http://community.livejournal.com/jerry_quotes/tag/torture+before+9-11
On 3/9/08, B. <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
> This is an especially unsavory pandering to the
> extreme right for McCain, as the constant drumbeat in
> his Vietnam POW memoirs is how irked he was (is?) that
> the North Vietnamese did not follow the Geneva
> Conventions in how they treated US POWs. Until now
> he's *appeared* to be a big champ for those standards,
> even when war is not officially declared.
>
> That is one of the predominant themes of McCain's
> writings on his own Vietnam experience (a lot of which
> I've read): Geneva Conventions, Geneva Conventions,
> Geneva Conventions! When antiwar "peaceniks"
> (including, McCain notes with some irritation, Tom
> Hayden) visited POW camps in Vietnam, he refused to
> meet with them because, he writes, that was not how
> the Geneva Conventions said POW meetings should be
> held. But he could give the peacenik delegation
> letters for his family back home, his captors said.
> Nope, McCain said, those are not the channels
> prescribed by the Geneva Conventions - not gonna do
> it. Doesn't matter if neither side has officially
> declared war, everyone ought to follow the Geneva
> Conventions when there are combatants and POWS. (Or
> "detainees.")
>
> But now I suppose that earlier stance doesn't matter
> since he needs to appeal to a fanatical right wing
> base to get elected.
>
> My guess is this is why he got so bothered on his
> plane by the question about Kerry asking McCain to be
> his running mate in '04 -- it would remind
> right-wingers that the guy was considered by ... a
> DEMOCRAT ... as an ally. Nevermind that Kerry and
> McCain in the early 90s also jointly headed a task
> force to see if there were still unaccounted-for POWs
> in Vietnam -- and when they jointly decided "no,"
> there weren't, both Kerry and McCain -- Vietnam vets
> -- got a backlash from the POW/MIA black flag "You Are
> Not Forgotten" crowd that they were traitors, because
> of course there were. How cold Chuck Norris be wrong.
> A big subgenre of 80s action movies was the "We have
> unfinished business in Vietnam, so we're goin' back
> in." Must have been disappointing when McCain said,
> actually, we have no unfinished business there. Damn!
>
> McCain's "maverick" credentials are exaggerated
> greatly, but this is a new low, esecially given the
> passion with whih he writes about his own 5 1/2 years
> as a POW who was tortured, etc.
>
> -B.
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>
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/