Skip to main content

Yeah, we used napalm in Vietnam. But that was different!

Double standards at play....as Senator McCain, apart from ignoring his constituents calling for no attack on Syria, somehow (!) seeks to explain that the US employing napalm in the Vietnam was different to what the Assad regime did (assuming it was them and not the so-called "rebel" fighters) in using chemical weapons a few weeks back.

"Here's the infuriating spectacle of John 'Never-Met-A-War-I-Didn't-Like' McCain at town meetings in Arizona, ostensibly set up for the quintessentially democratic purpose of letting him hear what the people who elected him to his job want him to do, except when those people really don't want to go to war with Syria, at which discomforting impasse he pointedly fails to hear what they are saying and pointlessly argues that "Assad is a merciless butcher," even though they haven't argued otherwise and are making entirely valid cogent points about why that is not the issue. The most rage-inducing moment is a tough call: When his eyebrows lift in supremely patronizing dismissal of a woman's fervent call for diplomacy? When a Vietnam veteran notes that the U.S. has likewise used chemical weapons - ie: napalm - and McCain responds, “Napalm is a terrible weapon (and) wars are terrible, but...you had an enemy, and war is hell (and) if you killed that enemy, you probably prevented that enemy from killing one of (our) people (and) that’s what I think is a bit of a difference here,” because apparently he never saw or even saw pictures of those napalmed children running screaming down the road? Or just the disheartening entire exhibition that is his hollow version of democracy in action? Appalling, all of it."

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...

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

Not for the first time does MPS wonder what sort of country it is when Israel so flagrently allows what can only be described as barbaric and inhuman behaviour to be undertaken by, amongst others, its IDF. No one has seemingly challenged Israel's actions. However, perhaps it's gone a bridge too far - as The Independent reports. The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons. In the first investigation of its kind, a team of nine senior legal figures examined how Palestinians as young as 12 were treated when arrested. Their shocking report Children in Military Custody details claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehi...

Wow!.....some "visitor" to Ferryland in Newfoundland