Line-up of reaction and militarism at McCain memorial
By
Patrick Martin
3 September 2018
Saturday’s memorial service for Senator John McCain, held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and broadcast on a half dozen television and cable networks, was an officially sanctioned tribute to militarism and war.
Honoring the arch-warmonger McCain, a fervent supporter of US aggression from Vietnam to Syria and Yemen, were presidents, vice presidents, senators, congressmen and national security officials of the two parties of American imperialism. They sat side by side in the pews of the National Cathedral, Democrats with Republicans, Clintons and Obamas with Bushes, giving a living demonstration of the unity of the American ruling elite.
There was a “who’s who” of war criminals with a bloody record stretching back more than half a century. It would be difficult to accurately calculate how many millions of people have died because of the wars, interventions, civil wars and military coups instigated or ordered by the people sitting in that cathedral. Just listing the countries tormented or laid waste at their direction suggests the scale of their crimes: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, Haiti, Grenada, Serbia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Niger, Somalia …
Seated in the audience were such repugnant figures as former vice president Richard Cheney, defense secretary during the first war in Iraq, political architect of the second war in Iraq and advocate of torture; former president Bill Clinton, commander-in-chief during US military operations in Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq and Kosovo; Hillary Clinton, advocate of wars in…