John McCain having a smoke, fresh fruit, tea, and cookies in north Vietnam

[pwb]

http://www.usvetdsp.com/mcianhro.htm

He looks pretty healthy in this picture. but he is the son of an admiral.

[AlCzervik]

1. Ted Sampley is scum.

[rox63]

51. Agreed - Sampley's hate-filled bullshit has no place in any election n/t

[Colobo]

2. Why do we have to go there?

It takes us nowhere to question McCain's experience in Vietnam. It shouldn't even be an issue.

[pwb]

4. Why not go there? He would if it was reversed.

i am a nam vet so i can go there.

[treestar]

11. Amen! After what they did to Kerry

They deserve it!

[The_Casual_Observer]

18. Because it's unnecessary & cruel. Obama is skating through this taking the

high road.

[Botany]

3. this is total crap

McCain was beaten and tortured for years as a POW ..... please hit alert

[pwb]

8. Here is more.

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_aboutvvajm.htm

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pwb]

12. I didn't write it. But then you probably didn't read it.

[Botany]

16. i was in 5th grade when my best friend walked into his house

and his Dad said "Bruce your Brother is dead." I had already seen the Marine officer and the
Priest so I knew what was coming .... as for your service thank you .... as for your going into
the gutter about what did or did not happen to McCain as POW give it a rest.

BTW my Brother works for the navy and was going to the pentagon on 9/11, My Godson
just got back from Iraq, and my Dad is a combat vet.

[Zynx]

33. Some things aren't worth reading.

[AtomicKitten]

5. Obama definitely doesn't want to go there

and I agree

[bbinacan]

6. After 5 1/2 years

in a prisoner of war jail, I think you could cut him some slack. He didn't bail when the chance was offered. I don't want McCain as President but, I do admire his sacrifice.

[pwb]

9. Wrong. All officers had orders they could not go home.

From the camp commander. Any early release had to be offered to enlisted men first.

[RedShoes]

25. that's not altogether true, and POW's are certainly different.

Your vitriol toward our servicemen and women is NOT...repeat NOT going to help us win this election.

I'm just sayin'

[Arkansas Granny]

7. This is not a subject that we should pursue.

[Cronus Protagonist]

44. True, we should trumpet McCain traitorism from the rooftops

Pursuing it is not enough.

[bbinacan]

13. IBTL n/t

[TexasObserver]

14. It's a valid topic of discussion. Ignore the militarists who think otherwise.

McCain is making his POW time the centerpiece of his campaign. It is therefore a topic of discussion that deserved attention.

Unfortunately, we have a handful of posters who think it's their job to insult anyone who wants to talk about it. They are in violation of DU rules for personal attacks, not you.

[bbinacan]

17. If you want to discuss DU rules

let's have at it. I have not attacked anyone personally. You have by calling the majority of us on this thread a militarist. If you find insult in our response, it's because you have a weak and useless argument.

[TexasObserver]

30. I don't care what your view of DU rules is.

And I don't care what your opinion is of this topic.

I'm not going to argue with you, because your post reveals you're unable to understand what you've read, and unable to understand what a post means. So thank, but no thanks. Now you're free to attempt to annoy someone else, who might be inclined to engage in a long, pointless discussion with you, where you give your misguided opinions and act indignant.

[bbinacan]

43. If you don't care

why bother to reply?:rofl: :eyes:

[baldguy]

15. John McCain Is No "Hero POW". He was a survivor.

Do you blame him?

Only an incredibly vindictive SOB or an outright psychopath would.

[pretzel4gore]

20. why was he there in the 1st place?

Vietnam was a little 3rd world nation that had just broken away from colonialism- under communist lead (see Dien Bien Phu). What reason did US have to wage war against any part of Vietnam? I know mccain was just a pawn in the entire thing, but did he ever ask why the hell was tens of billions of dollars wasted trying to save 'South' Vietnam from communism...Ho Chi Minh was obviously the greatest political figure in the country, he was communist, the Vietminh won the battle of Dien Bien Phu, driving out the french...he also was an admirer of the US; didn't he have any say in what happened to his country? Is john mccain stupid? Killing people from 5 miles up, people who pose no threat to USA? This is rhetorical, but so is the idea that mr mcain was a heroic figure ...had he opposed the war because it was goofy would have taken alot more courage then to join in it and get taken prisoner. I wish Vietnam would sue mccain for damages when he dropped those 1/2 ton bombs on villages and schools/hospitals etc almost 40 years ago, since he's using his service to cash in politically

[baldguy]

21. Just like any soldier, he was an agent of the US foreign policy at the time.

You can't blame the soldier for the war. Blame the leaders.

[TexasObserver]

31. You can blame the soldier when he cannot admit he fought for a tainted cause.

The problem with McCain is he's still fighting the Vietnam war. He stills thinks we could have won and should have won. He fails to take responsibility for killing innocent people in a war that was, simply put, WRONG.

