Hothead McCain&US Foreign Policy: Better Choices Are Possible By Janet M Eaton

Hothead McCain and US Foreign Policy:
 Better Choices are Possible
by Janet M Eaton, PhD *

Rodrigue Tremblay, professor emeritus of economics at the University
of Montreal, in his blog today on the Georgia- Russian Crisis
"Irresponsible Risk-Takers in Command"  looks at  McCain's unmeasured response to the conflict and concludes:
" I have said it before, and this incident confirms it; this man
would seem to be unfit to be in charge of a heavily armed country."
[1]

I have also reviewed  Professor Tremblay's more in depth analysis
of McCain as a Risky Choice  and include, below, a summary of his ten or more good reasons why Senator, sometimes dubbed "100 Years"  
"hothead" McCain', should not be trusted as commander-in-chief of the world's foremost nuclear power bent on pre-emptive nuclear strikes
and so-called preventive wars.  [2 ]

Tremblay's worries about McCain are further substantiated in an
interview from Democracy Now, an interview I listened to with great
consternation while in the US when it aired.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/26/a_century_in_iraq_replacing_un
March 26, 2008
Excerpt:
AMY GOODMAN: A Century in Iraq, Replacing UN with "League of
Democracies," Rogue State Rollback? A Look at John McCain´s Foreign
Policy Vision
"We speak with investigative reporter Robert Dreyfuss about Senator
John McCain´s vision for foreign policy. "McCain is drawing up plans
for a new set of global institutions," Dreyfuss writes, "from a
potent covert operations unit to a `League of Democracies´ that can
bypass the balky United Nations, from an expanded NATO that will bump up against Russian interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus to a
revived US unilateralism that will engage in `rogue state rollback´
against his version of the `axis of evil.´ In all, it´s a new
apparatus designed to carry the `war on terror´ deep into the twenty-
first century." [includes rush transcript] [3]

Goodman was speaking with investigative reporter Robert Dreyfuss 
about his recent article, "Hothead McCain",  that had just appeared
in The Nation magazine  in which he looked at  the Republican
presidential candidate´s foreign policy vision before which he
provided first hand insights into his hotheadedness and the potential implications.
Excerpt:
"If you've followed Senator John McCain at all, you've heard about
his tendency to, well, explode. He's erupted at numerous Senate
colleagues, including many Republicans, at the slightest provocation. "The thought of his being President sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries
me," wrote Republican Senator Thad Cochran, shortly before endorsing
McCain.
"You've heard about his penchant for bellicose rhetoric, whether
appropriating a Beach Boys song in threatening to bomb Iran or
telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that he doesn't care what he thinks about American plans to install missiles in Eastern Europe.
"And you've heard, no doubt, about McCain's stubbornness. "No
dissent, no opinion to the contrary, however reasonable, will be
entertained," says Larry Wilkerson, a retired army colonel who was
former Secretary of State Colin Powell's top aide. "Hardheaded is
another way to say it. Arrogant is another way to say it. Hubristic
is another way to say it. Too proud for his own good is another way
to say it. It's a quality about him that disturbs"
And then Dreyfuss goes on to assess McCain's foreign policy.
"But what you may not have heard is an extended critique of the kind
of Commander in Chief that Captain McCain might be....." [4]

As this very risky crisis unfolds in the Caucasus,  as tectonic
shifts in the geopolitical realm are felt, at the same time as our
presence in Afghanistan, furthering the intentions of the
American Empire and protecting pipelines to the West,  becomes more
untenable, we should remind ourselves of the undesirability and dire
implications of our deep embeddedness with  US  foreign policy under
the Bush administration, even more so under John McCain and his neo-
con advisors, and also under an Obama presidency  with apparent
intentions of 'following the 'grand chessboard' politics of earlier
administrations seemingly already begun as advisors  behind the
scenes begin to shift in the twilight hours of a  lame duck
administration.

We must demand a major shift in Canada's foreign policy before
we are drawn any further into the chaotic intrigues of a dangerous
and dying American Empire  !!

We must make this imperative for foreign policy correction an
election issue and that means exposing the links between our foreign
policies and our trade policies, extricating ourselves from the
Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (the SPP) and
rebranded and bi-lateral equivalents thereof now being articulated,
and backing away from bi-national military agreements that lock  us
into an unconscionable global role !!

