kiwiincambodia wrote: ↑Sun Aug 26, 2018 12:05 pm

fax wrote:Great he’s a family man. It’s sad a life was lost.

Can we agree that 80 year old men with brain illness should not decide over the rest of us? Should’ve booted him long time ago.

I agree with this. The fact it was a brain illness makes it even more relevant. We don’t know how it effected his judgement or thinking process.

Either way I actually liked McCain and thought he stood up for what was right. The turning point for me was when we stood up for Obama during his presidential campaign when someone in the audience said bad about him.


And his concession speech is one of the best I have ever heard.



I didn’t agree with a lot of what he said / did at the start of his political career but thought he actually grew into the position and certainly was one of the better politicians on the hill in recent years.

No matter how you feel about his politics no one deserves to endure what he, and many others, did in Vietnam.

Well said.

kiwiincambodia wrote: ↑Sun Aug 26, 2018 12:05 pm

fax wrote:. The turning point for me was when we stood up for Obama during his presidential campaign when someone in the audience said bad about him.

I'm not sure what direction you meant by "the turning point for me" but I truly respected him for doing that.

hanno wrote: ↑Sun Aug 26, 2018 3:26 pm

jmagic wrote: ↑Sun Aug 26, 2018 3:20 pm

Brody wrote: ↑Sun Aug 26, 2018 2:35 pm

Gardiguy wrote: ↑Sun Aug 26, 2018 11:00 am is rediculous, as is tg's modus operandi.

Just blow it off. tg lives in his own personal, twisted, pun-encrusted echo-chamber. That which doesn't echo his thoughts, never penetrates.

Anyway, the USS Forrestal fire is the stuff of US Navy lore. He was lucky to escape with his life. After the first high order bomb detonations, the fire was so consuming that he had to crawl out of his cockpit, out onto the refueling probe and jump off the nose of his A-4 Skyhawk in order to escape.

He wasn't even originally attached to a squadron on the USS Forrestal, but shortly before the incident, he volunteered to help out when his own Squadron was sidelined.

Also, as a POW because his father was a 4 star Admiral, he was offered early release at least once during his incarceration...and he refused, as there was an unwritten rule set in place among the POWs as to the order of early releases.

The man had integrity. Fair winds and following seas John McCain.

I'm not sure volunteering to drop bombs on Vietnamese civilians, then being shot down, qualifies as integrity.

It does, even if the actual cause was wrong. Unlike American presidents past and present, he did not duck out of military service.

Isn't it more heroic to avoid killing civilians than to blindly follow order and kill them?

"Isn't it more heroic to avoid killing civilians than to blindly follow order and kill them?"

You seem to lack a clear understanding of his mission and the hazards of war. It is highly unlikely that he deliberately targeted civilians or was ordered to do so; it serves no purpose. However in any war civilians do die. It's probably safer to be a military member.

bvanfossen wrote:

kiwiincambodia wrote: ↑Sun Aug 26, 2018 12:05 pm

fax wrote:Great he’s a family man. It’s sad a life was lost.

Can we agree that 80 year old men with brain illness should not decide over the rest of us? Should’ve booted him long time ago.

I agree with this. The fact it was a brain illness makes it even more relevant. We don’t know how it effected his judgement or thinking process.

Either way I actually liked McCain and thought he stood up for what was right. The turning point for me was when we stood up for Obama during his presidential campaign when someone in the audience said bad about him.


And his concession speech is one of the best I have ever heard.



I didn’t agree with a lot of what he said / did at the start of his political career but thought he actually grew into the position and certainly was one of the better politicians on the hill in recent years.

No matter how you feel about his politics no one deserves to endure what he, and many others, did in Vietnam.

Well said.

kiwiincambodia wrote: ↑Sun Aug 26, 2018 12:05 pm

fax wrote:. The turning point for me was when we stood up for Obama during his presidential campaign when someone in the audience said bad about him.

I'm not sure what direction you meant by "the turning point for me" but I truly respected him for doing that.

I mean I didn’t really like him before that. His campaign run against bush got messy and was quite dirty in the end. It was good to see it didn’t turn that way again against Obama.

And now a quote trip down memory lane... Here's a brief, very partial list of statements from the late senator calling for some form of military intervention and in some instances full-on invasion of these countries, per Mother Jones.