Soldiers must take their orders, but that does not free each one from moral responsibility for what he does. If you kill an innocent person in a bad war, you have to live with that as a black spot on your soul. You don't have the luxury of saying "I was just doing my job," and dismissing it - at least not if you want to be a moral person.

I'm not proud of what we did in that war, and I don't see how any sane person could be. We killed a million people, a lot of animals, a lot of vegetation, and we were wrong to be there. And yet we still have the bellicose among us, chest thumping about wars, as if they're always the work of the honorable.

[baldguy]

34. Fault him for the views he holds today on that war & wars in general.

No one is innocent in wartime, and everyone is a victim. Don't fault him because he survived.

There's an old saying that the very idea of charging people with "war crimes" is absurd - since all war is a crime.

[TexasObserver]

38. I'll fault him for the views he holds today AND the actions he took then.

If you want to hold close your quaint notions about war and culpability, that is your choice.

And contrary to your statement, yes, there are war crimes.

[pretzel4gore]

35. i was a kid in '68, yet we all knew

Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, Ramparts, the Village Voice, EV Other and a host of underground papers discussed the 'big lie'; the details were common knowlege. Vietnam was a LITTLE 3RD WORLD NATION, that has just fought off colonial dominion by the French, who thought screwing their pretty little boys was the right, the duty, of our side! Bull.....!! Mr McCain was part of the ruling class, so he knew better then anyone how phony the 'war' was...how many people know, for example, how drugs were used by OUR SIDE to infect and hook the educated class in China for example? WE actually fought a WAR to stop the Chinese from trying to restrict drugs (the so called Boxer rebellion)...just shame alone should have made mr mccain suspect the reasoning for warring on the Vietnamese...unless he claims he was stupid, like in imbecile stupid(?)
Just watched a German movie called 'Downfall' about hitler's bunker during last few days. In it, Goebbels reacts to protest that the 'people' shouldn't have to suffer for the crimes of the nazis by saying 'the people' elected the nazis to do exactly what the nazis planned to do, and now they were gonna get their throats cut too, which was only fair' etc (more then 4 million Germans voted against the nazis, at great risk to themselves- a detail goebbels never thot about)
Civilization is a work of art. That's why the rightwing can't understand it, always oppose it, and must be regulated like a nasty disease....

[Thothmes]

39. That question should be asked of

President Lyndon Baines Johnson. He was the man that ordered McCain to Vietnam. Along with dozens of squadrons of bombers, an armada of warships and 3 full corps of Army and Marines. President Johnson is personally responsible for the deaths of 38,000 Americans, the wounding of 200,000 Americans, and the deaths of maybe as many as 4,000,000 Vietnames. If McCain bombed schools/hospitals, there is a good chance that target was selected in the oval office by Johnson himself. If the Vietnames should sue anyone it should be the estate of President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

[pretzel4gore]

40. did Johnson order the Gulf of Tonkin incident?

all the reactionaries need is to get the 'enemy' to fire upon our boys- voila, there you go! A president is helpless once the bullets fly. Such scenerios have been sabatoging US pols since Washington's time- hell, since Julius Ceasar's time! (Ceasar was murdered in part because as a popular leader who had sympathy for the plebians; his plan to put grain trading under government oversight threatened some wealthy thugs in the Senate, ergo 911, i mean 15th of march!) Regardless, Mr McCain never opposed the asian war when he must have known it was phony as the lone gunman theory is. This means mccain agreed with the process of US imperialism, and as a candidate for prez, the consequence of interfering with democracy to install a frat boy bush, which will cost every person on earth eventually, exposes john mccain to a higher level of criticism then your ordinary fighting man/woman- most of whom simply hope to get through the day, the tour etc, and not embarass themselves before the family/friends! john Mccain sure didn't give a damn about that!

[Thothmes]

41. No he did not, the consensus

on this board is that it was fabricated to give him an excuse to blow the war up to what it became. Exactly, what statistical information do you have on how many of those hundreds of pilots that were on Yankee station in the mid sixties opposed to be there. McCain is not the war criminal in the Viet Nam war, Lyndon Johnson is. He started it, He ordered those men there, those men went IAW his orders and died by the thousands. When it comes to world class war criminals since the end of WWII, LBJ is near the top of the list. McCain did not start the war. He followed his oath that he took at commissioning to obey the orders of the President of the United States and those officers appointed over him. The criminal is LBJ. Not John McCain.

[pretzel4gore]

45. i was using their logic...that's all

obviously, mister mccain wasn't a war criminal. but the reactionary right nips/tukks its logic when it attempts to contrive the peoples' perceptions, and it lies outright whenever lies are necessary or convenient. It bases its very success on this sandbox ethos, which it then damn to hell if ever the anti rightwing tries to use. Mccain is a nobody, in modern political terms. He's the reactionary right's goofus- and so screwed up is the system mccain might even become prez. That would be almost as silly as the youngstrer bush thinking he's the prez! And nevermind LBJ. His president was killed in LBJ's own state, and LBJ inherited an impossible situation. Some even accuse him of lihop. Who are we to judge Johnson, anyway? Does anyone think Johnson did not know who was behind the chaos of JFK's murder? Or that he dealt with them for years until his administration was destroyed?

