McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

[tsetsefly]

Neocon Mccain is not happy at all that another Paul is in government, he cant imagine anyone would want to scope back military presence of the US around the world and cut defense spending!

Was it all just a bad dream? Feels like 1997 all over again–first David Brooks calls for a hacktacular new "National Greatness" movement in American politics, and now Sen John McCain (R-Ariz.) is snarling about "protectionism and isolationism" in the GOP.

"I think there are going to be some tensions within our party," McCain said during a conference put on by Foreign Policy Initiative, a DC-based think tank. "I worry a lot about the rise of protectionism and isolationism in the Republican Party."
A prime example, McCain continued, was Rand Paul, Kentucky's next U.S. Senator.
"I admire his victory, but ... already he has talked about withdrawals [and] cuts in defense," McCain said.

A timely reminder that for a whole helluva lot of Republicans, the business of America is expanding its unipolar status as global military hegemon. Seeing Rand Paul on CNN a day or two after the election, talking cogently to Wolf Blitzer about how no serious agenda of fiscal responsibility can avoid scaling back military spending, was almost an out-of-body experience. You mean...Republican senators...can say that? Out loud and everything? Well, they used to, and they finally are again, and they may have willing partners in a weakened Democratic Party, all of which is why the National Greatness gang is trying to snuff out the GOP strain before it spreads.
McCain once told me that the United States needs to spend a good deal more than 50 percent of the world's total defense budget, an anecdote you can read about in my 2007 book, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick. Speaking of which, I was on Warren Olney's excellent public radio program To the Point yesterday, talking about McCain's opposition to repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell. Read/listen here.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/11/16/mc...d-paul-for-iso

[flintlock]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

Well he would say that, now wouldn't he?

[BigBagel]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

The financial elites get a lot of air time on this site and rightfully so given the subject matter discussed here. Imagine the snarling of the Military Industrial Complex if they don't continue getting their rather large share of the budget.
I have absolutely no hope of this monster being tamed short of our troops hitchhiking home after they stop getting paid and supplied.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

The financial elites get a lot of air time on this site and rightfully so given the subject matter discussed here. Imagine the snarling of the Military Industrial Complex if they don't continue getting their rather large share of the budget.
I have absolutely no hope of this monster being tamed short of our troops hitchhiking home after they stop getting paid and supplied.

That will happen about the same time that Lords Master Blankfein and Dimon are surprised to find themselves standing next to each other in the soup line.

About the same time, for the financial elites and the military industrial complex are two tentacles of the same squid.

[Raz]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

"Johnny, thank heavens we hardly knew ya".

[GRG55]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

Well he would say that, now wouldn't he?

For someone who saw Vietnam up close [both sides, apparently], you would think he would have more sympathy for the idiocy of all this...

[D-Mack]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

For someone who saw Vietnam up close [both sides, apparently], you would think he would have more sympathy for the idiocy of all this...

Wasn't McCain the guy who wanted to stay in Iraq for 100 years? That's a lot of occupation money to be spend.

I wonder how much of this is true...

WMR has been informed that crewmen aboard the Forrestal have provided additional information about the Forrestal incident. It is believed by many crewmen and those who have investigated the case that McCain deliberately “wet-started” his A-4E to shake up the guy in the plane behind his A-4. “Wet-starts”, done either deliberately or accidentally, shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft.

In McCain’s case, the “wet-start” apparently “cooked off” and launched the Zuni rocket from the rear F-4 that touched off the explosions and massive fire. The F-4 pilot was reportedly killed in the conflagration. “Wet starting” was apparently a common practice among young “hot-dog” pilots.

McCain was quickly transferred to the USS Oriskany (the only Forrestal crewman to be immediately transferred). Three months later, McCain was shot down over North Vietnam on October 26, 1967.

As WMR previously reported, at the time of the Forrestal disaster, McCain’s father, Admiral John McCain, Jr., was Commander-in-Chief of US Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR) and was busy covering up the details of the deadly and pre-meditated June 8, 1967, Israeli attack on the NSA spy ship, the USS Liberty.

