John McCain: The View from the Middle East

September 4, 2018
By As`ad AbuKhalil
Link: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/09/04/john-mccain-the-view-from-the-middle-east/

It is not unusual that Arabs and Americans look at the same event from divergent lenses. Take, for instance, a scene from John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign when he told  a woman in the audience who had called Obama an Arab: “No, Ma`am. He is not an Arab. He’s a decent family man.” 

That brief exchange has been tweeted and retweeted thousands of time in the last few days following McCain’s death. It has been promoted by people in mainstream media (and think tanks and academia) as evidence of the civility, “classiness”, and lack of prejudice of McCain.  Yet, Arabs saw something entirely different in that exchange.  They saw bigotry from McCain, who was denying that Obama was Arab in the same way one denies that someone is a Nazi.  He clearly implied that an Arab can’t be a decent family man.  In fact, Gen. Colin Powell was the only U.S. politician who pointed this out at the time.  But a new image of McCain is being formulated before our eyes.

For Arabs in the Middle East and in the U.S., the view of McCain does not conform to the hagiography of U.S. media.  People in the region remember well that McCain supported every U.S. and Israeli war, invasion, or attack against any Arab target. They remember that he was a major proponent of invading Iraq and argued for the expansion of U.S. wars into Iran, Libya and Syria in the wake of Sep. 11. 

The destruction of Mosul. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Other Side of John McCain

August 27, 2018
By Max Blumenthal in Washington
Link: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/08/27/the-other-side-of-john-mccain/

As the Cold War entered its final act in 1985, journalist Helena Cobban participated in an academic conference at an upscale resort near Tucson, Arizona, on U.S.-Soviet interactions in the Middle East. When she attended what was listed as the “Gala Dinner with keynote speech”, she quickly learned that the virtual theme of the evening was, “Adopt a Muj.”

“I remember mingling with all of these wealthy Republican women from the Phoenix suburbs and being asked, ‘Have you adopted a muj?” Cobban told me. “Each one had pledged money to sponsor a member of the Afghan mujahedin in the name of beating the communists. Some were even seated at the event next to their personal ‘muj.’”

The keynote speaker of the evening, according to Cobban, was a hard-charging freshman member of Congress named John McCain.

During the Vietnam war, McCain had been captured by the North Vietnamese Army after being shot down on his way to bomb a civilian lightbulb factory. He spent two years in solitary confinement and underwent torture that left him with crippling injuries. McCain returned from the war with a deep, abiding loathing of his former captors, remarking as late as 2000, “I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.” After he was criticized for the racist remark, McCain refused to apologize. “I was referring to my prison guards,” he said, “and I will continue to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture of my friends.”

‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison where McCain was tortured. (Wikimedia Commons)