[SwampG8r]

19. as easy as it would be

to take him apart over his military record
doing so would make it a phyrric victory
you would lose more by making it an issue than you would gain from it as an issue
its a no gain solution

leave it go i say

[elkston]

22. Agree. This is a sacred cow. Leave it be.

[Gabi Hayes]

23. sacred cow, exactly. you're right, even tho he was a mass murderer, no less than those

who slaughtered hundreds of thousands in Iraq



what's the difference, other than we SHOULD have learned our lesson from Vietnam

but as long as we live in a national security state we never will

not that those who control said NSS have any lessons to learn, because it's their job, their calling to keep the mission as it is, which is to make as much money as possible for those that produce the necessities to keep us in a constant state of war

it really is that simple

[RedShoes]

24. My father fought in Viet Nam, so I take some STRONG umbrage with your calling ANY of those

who served mass murderers. You ARE what's wrong with the democratic party, and you know it.

[Gabi Hayes]

27. take all the umbrage you like, as well as a reading comprehension course.

my father fought, and was gravely wounded, against the nazis....eighty percent permanent disability

how are we any different than they to the Iraqis?

how were we any different than they to the Vietnamese?

do you know how many Vietnamese WE killed?

what business did the Germans have in the Sudetenland (do you know what that was?), in Poland, in Holland, in Belgium, in Norway

what business did we have in Vietnam?

what business do we have in Iraq?

what business did we have in Panama? in Grenada? in Beirut? in Cuba? in Chile? in the Philippines? in Nicaragua? should I go on?



I know that YOU haven't the slightest sense of history, that whatever your father told you is colored by his experience, and that if he thought he was over there for any other reason than to prop up GE's bottom line, I feel almost as sorry for him as I do for you

[Kaleko]

32. Well said. Clear as a bell.

It's the one thing I'm looking for on DU, the ring of truth.

[Gabi Hayes]

42. thanks. I feel sorry for the guy....and his dad. I also feel sorry for MY poor father,

who literally had his ASS blown off on a bridge in Belgium, then spent a YEAR in hospital, his reward for fighting the monsters, who, in the eyes of most of the world, WE have become

I almost got arrested on the mall the week the war started, arguing with a Viet Vet about the fact that we lost WWII because the Nazis won, and are sitting on capitol hill now, in the form of Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, etal. The only reason I didn't was that I was talking to the cop who watched the whole thing unfold right before I went up to their kiosk and started talking about the army to the two guys there. One went nuts when I said what I mention above.

I used to wear his dog tags for awhile, when the war started. Just put one on again, in 'honor' of the monster who's taking the reins from the monster in the shining city on the hill.

this is for you, dad, the Honorable twenty one year old platoon sergeant, winner of two purple hearts, including the one that changed his life forever.

sorry you lost the war. I know you did your best. I tried to stop the one we're losing now; didn't do my best, but, like our valorous VP, I had other priorities, unfortunately. looks like we'll be telling the same stories to each other in awhile.

[alcibiades_mystery]

26. This is dumb

Correction: YOU are dumb.

[Gabi Hayes]

28. you're right, also, but how high on the irony scale do you rank McCain's

untouchability with the fairly certain knowledge that Kerry's Vietnam service is pretty much acknowledged as what did him in with the undecided vote, and 'lost' the election for him

then there's always this

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-06-30-swiftboat_N.htm

[Chloroplast]

29. I'm not looking for attacks but put simply, McCain is a traitor that committed treason...

against his country. Now, should Obama use this against his opponent? Hell no! I think McCain should be very grateful that he's running against someone that insists on taking the high road. If that seed of doubt were planted, his public persona and career would be over; I really hope that his Naval career is never questioned by MSM because it's one of the few (public) positives that he has.

[Catchawave]

36. Why are you sending traffic to the swiftboaters site?

Article was written in 1999, it's old propaganda garbage that helped take down McCain in 2000....and we got Bush, remember?

He also went after Max Cleland and John Kerry with his bullsh*t anti-hero slime.

This should not be allowed here :(

[Major Hogwash]

47. He's not, he just posted a site on the internet, is all.

The fact is, most of the facts at that site are true.
So, this type of site should be listed here.

You guys just don't like the guy that doesn't like McCain.
But, most of you can't handle the truth about McCain.
And that's a problem.

But, not for me.

[Catchawave]

49. You're a Marine?

And support the trashing of veterans via anti-war hate sites?

Sad.

[Major Hogwash]

50. Fuckin' A!

I put in 20 years in the Marine Corps - as an officer!!

Don't like my opinion of John "Insane" McCain?
Too fuckin' bad.

I didn't like George "AWOL" Bush either.

What is sad is most of you people can't tell the difference between a real hero like Kerry and a cocksucker like McCain!!

[MilesColtrane]

37. Garbage

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

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