The fact that both McCains were involved in two incidents just weeks apart that resulted in a total death count of 168 on the Forrestal and the Liberty, with an additional injury count of 234 on both ships (with a number of them later dying from their wounds) with an accompanying classified paper trail inside the Pentagon, may be all that was needed to hold a Sword of Damocles over the head of the “family honor”-oriented McCain by the neo-cons.
..
http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com...ccains-records

[Ghent12]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

Wasn't McCain the guy who wanted to stay in Iraq for 100 years? That's a lot of occupation money to be spend.

I wonder how much of this is true...

How much truth is in it? Well the claims regarding the Forrestal incident are completely bullshit--meaning they are completely fabricated lies that are easily proven to be lies. The quote is therefore likely from an insane conspiracy theorist with no sense of rationality or inkling to investigate claims he/she hears.

It is essentially physically impossible that a "wet-start" from McCain's aircraft could have caused the events witnessed. The official explanation is that the Zuni rocket fired off due to an electrical spark when the plane switch from external to internal power sources. There were safety devices called pigtail connections that could have prevented it from happening, but they would have been redundant to the normal safety pins and it was not policy to keep them on when aircraft were in the position they were in.

Want to prove it to yourself? Look at any diagram of the incident by typing "Forrestal incident" into Google Images and tell me how hot exhaust from McCain's plane, with the empennage pointed out to sea, could have cooked off a rocket on a plane that was completely orthogonal to his own.


As for the McCain's stance on the issue of "isolationism..."
While McCain is a bonafide war hero if ever a term existed in a positive context, he is also an arrogant prick with little regard for prudence. He's seen war as hell but doesn't seem to mind bringing it to everyone in the world. Very sad for such a historic figure.

[D-Mack]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

You are right, only possible if he tried to start and was in position. Watching a video I can't see plane in that position.

reading rolling stone it seems he preferred the tv

McCain displayed little of Hope's valor. Although he would soon regale The New York Times with tales of the heroism of the brave enlisted men who "stayed to help the pilots fight the fire," McCain took no part in dousing the flames himself. After going below decks and briefly helping sailors who were frantically trying to unload bombs from an elevator to the flight deck, McCain retreated to the safety of the "ready room," where off-duty pilots spent their noncombat hours talking trash and playing poker. There, McCain watched the conflagration unfold on the room's closed-circuit television — bearing distant witness to the valiant self-sacrifice of others who died trying to save the ship, pushing jets into the sea to keep their bombs from exploding on deck.

As the ship burned, McCain took a moment to mourn his misfortune; his combat career appeared to be going up in smoke. "This distressed me considerably," he recalls in Faith of My Fathers. "I feared my ambitions were among the casualties in the calamity that had claimed the Forrestal."


http://randompixels.blogspot.com/200...ountrythe.html

[Slimprofits]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

Wasn't McCain the guy who wanted to stay in Iraq for 100 years? That's a lot of occupation money to be spend.

I wonder how much of this is true...

He is also the guy that wanted to invade Serbia with ground troops. He's a madman.

[Starving Steve]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

"Johnny, thank heavens we hardly knew ya".

As for invading the world, the U.S. can not afford to nation-build. America is broke..... Nation-building is a great idea, but it takes deep-pockets to implement, and decades of patience.

As for inviting the world, what is wrong with that idea? America needs new ideas and new people. The world has much to learn from America, but America has much to learn from the world..... America is the land of the Statue of Liberty, a beacon inviting immigrants from all lands.

So long as immigrants obey the laws and fulfill the responsibilities and duties of citizenship in their new land, America or Canada or wherever, there should be no barriers placed in the path of immigrants.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: McCain Slams Rand Paul for "Isolationism" and wanting to cut defense spending

While McCain is a bonafide war hero if ever a term existed in a positive context, he is also an arrogant prick with little regard for prudence. He's seen war as hell but doesn't seem to mind bringing it to everyone in the world. Very sad for such a historic figure.

It's not uncommon for a truly heroic soldier to become a less-than-heroic politician. Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham was a brilliant combat fighter pilot, now living in a federal prison in Tuscon, AZ. Ulysses S. Grant was a battlefield commander of towering stature, but as president was a disaster, stemming mainly from a surprising inability to enforce group discipline within his administration. He was expert in that aspect as a general officer.