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Michael Moore Dares to Ask: What's So
Heroic About Being Shot Down While Bombing Innocent Civilians?
By Liliana Segura, AlterNet
Posted on August 21, 2008, Printed on September 6, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/95906/
This post originally appeared in PEEK's blog.
Confession: I have not yet read all six (short, illustrated, large
type) chapters of Mike's Election Guide 2008, Michael Moore's,
latest work of jaunty political opinion. Am I supposed to discuss it
with him on "Meet the Bloggers"
tomorrow? Yes. But I'm not worried. It's a breezy read, has already made
me laugh out loud, and besides, I may have already found the best part
in Chapter One.
The title is "Ask Mike!" and, in it, ordinary voters, old and young,
pose questions about politics and current events. Some are more serious
than others ("If Iran has weapons of mass destruction, we should invade,
right?"), which does not make Moore's answers any more subtle. ("Excuuuuuse
me? Did you say the words, 'weapons of mass destruction?' Take it back.
I SAID TAKE IT BACK!") Of course, the "questions" are really satirical
jabs at the media -- "When a Republican wears a little American flag
lapel pin, what is he trying to say?" "If Obama can't bowl, can he
govern?" -- but there's one in particular that is worth paying attention
to -- especially if you happen to be a member of the press and have been
utterly unwilling to take McCain's supporters and opponents alike to
task for perpetuating a narrative that would be central to a McCain
victory, and which has already become a dominant theme in this election:
The McCain as War Hero canard.
The "question" is posted thusly:
"Why did the Vietnamese shoot down John McCain and put him in
prison for five years? He seems like such a nice guy."
ANSWER: I'm guessing, in spite of his anger management issues, he is
a nice guy. He has devoted his life to this country. He was willing
to make the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of our nation. And for
that, he was tortured and then imprisoned in a North Vietnamese POW
camp for nearly five-and-a-half years.
That's the set-up. It gets better. Moore proceeds, not to question,
as Wesley Clark
recently did to so many shrieks of criticism, whether McCain's
capture really makes him qualified to be president of the United States
-- the answer, any thinking person realizes, is "no" -- but whether the
Vietnam war was a conflict that can really be said to have produced the
breed of "American hero" McCain is so often celebrated as.
"Sadly," he writes, "McCain's sacrifice had nothing to do with
protecting the United States. He was sent to Vietnam along with hundreds
of thousands of others in an attempt to prop up what was essentially an
American colony, South Vietnam, which was being run by a dictator whom
we installed."
Lest we forget, the Vietnam War represented a mass slaughter by the
United States government on a scale that sought to rival our
genocide of the Native Americans. The U.S. Armed Forces killed more
than two million civilians in Vietnam (and perhaps another million
in Laos and Cambodia). The Vietnamese had done nothing to us. They
had not bombed or invaded or even sought to murder a single
American. President Johnson and the Pentagon lied to Congress in
order to get a vote passed to put the war in full gear. Only two
senators had the guts to vote "no."
But the parallel between Iraq and Vietnam is not the only point Moore
is making. He makes it personal.
John McCain flew 23 bombing missions over North Vietnam in a
campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder. During this bombing
campaign, which lasted for almost 44 months, U.S. forces flew
307,000 attack sorties, dropping 643,000 tons of bombs on North
Vietnam (roughly the same tonnage dropped in the Pacific during
all of World War II). Though the stated targets were factories,
bridges, and power plants, thousands of bombs also fell on homes,
schools, and hospitals. In the midst of the campaign, Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara estimated that we were killing 1,000
civilians a week. That's more than one 9/11 every single month --
for 44 months.
What's not heroic about that? Is it any wonder all politicians
speaking in public about John McCain are required to preface their
remarks with a fawning admiration for his war service?
Alas, McCain does have some regrets about Vietnam. As Moore points
out, in his memoir Faith of Our Fathers, McCain called it "illogical"
and "senseless" that he was limited to bombing only military targets.
"I do believe," McCain wrote, "that had we taken the war to the
North and made full, consistent use of air power in the North, we
ultimately would have prevailed."
In other words, McCain believes we could have won the Vietnam War
had he been able to drop even more bombs.
When McCain was shot down, on October 26, 1967, he was busy bombing
what he would describe as a "heavily populated part of Hanoi."
What follows is a a rather entertaining passage in which Moore then
asks what you would do to a man who "fell out of the sky" after dropping
bombs on you or your children. But the most important question comes at
the end:
John McCain is already using the Vietnam War in his political ads.
In doing so, it makes not just what happened to him in
Vietnam fair game for discussion, but also what he did to the
Vietnamese … I would like to see one brave reporter during the
election season ask this simple question of John McCain: "Is it
morally right to drop bombs and missiles in a 'heavily populated'
area where hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians will perish?"
Of course, no member of the "mainstream" media is going to ask John
McCain that question. (And given his famous quips on "Bomb-bomb-bomb-ing
Iran" or, when asked to comment on the U.S. exporting cigarettes to the
country, on the speculation that
"Maybe that's a way of killing them,", the answer may be too
disturbing to bear.) Regardless, this is the same press that obligingly
calls McCain a "maverick" and McCain's campaign bus the "Straight-talk
Express." Going after his war hero credentials? Why, that would be ...
un-American.
Luckily, in the absence of an effective media -- or one that takes
its cues from Michael Moore -- there are some people who are uniquely
qualified to ask tough questions about the war hero John McCain, and
they can't all be considered "surrogates" for Barack Obama. One of them
is a man named Phillip Butler, who, on AlterNet today, has an article
whose point, really, is laid out in the title:
I Spent Years as a POW with John McCain, and His Finger Should Not Be
Near the Red Button
Originally published on
Military.com, it's a scathing, point-by-point indictment of McCain
that punctures the war hero mythology he has so successfully insulated
himself in.
It is part fact-check ("Was he tortured for 5 years? No. He was
subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first 2 years, from
September of 1967 to September of 1969"), part much-needed perspective
("Because John's father was the Naval Commander in the Pacific theater,
he was exploited with TV interviews while wounded. These film clips have
now been widely seen. But it must be known that many POW's suffered
similarly, not just John. And many were similarly exploited for
political propaganda"). But perhaps its most compelling characteristic
is that it is written by a former POW of a misbegotten war, who has seen
the death and destruction firsthand, and who is fearful of what McCain
would do as commander in chief. "I can verify that John has an infamous
reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper
that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not
the finger I want next to that
red button."
Now that's a quote. Maybe it's time for a new 3 AM ad.
Liliana Segura is a staff writer and editor of AlterNet's Rights
and Liberties and War on Iraq Special Coverage.
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