all-american war criminal

Mike Hersh writes:

He runs as an All-American War Hero for his participation in the US’s war against South East Asia. He certainly asserts his heroic resistance to and systematic victim of torture at the hands of North Vietnamese officials. That he was at times tortured has been documented; that he participated in proscribed behavior for POW’s is also documented.

But he certainly served as a Navy bomber pilot in attacks against the country partitioned by the Geneva Agreements at the 17th parallel in 1954 and called the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The question is the nature of those 23 reported sorties and it is clear from overwhelming evidence that those bombing missions under Operation Thunder targeted civilians and civilian social institutions.

As reported in the extensive testimony of Bertrand Russell’s War Crimes Tribunal in 1996 The Tribunal stated that its conclusions were:

Has the Government of the United States committed acts of aggression against Vietnam under the terms of international law? Yes (unanimously).

Has there been, and if so, on what scale, bombardment of purely civilian targets, for example, hospitals, schools, medical establishments, dams, etc? Yes (unanimously).

We find the government and armed forces of the United States are guilty of the deliberate, systematic and large-scale bombardment of civilian targets, including civilian populations, dwellings, villages, dams, dikes, medical establishments, leper colonies, schools, churches, pagodas, historical and cultural monuments.

Thus, in the opinion of both the panel and in world opinion within Vietnam and without, the US armed forces engaged in an illegal war and in its prosecution of that war committed war crimes. Not the least of those were bombing sorties (missions) over North Vietnam in which McCain was an active participant.

Thus, by the verdict of the Tribunal John McCain is a war criminal.

Given that, why would anyone expect this long time Republican Party professional to do anything other than to pardon his fellow Republican Party professionals and co-war criminals?



Progressive Democrats of America