Indeed Professor Tremblay in an earlier article has already  chimed
in on this debate as well and  goes  a step further concluding it is
too important an issue to be left to elections where a 'first past
the post ' Parliament does not always represent the will of the
people as we well know:  He says:
"I personally think the issue is of such paramount importance that
sooner or later we need a country-wide referendum on the entire "Deep Integration" project ....so that the sovereign people can decide."[5]
Two days ago Murray Dobbin reminded us that our role in Afghanistan
as 'junior partner to empire' has transformed Canada and militarized
our identity, a fundamental change at odds with Canadian values and
Canadians' convictions about the military's role in the world and
society. He concluded that .the unfolding catastrophe there might
just convince Canadians to demand their money back and demand back 
the traditional peacekeeping role of Canada's military." [6]

Threats of another war in the Middle East  Iran, the debacle that is
Iraq, an emerging crisis in the Caucasus, serious policy blunders by
the US,  tectonic geopolitical shifts,  a dying and dangerous US
Empire, a chaotic and imploding world,  neo-cons and 'hothead'  'war
fighters'  still vying for political control, the true mission in
Afghanistan exposed and desperately at odds with our national values,
disaster capitalism and the devastating footprint of  the Chicago
School's  blueprint widely  revealed,  the SPP linking us to US
economic and military policies laid bare after Montebello leaving
business leaders and elite continental integrationist policy wonks in limbo and then,  there are the 'collapse' scenarios - peak oil,
climate change, economic collapse, ecosystem collapse and possible
collapse of civilization  begging us to shift gears -  to localize
and democratize for our very survival !!!

Yes now is the perfect time to navigate a new continental and global
role for Canada's future one that offers a way out of the darkness
enveloping the world.  Canada must take the road less traveled  'the  path to peace'.

Janet M Eaton, PhD
133 Main St.,
Wolfville, NS,
Canada B4P 1C2

* Janet is  a part - time academic, independent researcher, long time activist and Co-Chair of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, the 
Sierra Club of Canada's International liaison for the  Corporate
Accountability and Water Privatization, and the past trade critic of
the Green Party of Canada. 

===========================

[1]  http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog
BIG PICTURE WORLD  BLOG
by Economist  Rodrigue TREMBLAY, Ph.D.
TheNewAmericanEmpire.com
  Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Irresponsible Risk-Takers in Command
by Rodrigue Tremblay

"War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings."
"War...is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror."
"To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The
main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war."
"The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful
weapons. It is the spirit of conquest."  Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)

There are people in charge who think that provocation and aggression
can be acceptable government policy. The sudden conflict between the
former Soviet province of Georgia and Russia in the Caucasus in
Eurasia is a good case in point.

What's behind this conflict that erupted last Friday at the outset of the Beijing Olympic Games? First and foremost, let us keep in mind
that the real and first aggressors in this conflict is the
belligerent government of Georgia, led by an impulsive politician
named Mikhail Saakashvili, who is openly supported by the governments of the U.S. and of Israel. Early Friday, August 8, Georgian tanks and infantry, assisted by American and Israeli military advisers,
launched an early morning massive artillery and rocket barrage on the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, thus directly
provoking Russia, which had soldiers in that province.

 At first blush, most people could easily arrive at the conclusion
that Saakashvili is completely out of his mind for having declared
war against its neighbor Russia, a country more than 50 times larger, with the goal of reoccupying the Russian-speaking province of South
Ossetia, de facto independent since 1992. The only logical
explanation would seem to be that the Georgia President believed, or
had some form of assurance, that the Bush-Cheney administration would
side militarily with him. Did he really believe that the Bush-Cheney
administration, already deeply involved in two military conflicts in
Iraq and in Afghanistan, would risk a world war to salvage an oil
pipeline and a newly acquired colony in that far away part of the
world? This would seem to be another insane idea.

 It is a little known fact that the U.S. and Israel have been
training and arming the Georgian military since 2002. This situation
is tantamount to risking a restart of the Cold War with Russia. It
has also sown the seeds of a much larger conflict in that part of the world by encouraging Georgia to embark on military manoeuvres. Little
Georgia (4.5 m. inhabitants) even has 2,000 troops in Iraq, soldiers
that the U.S. is now quickly flying back to Georgia. This goes a long way towards explaining how involved the Bush-Cheney administration
and its Israeli surrogates have been in sticking it in the eyes of
Russia. And now, the Russian bear is reacting. This is brinkmanship
at a high level.

 In the summer of 1914, a similar miscalculation resulted in igniting
World War I. This was a conflict that started with a single death
(the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914) but
which resulted, in the end, in 40 million deaths. The catastrophe was
the result of a chain reaction of war declarations by various
countries involved in the affairs of other countries. This remains an
example of how relatively minor regional conflicts can escalate into
conflagrations when hotheads are in command.

The Georgia-Russia spat represents a good opportunity for the U.N.
Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, to show leadership and not to let
things degenerate. Indeed, there is always the possibility that one
politician after another will try not to lose face by escalating
things. For example, the U.N Secretary-General should obtain from the

Security Council the mandate to visit immediately the two capitals
directly involved, and he should attempt to broker an immediate face-
saving end to the hostilities. He should persuade the Russian leaders not to overreact to the Georgian President's provocations. As for the latter, he has demonstrated that he is not worthy of occupying his
functions.

