Make No Mistake: McCain's a Neocon
By Robert Parry
June 8, 2008
Since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain has
sought to hide the
forest of his neoconservative alignment with George W. Bush amid the trees
of details, such as
stressing differences over military tactics used in Iraq.
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But the larger reality should be clear: McCain is a hard-line
neoconservative who buys into
Bush’s “preemptive war” theories abroad and his concept of an all-powerful
“unitary executive”
at home.
From McCain’s pre-Iraq invasion speeches to his campaign’s recent embrace
of Bush’s imperial
presidency, American voters should realize that if they choose John
McCain, they will be
locking in at least four more years of war with much of the Islamic world
while selling out the
Founders’ vision of a democratic Republic where no one is above the law.
Take, for instance, an address that McCain gave to the Munich Conference
on Security Policy on
Feb. 2, 2002. In the speech – with the ambitious title, “From Crisis to
Op****tunity: American
Internationalism and the New Atlantic Order” – the Arizona senator laid
out the “full monte” of
a neocon agenda.
In those heady days after the U.S. ouster of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime,
McCain hailed “a new
American internationalism” designed “to end safe harbor for terrorists
anywhere, to
aggressively target rogue regimes that threaten us with weapons of mass
destruction, and to
consolidate freedom’s gains through institutions that reflect our values.”
To McCain, this meant that the United States had a fundamental right to
invade any country on
earth that was viewed as an actual or potential threat, a theory of
American exceptionalism to
international law that was at the heart of Bush’s strategy of “preemptive
war.”
“Americans believe we have a mandate to defeat and dismantle the global
terrorist network that
threatens both Europe and America,” McCain said. “As our President has
said, this network
includes not just the terrorists but the states that make possible their
continued operation.
“Many of these are rogue regimes that possess or are developing weapons of
mass destruction
which threaten Europeans and Americans alike. We in America learned the
hard way that we can
never again wait for our enemies to choose their moment. The initiative is
now ours, and we are
seizing it.”
Neocon Forerunner
McCain even presented himself as a forerunner to Bush’s neoconservative
policies.
“Several years ago, I and many others argued that the United States, in
concert with willing
allies, should work to undermine from within and without outlaw regimes
that disdain the rules
of international conduct and whose internal dysfunction threatened other
nations,” McCain said.
“Just this week, the American people heard our President articulate a
policy to defeat the
‘axis of evil’ that threatens us with its sup****t for terror and
development of weapons of mass
destruction,” McCain said in reference to Bush’s warning to Iraq, Iran and
North Korea.
“Dictators that harbor terrorists and build these weapons are now on
notice that such behavior
is, in itself, a casus belli. Nowhere is such an ultimatum more applicable
than in Saddam
Hussein's Iraq.”
McCain then reprised what turned out to be the bogus case for invading
Iraq.
”Almost everyone familiar with Saddam's record of biological weapons
development over the past
two decades agrees that he surely possesses such weapons. He also
possesses vast stocks of
chemical weapons and is known to have aggressively pursued, with some
success, the development
of nuclear weapons,” McCain said.
“Terrorist training camps exist on Iraqi soil, and Iraqi officials are
known to have had a
number of contacts with al-Qaeda. These were probably not courtesy calls,”
McCain added in the
smug, sarcastic tone common to that period.
As it turned out, the “vast stocks” of chemical weapons and the prospect
of nuclear weapons
were non-existent. The “terrorist training camps” on Iraqi soil were
hostile to Hussein’s
secular regime and were located outside Baghdad’s control in areas
protected by the
U.S.-British-enforced “no-fly zone.”
Evidence collected after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003
revealed that Saddam
Hussein rebuffed overtures from al-Qaeda, which he regarded as an enemy in
the Arab world.
Those contacts were not even “courtesy calls.” [For details, see Neck
Deep: The Disastrous
Presidency of George W. Bush.]
Rush to War
However, in February 2002, McCain was a leading voice in the neocon rush
for war in Iraq, as an
extension of Bush’s “war on terror.”
“The next front is apparent, and we should not ****rk from acknowledging
it,” McCain said. “A
terrorist resides in Baghdad, with the resources of an entire state at his
disposal, flush with
cash from illicit oil revenues and proud of a decade-long record of
defying the international
community's demands that he come clean on his programs to develop weapons
of mass destruction.
”A day of reckoning is approaching. Not simply for Saddam Hussein, but for
all members of the
Atlantic community, whose governments face the choice of ending the threat
we face every day
from this rogue regime or carrying on as if such behavior, in the wake of
September 11th, were
somehow still tolerable.
“The Afghan campaign set a precedent, and provided a model: the success of
air power, combined
with Special Operations forces working together with indigenous opposition
forces, in waging
modern war.
”The next phase of the war on terror can build on this model, but we also
must learn from its
limitations. More American boots on the ground may be required to prevent
the escape of
terrorists we target in the future, and we should all be mindful that such
a commitment might
entail higher casualties than we have suffered in Afghanistan,” McCain
continued.
