John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Provocations Have a History of Escalating Into War”
“The Russian Government and President Putin are coming under pressure not from US sanctions, which are very good for Russia as they force Russia into independence, but from Russian patriots who are tiring of Putin’s non-confrontational responses to Washington’s never-ending insults and military provocations.”
"What is being eulogized is McCain’s hatred of Russia and his record as a warmonger. What Washington is eulogizing is its own commitment to war."
Yes, but slightly more than that.
McCain was a faithful servant for the Neocons (and other portions of America’s Israel lobby such as AIPAC), the Neocons being a highly influential group in Washington's power establishment who help drive the great new wave of American aggressive behavior, including the anti-Russian activities, Russia being seen as a barrier to complete American dominance.
McCain made his Neocon efforts close to a full-time job, and that earned him many rewards including plenty of campaign fund support, good press in the high-end newspapers, and helpful, influential contacts in his work.
We saw this in every step he took, in his many trips abroad, in those he supported and opposed abroad, and right up to his meetings with such ugly characters like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The Neocons fervently believe an aggressive US is good for Israel, and McCain supported the concept wholeheartedly.
He held irrational attitudes towards a number of subjects, including Iran and Russia, and these attitudes lack any reasonable explanation except through his alliance with the Neocons. There is no innate reason for a Senator from Arizona to hate Iran as much as he seemed to. He was almost deranged-sounding on the subject.
It simply reflected the same phenomenon we saw in 2012 when Newt Gingrich tried to get the Republican presidential nomination. Gingrich went around giving speeches in which he said things like, “You know, there really is no such thing as a Palestinian.” It just made no sense, suddenly blurted out and with no connection to any issue anyone cared about, but the reason for its appearance can be found in the fact that American billionaire, and huge Netanyahu supporter, Sheldon Adelson, was reported to have donated the best part of $20 million for his campaign.
A politician from Georgia concerned with telling Americans that there was “no such thing as a Palestinian” comes from the same place as a Senator from Arizona who goes on and on about the evils of Iran, a country which has attacked no one and a place most Americans couldn’t even locate on a map.
McCain was completely irreligious, as his personal behavior and language always showed, so the Old Testament mumbo-jumbo about Israel, something which does influence Christian Fundamentalists in America, had no hold on him, and, in 2000, when running for the Republican nomination, he even briefly revealed his contempt for America’s Fundamentalist Christians, big supporters of Israel. That included a harsh attack on Jerry Falwell, an influential Fundamentalist whom Israel’s Netanyahu has in the past sought out to talk with privately.
The whole big explosion in Florida got McCain lots of press and enabled him to put another notch in his belt as a maverick, but, in classic McCain fashion, as he has done many times, he was apologizing the next day, realizing he might have hurt his political career. He did the same thing with George Bush, who won the nomination, literally performing a public penance of hugging Bush desperately and wet-eyed at the Convention, for having verbally attacked the winner. Even Bush was embarrassed (see photo: http://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/ ).
Indeed, all the events around McCain’s funeral – the inordinate praise for a man of few substantial achievements, the lavish bestowing of the title hero on someone who most certainly was not one, his virtual beatification in speech after speech and editorial after editorial - point to the influence of his powerful Neocon (and other American Israel lobby) connections.
You’ll find some other material on McCain: https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/john-mccain-a-matter-of-character/
Here’s a further thought on Putin's perceived (and disliked, by some Russians) non-confrontational behavior towards America. He is always a pragmatist, a clever one, and he never truly reveals ahead what he is intending. He plays his cards "close to his vest," as they say. So, I think many hasty and impatient suggestions about him are just that, hasty and impatient.
Much as with the new impressive Russian weapons systems created on a defense budget literally one-tenth that of America’s, he tries to squeeze whatever advantages he can from a difficult international situation and looks for little openings and opportunities to exploit without noise and bluster. He is in many ways the opposite of blow-hard, close-to-non-achiever Trump.
I think we can take it for granted that he is a sincere Russian patriot and that he does not want war. We can see that in many of his behaviors and speeches in the news. War is not good for Russia, a Russia making great strides in leaving behind the depression and ruin of the collapse of the USSR.
He is also a very proud man, and rightly so. He certainly doesn't work towards any kind of humiliation, ever. But he doesn’t let himself be pushed where he does not want to go.
