In
een opiniestuk van As’ad
AbuKhalil in Consortium News (door mij overgenomen van Anti-Media),
beschrijft hij hoe anders arabieren en een volk als de Afghanen
kijken naar de dood van oorlogsmisdadiger, oorlogshitser en
grootlobbyist van het militair-industrieel complex McCain.

In
een voorbeeld geeft hij aan hoe verschillend alleen al een uitspraak
van McCain wordt geïnterpreteerd door westerlingen of arabieren. Een
vrouw in een zaal waar hij vanwege z’n presidentscampagne van 2008
sprak, kreeg van McCain als reactie op haar uitlating dat Obama een
arabier is, dat Obama geen arabier is, hij is een nette familieman.
Westerse media jubelden ‘t uit, wat een fantastische man die McCain,
immers hij zou als republikein Obama hebben verdedigd…… 

Deze ontkenning van McCain zal iemand die goed geïnformeerd is over WOII, doen denken
aan ontkenningen in en na de oorlog, de ontkenning dat iemand geen fanatieke nazi
kan/kon zijn, daar hij een ‘nette familieman’ was…… Zoals men na de oorlog maar al te
vaak ontdekte van fanatieke psychopathische nazi’s die in concentratiekampen
tekeergingen, zoals kampcommandanten, die thuis de brave huisvader uithingen…. 

Hoe een arabier over deze uitspraak zal oordelen is wel
duidelijk, hij of zij ziet in de uitspraak van McCain een bevooroordeelde
westerse klootzak, die stelt dat een arabier geen nette persoon kan
zijn……..

Uiteraard
zien arabieren McCain zoals hij was, een smerige oorlogsmisdadiger
door wie tienduizenden mensen om het leven zijn gekomen, zo stond de
schoft ook achter de illegale oorlog tegen Irak (intussen meer dan 1,5 miljoen doden…), sterker nog, daar
was hij al meteen na 9/11 voorstander van, zoals hij ook voorstander
was van de illegale oorlog tegen Syrië (al vanaf 2006 voorbereid door
de VS, natuurlijk met hulp van McCain….), verder was hij voor een oorlog
tegen Iran….. 

Waarbij dit alles nog opgeteld moet worden, dat hij terreurstaat Israël
zwaar steunde en alle bloedvergieten door die fascistische
apartheidsstaat niet eens bekritiseerde, neem het grote aantal
moorden begaan door Israëlische scherpschutters, die sinds maart dit
jaar aan de grens met de Gazastrook een groot aantal ongewapende, vreedzaam
demonstrerende Palestijnen hebben doodgeschoten*, terwijl ze zich NB op
‘Palestijns grondgebied’ bevonden…… Daarbij vermoordden deze
psychopaten zelfs kinderen, invaliden, duidelijk herkenbare
journalisten en als zodanig herkenbare medisch hulpverleners…… McCain was veel eerder zelfs tegen de onderhandelingen van Israël met Yasser Arafat (PLO)……..

Lees
het uitstekende stuk van AbuKhalil voor veel meer duidelijkheid (zo vertelt hij dat de directeur van Human Rights Watch een lovend stuk over McCain schreef….), voorts zie de berichten over McCain onder de links, die weer onderaan in dit bericht terug zijn te vinden:

Being
on the deadly end of his policies, many Arabs view John McCain in a
very different way than the U.S. mass media has presented him.

The
destruction of Mosul. (Wikimedia Commons)

(CN Op-ed) — 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.

While
the Washington director of Human Rights Watch was writing tributes to
McCain,
Arabs were remembering him as a champion of Middle East dictators
(except those on bad terms with the U.S. and Israel.) It was not a
coincidence that both the official Saudi regime lobby in DC and AIPAC
promptly released emotional eulogies for McCain. The
English-language, Arab
Times (a
mouthpiece of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman) dedicated a
special issue to him.

McCain
never wavered in his conformity with AIPAC’s agenda.  He never
had disagreements with the Israeli government except in outbidding
them in his hostility to Palestinian rights and the usefulness of
negotiations with Arabs.

Yet in
the context of Washington politics, McCain was not regarded as the
anti-Arab/anti-Muslim that he was, perhaps because there were Arabs
and Muslims that he approved of. He championed, for instance, Iraqi
opposition figure Ahmad Chalabi (a key fabricator in the buildup to
the U.S. invasion of Iraq) and the Afghan Muhajedeen. He was very
close to Arab despots and approved arms sales to their repressive
armies and intelligence apparatuses. He spoke of democracy but in the
way that invading and colonizing states glorify “freedom” to
justify conquest.

McCain
was a champion of Syrian rebels and pictures of him with Jihadi
extremists (in Libya and in Syria) were circulated by Arabs on social
media in the last week. while the Washington press corps and Human
Rights Watch were paying tribute him as “a defender of democracy.”

Schooled
by Scoop

McCain
was mentored on
the Middle East, according to his biographies, by Henry “Scoop”
Jackson, who for years was the dean of ardent Zionists in the U.S.
Congress. Those were in the days when a few members—mostly
Republicans—dared to challenge AIPAC. McCain’s first trip to
Israel was a member of a delegation led by Jackson when McCain was
the Navy’s liaison to the Senate.  Typically, like all
U.S. politicians who visit Israel, McCain became convinced by 
the view from Israeli military helicopters of the vulnerability of
“little Israel” and that Israel needed to continue to occupy,
invade, attack and assassinate.

