Skip to main content

Henry K as an advisor?

Reports out of America suggest that John McCain, Republican candidate in the recent Iowa primaries, may still come out a winner in the race underway given his showing in the poll.

That would be troubling given that one of his key advisors is Henry Kissinger - yes, the disgraced one - and all that entails.

An editorial in The Capital Times has its take on the situation:

"Only the surreal strategists who manage John McCain's presidential campaign would divine to top an endorsement by Sen. Joe "nothing but good news from Iraq" Lieberman with one that will give thinking Americans -- and a frightened world -- greater cause for alarm.

So it is that, on the heels of the Connecticut senator's campaign swing on behalf of McCain, comes the news that the Arizona senator is making the circuit with an even more disturbing advocate for even more disturbing foreign policies: Henry Kissinger.

The former secretary of state, whose name is synonymous in the civilized world with the term "war criminal" and whose sleazy business deals have advanced the interests of dictators, has added the dubious distinction of his support to the McCain campaign. So discredited is Kissinger that when President Bush proposed him as the chairman of the 9/11 Commission, there was near universal objection.


Kissinger is not conflicted about McCain. "I believe now that he's the best candidate to serve our nation in an extremely difficult and complicated period," he says.

Even more frightening, for McCain it's all about the next Cold War.

"We now face this threat of radical Islamic extremism," says McCain. "One of the reasons I feel so strongly about America's image in the world is because I think we'll win this struggle the same way we won the Cold War."

Those who amuse themselves with the notion that McCain is not that bad a player -- an old political misread given new life by his position on torture -- would do well to figure into their calculations the Kissinger factor. If the darkest player in post-World War II American foreign policy says a man should be president, that man definitely should not be president."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-dependent allies for l

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?