”The most compelling defense of war is the moral claim that it allows the
victors to define a
stronger and more enduring basis for peace. Just as September 11th
revolutionized our resolve
to defeat our enemies, so has it brought into focus the op****tunities we
now have to secure and
expand freedom.”
McCain’s full embrace of this neocon global theory – both in its grandiose
substance and its
grandiloquent rhetoric – marked the over-the-top hubris that contributed
to the suppression of
any serious pre-Iraq War debate in the United States and then to the
ill-considered rush to
invade Iraq.
As the war in Iraq turned sour and anti-Americanism swept the Middle East,
McCain began
criticizing the Bush administration not for its imperial overreach but for
not reaching even
farther. McCain began advocating a larger U.S. expeditionary force to
pacify Iraq, a policy
that gave rise to the “surge.”
‘League of Democracies’
Despite these tactical differences, McCain has shown no sign of rethinking
his vision of an
alliance of “willing” nations going around the world challenging and
replacing disfavored
governments. Indeed, he has made this neocon concept a centerpiece of his
presidential campaign.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has proposed a “League of
Democracies,” which
would apply economic and military pressure on “rogue states” when the
United Nations Security
Council refuses to do so.
Though McCain has dressed up his League of Democracies in pretty language
about respecting
international law and spreading freedom, its essence is to make permanent
Bush’s “coalition of
the willing” concept used in Iraq.
McCain insists his League won’t supplant the Security Council, but it
would do just that,
fulfilling a long-held neocon dream of voiding the international system
that U.S. leaders
fa****oned after World War II to enforce the Nuremberg principle that
aggressive war was the
“supreme” international crime.
McCain’s League would create for the U.S. President a standing
organization for engaging in
aggressive war against “rogue regimes” whether they are an immediate,
potential -- or imaginary
-- threat.
The irony is that when McCain and Bush talk about the danger of “rogue
regimes” operating
outside international law and threatening other nations, that is exactly
what their neocon
theories have made the United States: a country that – along with a few
allies – becomes a law
onto itself.
Similarly, McCain and Bush share the view that the President of the United
States should embody
and personify these new imperial powers. Just as the U.S. government can
act in any way it sees
fit under these neocon theories, its Commander in Chief also can do
whatever he wants without
legal constraints.
That was spelled out by a top McCain adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin,
declaring in a letter to the
right-wing National Review that McCain agreed with Bush’s assertion that
the President may
override laws that he deems an impediment to fighting the “war on terror.”
Holtz-Eakin said McCain sup****ts Bush’s program of warrantless wiretaps
despite the Fourth
Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and a 1978 law
requiring the Executive to
gain approval from a special court for intelligence-related wiretaps
inside the United States.
“Neither the administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions
that most people,
except for the ACLU and trial lawyers, understand were constitutional and
appropriate in the
wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001,” Holtz-Eakin wrote in describing
McCain’s position.
Article II Powers
Holtz-Eakin further cited Article II powers of the Constitution in
explaining how McCain would
act as President, suggesting that McCain – like Bush – would exercise
virtually unlimited
executive powers for the duration of the indefinite “war on terror.”
McCain also has announced that he would appoint Supreme Court justices
like Samuel Alito and
John Roberts who – along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas –
represent four votes in
favor of reinterpreting the Constitution to grant the President the broad
powers claimed by
Bush and McCain.
If a President McCain gets to replace one of the five other justices with
another Alito or
Roberts, the new court majority could, in effect, rewrite the rules of the
American Republic to
declare the imperial presidency “constitutional.”
If that happens, the American people would no longer possess “unalienable
rights,” as promised
by the Founders and enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The President would
possess what the neocons call “plenary” – or total – power.
That means the President would have the authority to arrest anyone as an
“unlawful enemy
combatant,” deny the person the right to a lawyer or a trial by jury, and
subject the
individual to any treatment that the President sees fit, from indefinite
imprisonment up to
torture and death.
This neocon vision also holds that the President – on his own authority –
could take the nation
to war anywhere in the world for whatever reason.
In essence, the United States would cease to be a democratic Republic with
citizens guaranteed
fundamental liberties and with an Executive possessing limited authority
constrained by the
Legislature. All meaningful power would be invested in the President as a
modern-day monarch.
John McCain may criticize President Bush on the edges of neoconservative
policies, such as
failing to prosecute the Iraq War more aggressively, and he may differ
with Bush on the
efficacy of torture, given McCain’s own mistreatment as a Vietnam prisoner
of war.
But there should be no doubt that a McCain victory would give the neocons
another four-year
lease on the White House. And, after those four years, there might be no
feasible way back for
the great American Republic.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the
Associated Press and
Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George
W. Bush, was written
with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com.
His two previous
books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to
Iraq and Lost
History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available
there.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/060808.html
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