The Case Against John McCain

How war hero John McCain betrayed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life

Last updated at 01:10 23 March 2008


In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain's presidential campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.

On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.

In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore.

Nearly three decades later, a Vietnamese government commission confirmed he was indeed the rescuer and, in a 1996 meeting in Hanoi, McCain embraced and thanked Mr On and presented him with a Senate memento.

From that brief encounter to his death at the age of 88 two years ago, Mr On never heard from the senator again, and three years after their meeting, McCain published an autobiography that makes no mention of his apparent debt to Mr On.

It is a snub Mr On took to his death.

His widow, Bui Thi Lien, 71, said: ?In his last years, my husband was very sad sometimes.

He would say, 'Mr McCain has forgotten me.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-542277/How-war-hero-John-McCain-betrayed-Vietnamese-peasant-saved-life.html

John McCain, veteran war hero: yes. But a descendant of Robert the Bruce? Baloney

Of all the claims in support of John McCain's bid for the White House, perhaps none is quite as grand as this. As he arrived in London yesterday, the publishers of his new book insisted the Republican senator's family was descended from the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce.

For a veteran war hero staking his presidential campaign on military credentials, an ancestral link to a warrior who overcame the English to reclaim Scottish independence in 1314 has obvious appeal. But according to experts, the story may be no more than that. Asked by the Guardian to investigate McCain's family history, genealogists and medieval historians described the link to Robert the Bruce as "wonderful fiction" and "baloney".

The McCain link to Scotland was first mooted several years ago, but resurfaced this week on the eve of his trip to the UK, when Gibson Square, the publishers behind the senator's book, Hard Call, announced that "John McCain's family is of Scottish-Irish descent and related to the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, on his mother's side".

...

Durie added that despite his romantic reputation, Robert the Bruce was "an absolute scoundrel".

"The first thing he did after taking power was destroy Stirling castle and he was a self-serving, vainglorious opportunist who was determined to be king at any cost," he said.

[in this, there is a strong similarity]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/21/johnmccain.uselections2008

Quote:

How war hero John McCain betrayed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life

Last updated at 01:10 23 March 2008


In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain's presidential campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.

On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.

In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore.

Nearly three decades later, a Vietnamese government commission confirmed he was indeed the rescuer and, in a 1996 meeting in Hanoi, McCain embraced and thanked Mr On and presented him with a Senate memento.

From that brief encounter to his death at the age of 88 two years ago, Mr On never heard from the senator again, and three years after their meeting, McCain published an autobiography that makes no mention of his apparent debt to Mr On.

It is a snub Mr On took to his death.

His widow, Bui Thi Lien, 71, said: ?In his last years, my husband was very sad sometimes.

He would say, 'Mr McCain has forgotten me.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-542277/How-war-hero-John-McCain-betrayed-Vietnamese-peasant-saved-life.html

Location: Reality, Earth

woiyo wrote:

Location: Reality, Earth

I don't think so.

JTT wrote:

woiyo wrote:

Location: Reality, Earth

I don't think so.

How would you know anything about reality when you by into anything written which likely is someones fantasy?

Why should that story be believable?

"Nearly three decades later, a Vietnamese government commission confirmed he was indeed the rescuer and, in a 1996 meeting in Hanoi, McCain embraced and thanked Mr On and presented him with a Senate memento."

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: THE ULTIMATE "RHINESTONE HERO"

...

While a prisoner of war, McCain was treated as a "special prisoner," with privileges including being given his own private and affectionate nurse.

McCain's treatment as a "special prisoner" is a contradiction to his much publicized image of a great war hero who was severely tortured and kept in solitary confinement for long periods of time because he refused to break during interrogation.

Ted Guy, a former Air Force Colonel held 5 1/2 years by the Vietnamese and McCain's senior ranking officer (SRO) in the POW camp, told the U.S. Veteran Dispatch he cannot remember the communists ever laying a hand on McCain.

...

The following is McCain's own admission of collaboration in an article he wrote, printed May 14, 1973 in U.S. News and World Report:

"I think it was on the fourth day [after being shot down] that two guards came in, instead of one. One of them pulled back the blanket to show the other guard my injury. I looked at my knee. It was about the size, shape and color of a football. I remembered that when I was a flying instructor a fellow had ejected from his plane and broken his thigh. He had gone into shock, the blood had pooled in his leg, and he died, which came as quite a surprise to us - a man dying of a broken leg. Then I realized that a very similar thing was happening to me.