Self-propelled
howitzers of the Gaddafi forces, destroyed by French Rafale airplanes
at the west-southern outskirts of Benghazi, Libya, in March 2011 in
another war backed by McCain. (Wikimedia Commons)

In
Congress, McCain managed to become associated with AIPAC’s agenda
more than his colleagues. He always argued for more support for
Israel. And when Israel and the U.S. both accepted negotiations with
Yasser Arafat, he remained skeptical, raising doubts about the
intentions of the Palestinians.

After
his election to Congress, McCain quickly set himself up as an expert
on defense and foreign policy. His first foreign policy posture in
Congress was in 1983, when he opposed U.S. intervention in Lebanon,
but not on humanitarian grounds. Instead he basically argued that far
more force was needed against Syria and its allies in Lebanon. This
became a pattern for the Vietnam veteran: that more force is always
needed wherever U.S. troops are deployed. Some attribute the “surge”
to him, as if the surge really salvaged American fortunes in Iraq.

In
an article written
during his 2008 presidential campaign, The
New York Times talked
about the McCain Doctrine and referred to his reaction to Sep. 11,
when he argued for war on Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan.  For
McCain, war was the only recourse for dealing with foes of the U.S.
and Israel. And war was not effective for McCain without massive
force and heavy troop deployments.

The
Senator and the Ikhwan

McCain
was a champion of the Muslim Brotherhood (Jam’iyat
al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin),
even if that put him at odds with Gulf rulers who he also supported.
 This position may seem uncharacteristic given his longstanding
fealty to AIPAC and its agenda, and his general unfriendliness to
Arabs and Muslims. But McCain may have undertaken this role at the
behest of AIPAC.

Homs,
Syria

In
the aftermath of the Arab uprisings, McCain negotiated with leaders
of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. 
It was after a series of visits from leaders of those movements to
Washington that they basically reversed their traditional position on
Israel. Leaders of An-Nahda rescinded
their plan to criminalize normalization with Israel, while leaders of
the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood pledged commitment to the
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. 

Similarly,
the stance of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood abandoned any hostility
toward Israel and even toward its occupation of the Golan heights. 
McCain’s confidence in the ability of the Ikhwan to
deliver the interests of Israel and U.S., led him to oppose Sisi’s
coup as he trusted that Mohammed Morsi would be able to guard U.S.
interests and the interests of the Egyptian-Israeli
military-intelligence alliance.

McCain
became, in this manner, an unabashed champion of what is called in
the West (and in the Gulf regimes’ media) the “Syrian
revolution”.  He also trusted the Islamists in the
“revolution” and hoped that Israeli interests would be served by
a change of regime that would be aligned with the U.S. and Israel. The risk of promoting Jihadi Islamist rebels was, for McCain and the
Israeli lobby, worth the effort.  For that, McCain’s death was
mourned by leaders of the “liberal” exile opposition and by
Jihadis of the Syrian rebels, including Huthaifah `Azzam, the son of
`Abdullah `Azzam (the mentor of Usamah bin Laden). (Huthaifah `Azzam
later deleted his post after I drew attention to it).

The
career of McCain intersected with the rise of AIPAC on Capitol Hill. 
He also benefited from the Reagan and Bush Doctrines, both of which
relied on the use of massive force against the enemies of U.S. and
Israel.

The
assessment of McCain can’t hope to achieve a measure of balance
given the adulation by mainstream media for a man whose political
sins were always instantly forgotten.  His reference to
Vietnamese by a pejorative term was seen as an example of his frank
talk—not of his prejudice. His involvement with Charles Keating was
seen as an example of a minor error and not of the corruption of an
influential senator.  His endorsement of war, the Israeli
occupation, and his embrace of tyrants (especially in the Gulf and
North Africa) have not been perceived as inconsistent with the
media’s image of a champion of human rights.

In
the end, John McCain was a major face of American empire, just as
were two people who attended his funeral–Obama and Bush –and one
who did not, Trump.

By
As’ad AbuKhalil / Republished with permission / Consortium
News / Report
a typo

==========================================

* Het totale aantal doden sinds maart dit jaar, Palestijnse mensen die door ‘heldhaftige scherpschutters werden vermoord) lag op 13 augustus jl. op 168 waaronder 23 kinderen….. Het aantal gewonden (van licht- tot zwaargewond) lag op meer dan 20.000….. (waarbij 68 Palestijnen een amputatie moesten ondergaan…)

Zie
ook:

‘McCain terminaal ziek: vier als het zover is zijn dood luidruchtig, niets om je voor te schamen‘

‘McCain oorlogsmisdadiger >> massaal ten onrechte geëerd na z’n dood‘

‘John McCaine: politieke helden zijn op den duur meestal teleurstellend‘

‘Begrafenis McCain: onbeschaamde verering van een massamoordenaar en oorlogshitser‘