* * *

Syria

“Providing military assistance to the Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups is necessary, but at this late hour, that alone will not be sufficient to stop the slaughter and save innocent lives. The only realistic way to do so is with foreign air power.”

Iraq War 2

“Leaders always have choices, and history teaches that hard choices deferred—appeasing Hitler, choosing not to deter Saddam Hussein in 1990, failing to act sooner against Al Qaeda—often bring about the very circumstances we wished to avoid by deferring action, requiring us to react in freedom’s defense. America’s leaders today have a choice. It will determine whether our people live in fear behind walls that have already been breached, as our enemies plan our defeat in time we have given them to do it.”

Above: Religious and ethnic minorities throughout Iraq and Syria have widely faulted John McCain's US military interventionist policies for bringing their communities to brink of extinction.

* * *

Afghanistan

“We should make an immediate statement of our resolve that we no longer intend to tolerate sanction given to our enemies by any nation…Should the Taliban refuse our demand, then they must know that they will be treated as allies of our enemy, and, thus, are themselves our enemies, and will suffer much for their allegiance.”

Libya

“I would arm, train, equip, both from without and from within, forces that would eventually overthrow the governments and install free and democratically-elected governments” (2000). “t does take time, as it did during the period of the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. But we were able to provide them with some weapons and wherewithal to cause the Russians to leave Afghanistan. So we can do it” (2012).

2014 photo op in Libya with a "rebel" who later emerged head of ISIS in Libya. Left to Right - CT Senator Richard Blumenthal, Al-Qaeda and ISIS-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group Commander Abdelhakim Belhadj, AZ Senator John McCain, SC Senator Lindsey Graham.

Kosovo

“The best course for us, NATO, Kosovo, Russia and even Serbia is to begin fighting this war as if it were a war, with huge stakes involved, instead of some strange interlude between peace initiatives…To that end, we should commence today to mobilize infantry and armored divisions for a possible ground war in Kosovo.”

Iraq War I

“It is clear to me that if we fail to act there will be inevitably a succession of dictators, of Saddam Husseins, of which around the globe there is an abundance.”

Nigeria

“If they knew where they were, I certainly would send in U.S. troops to rescue them, in a New York minute I would, without permission of the host country. I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan.”

Bosnia

“If [Bosnians] were equipped,especially with TOW missiles, some heavy armor, some tanks, then I think that we could foresee a stable situation.”

North Korea

“I would arm, train, equip, both from without and from within, forces that would eventually overthrow the governments and install free and democratically-elected governments.”
* * *

Iran

“It’s that old Beach Boys song, ‘Bomb Iran’? Bomb bomb bomb…

Russia

“Now is the time to fundamentally rethink our relationship with Putin’s Russia. We need to deal with the Russia that is, not the Russia we might wish for. We cannot allow today’s action by Putin to stand without serious repercussions…We should push for the completion of all phases of our missile defense programs in Europe, and move expeditiously on another round of NATO expansion.”

Sudan

“NATO should immediately establish and enforce a no-fly zone over Darfur to ensure that Khartoum ends its offensive military flights and bombing raids, as the Security Council has already demanded…[T]he United States should intensify efforts to persuade UN members to commit troops and funds for the UN force in Darfur, and it should develop plans for US logistical support.”

Mali

“We need to have DOD assistance as much as feasible and necessary to prevent Mali from deteriorating further into a chaotic situation.”

China

“The Arab Spring is coming to China"

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08- ... ted-attack

R.I.P. 'war hero'. Time to meet your maker.

If anyone wants to know how bad wars are then read Martha Gellhorn's book The Face of War. She covered wars from Spain to Central America in a very long career.
She was in Dachau when the German armies surrendered. There was a huge pile of bodies, most prisoners but the freshest bodies belonged to the guards who the Americans shot straight away. Some of the atrocities she reports I had never heard of, awful.
As for McCain he was just doing his job as were the Vietnamese. Anyone who thinks that the Vietnamese didn't kill their own when they needed to is very naive. One critic on twitter and it may have been Pilger said that North Vietnam was barley defended.
Around Hanoi and Haiphong was of course the most heavily defended airspace on the planet.

A hitman is just doing his job. Is he not responsible for the murders he commits? How about if he wears a green outfit? Does that make it ok?