"When I saw it, I said to the guard, `O.K., get the officer.'"

"An officer came in after a few minutes. It was the man that we came to know very well as "The Bug." He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends that we had to deal with. I said, `O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.'"

http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd59.htm

I guess more bullsh!t is going to come out and you can enjoy the fantasy.

'Special prisoner' or not, McCain's record is nothing but heroic.

To voluntarily stay in the Hanoi Hilton so another POW could go home is an act of incredible bravery and honor. I have visited the Hanoi Hilton, or what is left of it, and I can say for damn sure that that place was no holiday picnic for ANYONE.

McCain is an honorable man, I don't believe he is the best man for the presidency, but it makes me sick when he gets "swift boated".

McCain continuously violates the Code of Conduct

In direct violation of the Code of Conduct, McCain, who was supposedly in solitary confinement, met with and was interviewed by several foreign news reporters and political delegations, including many high-ranking North Vietnamese leaders, such as Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam's Minister of Defense and national hero.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. Veteran Dispatch acquired a declassified Department of Defense (DOD) transcript of an interview prominent French television reporter Francois Chalais had with McCain.

Chalais told of his private interview with POW McCain in a series titled "Life in Hanoi", which was aired in Europe. In the series, Chalais said his meeting with McCain was "a meeting which will leave its mark on my life."

"My meeting with John Sidney McCain was certainly one of those meetings which will affect me most profoundly for the rest of my life. I had asked the North Vietnamese authorities to allow me to personally interrogate an American Prisoners. They authorized me to do so. When night fell, they took me --- without any precautions or mystery --- to a hospital near the Gia Lam airport reserved for the military (passage omitted). The officer who receives me begins: "I ask you not to ask any questions of political nature. If this man replies in a way unfavorable to us, they will not hesitate to speak of `brainwashing' and conclude that we threatened him.

"This John McCain is not an ordinary prisoner. His father is none other than Admiral Edmond John McCain, commander in chief of U.S. Naval forces in Europe. (passage omitted).

Another declassified DOD document reports an interview between POW McCain and Dr. Fernando Barral, a Spanish psychiatrist who was living in Cuba at the time. The interview was published in the Havana Gramma in January 1970.

According to the DOD report, the meeting between Barral and McCain took place away from the prison at the office of the Committee for Foreign Cultural Relations in Hanoi. During that interview, POW McCain sipped coffee and ate oranges and cakes with his interrogator.

During that interview, McCain again seriously violated the Code of Conduct by failing to "evade answering questions" to the "utmost" of his ability when he, according to the DOD report, helped Barral by answering questions in Spanish, a language McCain had learned in school.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd60.htm

"However, isn't accepting 'special prisoner' status equal to denying that to other prisoners."

Whether or not he was a "special prisoner" is immaterial to me. I have seen the Hanoi Hilton in much better times and it is a hell hole.

"'Voluntarily' staying was, as I understand it, standard operating procedure. But if you have something more that points up that he did something extraordinary, Arendt, please post it."

Regardless of what the books say, being offered the opportunity to escape torture in the HH as a POW, and denying that chance because another less politically fortunate soldier was next in line, IS extraordinary.

JTT,

You and I are basically on the same side; but attacking McCain's time as a POW is a non-starter. It isn't that I think you are wrong, just that it is not an effective way to work against the guy.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

JTT,

You and I are basically on the same side; but attacking McCain's time as a POW is a non-starter. It isn't that I think you are wrong, just that it is not an effective way to work against the guy.

Cycloptichorn

I don't see getting to the truth as an attack, Cy. I realize that this is almost sacred ground, but what is the truth, if not sacred ground? The documentation seems to suggest that his story just ain't all it's cracked up to be.

"So, you're saying that you can't offer anything more other than the opinion of someone who doesn't want to think that they wasted their money on his book.

What is it that makes folks like you run from the truth, Arendt?"

The truth is that McCain's conduct during his years as a prisoner of war is, if NOTHING ELSE, not something which can be seriously criticized by any realistic standard of assessment. He did his duty and did not take advantage of the opportunity afforded to him by his powerful father. In those circumstance that is enough to deserve admiration.

I am not a supporter of McCain, but this angle of attack is foolish, both politically and morally.

I wonder how many of you, that are attacking what McCain may or may not have done as a POW could have survived half of what he and other POW's went thru?