“Hero” John McCain as Phony and Collaborator: What Really Happened When He Was a POW?
ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Counterpunch
Monday, April 21, 2008
John McCain’s been getting kid-glove treatment from the press for years, ever since he wriggled free of the Keating scandal and his profitable association – another collaboration, you might say — with the nation’s top bank swindler in the 1980s. But nothing equals the astounding tact with which his claque on the press bus avoids the topic of McCain’s collaborating with his Vietnamese captors after he’d been shot down.
How McCain behaved when he was a prisoner is key. McCain is probably the most unstable man ever to have got this close to the White House. He’s one election away from it. Republican senator Thad Cochrane has openly said he trembles at the thought of an unstable McCain in the Oval Office with his finger on the nuclear trigger.
What if a private memory of years of collaboration in his prison camp gnaws at McCain, and bursts out in his paroxysms of uncontrollable fury, his rantings about “gooks” and his terrifying commitment to a hundred years of war in Iraq. What if “the hero” knows he’s a phony?
Doug Valentine has written the definitive history of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He knows about the POW experience. His dad, an Army man, was captured by the Japanese and sent to a POW camp in the Philippines for forced labor. Many of his mates died. Doug wrote a marvelous book about it, The Hotel Tacloban.
Now Valentine has picked up the unexploded bomb lying on McCain’s campaign trail this year. As he points out, he’s not the first. Rumors and charges have long swirled around McCain’s conduct as a prisoner. Fellow prisoners have given the lie to McCain’s claims. But Valentine has assembled the dossier. It’s devastating.
Some excerpts from Valentine’s indictment.
“War is one thing, collaborating with the enemy is another; it is a legitimate campaign issue that strikes at the heart of McCain’s character. . .or lack thereof. In occupied countries like Iraq, or France in World War II, collaboration to that extent spells an automatic death sentence.. . .The question is: What kind of collaborator was John McCain, the admitted war criminal who will hate the Vietnamese for the rest of his life?
“Put it another way: how psychologically twisted is McCain? And what actually happened to him in his POW camp that twisted him? Was it abuse, as he claims, or was it the fact that he collaborated and has to cover up? Covering-up can take a lot of energy. The truth is lurking there in his subconscious, waiting to explode. ”
“McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain’s own account, after three or four days he cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, “I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital …
“His Vietnamese captors soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line in the American military elite. . .The Vietnamese realized, this poor stooge has propaganda value. The admiral’s boy was used to special treatment, and his captors knew that. They were working him.”
“. . .two weeks into his stay at the Vietnamese hospital, the Hanoi press began quoting him. It was not ‘name rank and serial number, or kill me’. as specified by the military code of conduct. McCain divulged specific military information: he gave the name of the aircraft carrier on which he was based, the number of U.S. pilots that had been lost, the number of aircraft in his flight formation, as well as information about the location of rescue ships.”
“…McCain was held for five and half years. The first two weeks’ behavior might have been pragmatism, but McCain soon became North Vietnam’s go-to collaborator…..McCain cooperated with the North Vietnamese for a period of three years. His situation isn’t as innocuous as that of the French barber who cuts the hair of the German occupier. McCain was repaying his captors for their kindness and mercy.
“This is the lesson of McCain’s experience as a POW: a true politician, a hollow man, his only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain’s campaign contributors today, protected and promoted him, and, in return, he danced to their tune. .
Liberalscum Buster 
Is what you’re trying to say is that McCain being a POW is the same as Obama being a POW of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Church? Obama seems to have been more brainwashed by Rev. Wright then McCain was by Veitnam! Plus Obama even gave up his family to Wright to be brainwashed. 🙂
Comment by goodtimepolitics — May 4, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
goodtime politics
Can you give me some evidence of how Obama has come under the influence of Rev Wright and his Liberation Theology and Louis Farrakhan?
Did Wright turn Obama into an arugela- eating soy latte sipping elitist who is out of touch with the avarage person?
Comment by gasdocpol — May 4, 2008 @ 5:40 pm
[…] SANG LIKE A CANARY AS A POW.. The Troubadour wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptJohn McCain’s been getting […]
Pingback by test » Blog Archive » …McCAIN SANG LIKE A CANARY AS A POW.. — May 4, 2008 @ 8:07 pm
I’ve read the various posts that allege that McCain “sang like a canary” and the actual transcripts that are cited as “proof.” Not a single bit of information that was allegedly provided by McCain was actionable intelligence. The scant few items listed were all either obvious facts already known to the North Vietnamese, or words that were twisted into propaganda like “I was scared.”
