Letters to the Editor

Majority of Israelis want to negotiate with Hamas A view that is deemed "anti-Israel" in the U.S. is actually held by most Israelis. Glenn Greenwald [2008-02-27]

• Response to omooex, cont.

  Raimondo... The monument is in the rough shape of a plane, or the severed head of a crucifix, with the kneeling figure of John McCain at its center. Head bowed in penitence, knees buckling, eyes hooded in shame, he looks like a man quite capable of saying, even some thirty years later, "I am a war criminal; I bombed innocent women and children" – as he did in an interview with Mike Wallace on Sixty Minutes in 1997.

  http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j092999.html

  Lifted from here:

  During the month of October, 1997, some 30 years after the shootdown of John McCain, some 24 years after McCain returned to the United States, a 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace aired on CBS. John McCain, being herald as the potential GOPs nominee for President in the year 2,000, stated that he was a war criminal because he had bombed, "innocent women and children."

  I am a war criminal; I bombed innocent women and children.

  http://www.ojc.org/powforum/capital/mccain/trnslate.htm

  These are right wing extremists and con men like Ted Sampley and Bo Gritz who hate McCain for "selling out" the POWMIA movement with John Kerry and leaving all those MIAs to rot in Vietnamese prison camps. Except for the fact that all the living POWs were returned over 30 years ago. But the myth enables the scam, which it is, and the scam fits into the myth of Dolschtosslegende. They perpetuate the Manchurian Candidate smear against McCain

  And finally, and sadly, from the left:

  Ted Rall... McCain knew what he was doing was wrong... "I am a war criminal," McCain said on "60 Minutes" in 1997. "I bombed innocent women and children."

  http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12676

  Actual Transcript:

  WALLACE: (Voiceover) People who know McCain well say he can hold a grudge. He also has a legendary temper. But if McCain can be hard on his friends and even harder on his enemies, he can also be very hard on himself.

  Sen. McCAIN: I m--made serious, serious mistakes and did things wrong when I was in prison, OK?

  WALLACE: What did you do wrong in prison?

  Sen. McCAIN: I wrote a confession. I was guilty of war crimes against the Vietnamese people. I intentionally bombed women and children.

  WALLACE: And you did it because you were being tortured...

  Sen. McCAIN: I...

  WALLACE: ...and you'd reached the end of the line.

  Sen. McCAIN: Yes. But I should have gone further. I should have--I--I never believed that I would--that I would break, and I did.

  http://www.chss.montclair.edu/English/furr/Vietnam/mccain60min.html

  I expect this tactic, cherrypicking and taking statements out of context, from Fox and CNN and the right wing blogs, whether pro war or antiwar like Justin Raimondo's. I expect it from extremists and con men buying into Bo Gritz' scams for filching money from the poor people who have nothing left but the desperate hope that their dead MIAs might still be alive because they have no body and hence, no closure. There will be no rescuing of the hundreds of live Americans POWMIAs being held in slave labor camps in North Vietnam because they ain't there and never have been. I hate to see it from people on the "left".

  Professor Grover Furr is an American communist. I think most people, regardless of ideology or politics would agree he has one of the best resources for information on Vietnam and that war on the web, from any perspective. I like to think he's objective and fair and just interested in the facts. Like me. It's sad to see Ted Rall do it, but that's Rall.

  Prof. Furr... John McCain Admits To War Crimes? This strongly pro-war and anti-McCain page claims the former Senator and Republican presidential hopeful (in 2000) stated in a Mike Wallace "Sixty Minutes" interview in October, 1997.

  Peter Brush sent me the transcript of the Wallace interview (5.1.02). The page takes McCain's statement way out of context. McCain admitted that he confessed to deliberately bombing women and children, but claims that he "broke" under torture. Here is the relevant text from the interview, taken from the transcript.

  http://www.chss.montclair.edu/English/furr/vietnam.html

  -- L.W.M.
  [Read L.W.M.'s other letters]
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