repealing the 1st Amendment, along with his non-stop warmongering and open-borders advocacy. As to why Arizonans keep re-electing him, apparently they keep believing him at campaign time when he says he's reformed. Kinda like constantly forgiving an abusive spouse.