Come on libs, you can do better than this, can’t you!?
Comment by scottymck — July 1, 2008 @ 5:12 pm
Until now, McCain’s account of his internment have been generally accepted as proof. Since McCain’s version of things is likely to be self-serving, since there is no collaborating testimony, normally it should be taken with a grain of salt. I find it difficult to believe that General Wesley Clark, who has infinately verifiable military credentials than McCain has raised eyebrows when he made the simple observation that flying a warplane and being shot down is not a qualification to be President.
Comment by gasdocpol — July 1, 2008 @ 8:42 pm
Wesley Clark’s comments are correct. Being shot down does not give a person any special insight as to the workings of the office of the President of the United States. It does, however, show a commitment to one’s country. While McCain was risking his life for America, Barack Obama spent this same period of his life with a joint pressed to his lips and a straw up his nose. I wonder if Mr. Clark believes those actions to be better qualifications to be President!
Comment by scottymck — July 2, 2008 @ 4:04 am
McCain may well have a commitment to the country but just because he says so does not make it so.
When you accept a free education at the Naval Academy you are not signing up for battle out of the goodness of your heart.
Because McCain had a father and grandfather who were 4 star admirals, it meant that he would get special treatment there. There is glory involved with being a naval officer and aviator.
You are totally mischaracterizing Obama. He was a brilliant law student and obviously is well educated and knows his stuff. He has performed supurbly in everything he has done including speaking ,as a lawyer, government, playing basketball and poker.
Comment by gasdocpol — July 2, 2008 @ 6:03 pm
I am totally mischaracterizing Obama? All I said is that he smoked pot and snorted cocaine; he said so himself! I find the mischaracterizatiion is being done on your part. A brilliant politician? He hasn’t served more than three years in any position before leaving it. What part of his voting record do you like best. I know my favorite is his advocacy of partial birth abortions. Hell, he even believes that if an unwanted baby survives an abortion, that a mother should have the right to terminate the child’s life after birth.
I realize that Obama has academic brilliance. Some of the dumbest people I know have performed well in school. I would be far happier with him as a Presidential candidate with ten years more experience and an actual track record behind him. If joining the Naval Academy isn’t a tribute to a man’s character and his service to his country is deemed worthless, what part of being a “brilliant” basketball or poker player adds to Obama’s Presidential credibility?
Alas, we are both clearly hopeless!
Comment by scottymck — July 3, 2008 @ 2:37 am
Obama said that he smoked pot and snorted cocain a long time ago and up front without being caught at it.
He was good eneough politician to have beaten both Clintons.
Obama does better than someone who can regurgitate back what a professor said or what he readf in a book. He takes real life situations, examines them comes to conclusions and articulates the issue.
I mentioned basketball and poker to show that he is an all round guy.
McCain’s Naval Academy record is no endoersement
He got in and through because his father and grandfather were 4 star admirals.
He was 895 out of 899 in his class.
He was raunchy, rowdy and a constant discipline problem.
Comment by gasdocpol — July 3, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
Okay, I’m convinced now … I’ll vote for Obama!
Comment by scottymck — July 4, 2008 @ 3:30 am
Scottymck
Bless your heart if you are sincere.
Comment by gasdocpol — July 4, 2008 @ 7:54 am
A poor student who got into the Naval Academy through his connections to a Naval Admiral, who managed to graduate very near the bottom of his class, who got a coveted assignment to pilot training ahead of numerous classmates who out qualified him, who was involved in five airplane wrecks, at least two of which were not his fault, who was a member of the Keating Five banking scandal, who divorced his ill wife and married a woman who had inherited lots of money, who constantly amazes himself, his staff, and the world with displays of ignorance and stupidity, who claims to have wisdom and character way beyond his opponent who graduated at the top of his class in one of the finest colleges in the world, who attained the highest status possible for a student at Harvard Law, reputed to be one of the finest law schools in the nation, and who had no high ranking connections to speed him on his way. In spite of everything this election will be close because Livs outnumber Hivs in America.
Comment by ofladrt — July 26, 2008 @ 4:52 am
When that 3 AM phone call comes into the White House, I don’t want Johnnie McCrapshoot picking up the phone . I want a cool Poker player making the decisions or mobilizing the best thinking available.
Comment by gasdocpol — July 26, 2008 @ 11:00 am