 Time is of the essence in such circumstances, because there are
always some interests that stand to profit from a worsening
situation.

For one, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate John
McCain, who never met a war he didn't like, has already tried to
stoke the fire of conflict by calling for the 26-country NATO to get
involved in what is essentially a local ethnic conflict. On the
campaign trail, John McCain said: "We should immediately call a
meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia's security
and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this
very dangerous situation." 

Incredibly, the republican candidate is attempting to profit
politically from this faraway crisis by advancing the frightening
prospect of turning a small regional conflict into a world war. This
could have something to do with the fact that Mr. McCain's main
foreign policy adviser is a former lobbyist for the government of
Georgia and is a former neocon lobbyist for the U.S. military
invasion of Iraq. This would seem to be a direct conflict of
interests and reason enough for Mr. McCain to refrain from throwing
oil on the fire.

I have said it before, and this incident confirms it; this man would
seem to be unfit to be in charge of a heavily armed country.
                             
Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the
University of Montreal and can be reached at 
rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com

He is the author of the book 'The New American Empire'
Visit his blog site at: www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.

<><><><>

[2]  Candidate McCain: A Risky Choice
Scroll down at r
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog
Monday, June 2, 2008
by Rodrigue Tremblay

Tremblay offers ten good reasons why the American public should think twice before voting for McCain:

1. For one, Sen. McCain is expected, as one commentator put it, to
behave as a George W. Bush on steroids...
2. Secondly, on foreign policy more than anywhere else, McCain can be expected to be a McBush plus. .....a mixture of a simplistic George
W. Bush and of a rabidly nationalistic and interventionist Cheney
3. Thirdly, Sen. McCain does not seem to know or care about
international law.
4. Fourthly, it seems that Mr. McCain is a man who has a chip on his
shoulder, which is also reminiscent of George W. Bush, and that makes him a dangerous man to be trusted as leader of a heavily armed
country like the United States
5. Fifth, Sen. McCain is a neocon candidate.
6. Sixth, a John McCain as president would be a gift from heaven to
the American military industrial complex
7. Seventh, Senator John McCain has supported George W. Bush's huge
tax cuts for the rich, which have resulted in large budget deficits
and which have contributed so much to placing the United States in
its current precarious economic situation, that is to say, being
saddled with a falling currency and a spreading financial crisis.
8. Eighth, McCain's personal character is open to question. He is
known, and this from his early childhood, to be prone to sudden and
uncontrollable fits of temper tantrums. A man with such a character
is a dangerous man to be entrusted with the responsibility of custody
of nuclear weapons
9. Ninth, there is the legitimate question of his age and personal
health... McCain will be 72 years old in August and he is recovering
from an August 2000 surgery for a melanoma cancer, the deadliest of
all cancers. A recently released medical report does not alleviate a
bit concerns about this very issue.
10. And ten:  Senator John McCain has ...  been endorsed by probably
one of the worst right-wing religious bigots in the U.S. today, Texan anti-Catholic televangelist John Hagee.

Also .... Sen. McCain was accused of corruption after it was
discovered that he was deeply involved in the Savings & Loans
scandal, after it was found that he and four other senators had
intervened to prevent necessary regulation by the Federal Home Loan
Bank Board of some of the most risky thrifts and loans companies

Finally ... Let's keep in mind that Sen. McCain has been behind
Bush's Iraq War from day one. Indeed, Sen. John McCain is the very
one who delivered a response to Sen. Robert Byrd's magistral
denunciation of Bush's war, on March 19, 2003, and who defended the
Bush-Cheney administration's decision to go to war.

In conclusion, when all the dots are connected, it would seem to be
clear: Senator "100 Years" John McCain must be considered a man too
dangerous and too unpredictable to be entrusted with the presidency
of a heavily armed country. "


=======================


REFERENCES

[1]  http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog
BIG PICTURE WORLD  BLOG
by Economist  Rodrigue TREMBLAY, Ph.D.
TheNewAmericanEmpire.com
  Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Irresponsible Risk-Takers in Command
by Rodrigue Tremblay

[2]  Candidate McCain: A Risky Choice
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog
 [Scroll down]
Monday, June 2, 2008
by Rodrigue Tremblay

[3] A Century in Iraq, Replacing UN with "League of Democracies,"
Rogue State Rollback? A Look at John McCain´s Foreign Policy Vision
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/26/a_century_in_iraq_replacing_un
March 26, 2008

[4] Hothead McCain
By Robert Dreyfuss
This article appeared in the March 24, 2008 edition of The Nation.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080324/dreyfuss

[5]  Canada and Bush's North American Union Project
By Rodique Tremblay
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6494

[6] Afghanistan Transforms Canada
Harper and Karzai: Pipeline pals?
To play junior partner to empire, we've militarized our identity.
By Murray Dobbin
Published: August 11, 2008
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2008/08/11/AfghanCan/