John McCain—the worst man in America

McCain has justified the war on Libya because Kaddafi “has blood on his hands”—a reference to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. But, as shown on MSNBC last night by the man substituting for Lawrence O’Donnell, McCain visited Libya in 2009 and had a friendly meeting with Kaddafi. The meeting is shown in photographs, and there is a transcript. At one point McCain expresses his support for “progress in the bilateral relationship” between Libya and the U.S.

So in 2009 McCain had put Pan Am 103 behind him, as he had no choice to do, given that the U.S. had made peace with Kaddafi following his abandonment of WMDs development and of terrorism in 2003. But in 2011, the “script” had changed (that ever-changing “script” which tells liberals who is the oppressive villain and who is the saintlike victim in any given situation), and under this new script Kaddafi was suddenly a terrible enemy again and had to be destroyed, and it was as though the 2003 peace, and the good relations Kaddafi had maintained with the U.S. since 2003, including his friendly meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Tripoli in 2006, had never existed.

I repeat that if we had destroyed Kaddafi 20 years ago in retaliation for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that would have been just and right; but we did not do that; we let it pass, for 15 years, and ultimately we made peace with Kaddafi, as a part of which he paid substantial monetary damages to the families of the victims. On the political level, the Lockerbie bombing was a closed account, and no U.S. leader had the right in 2011 to bring it up again and say that we had to punish Kaddafi over it.

During the course of his career Kaddafi has been known as a whimsical tyrant. But in our war against Libya, it is not Kaddafi, but the U.S., which has behaved with the whimsicality of a tyrant.

John McCain is the worst man in America; but to the extent that we have gone along with this criminal war we all share in his guilt.

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Diana West writes:

I agree with you that destroying Khaddafi in 1990s—I would add also 1980s and also 1970s during Red Networks heyday—would have made sense. But, once we had “rehabilitated” him (grotesque, but a fact), for us to turn on a dime against him was a fiasco. Especially given what we are empowering.

James P. writes:

I don’t feel that I share in the guilt of John McCain, any more than I share in the guilt for the evil and destructive actions of any other member of the political elite. I vote against my local Congressman, but he is an ultraliberal with a gerrymandered safe seat, so my vote is largely futile. What else can I do, in practical terms, to oppose this war?

LA replies:

We are powerless. The entire political establishment, both parties, is for this war. The media are for this war. All we can do is express our opposition. But at least we can do that. And I don’t mean Sean Hannity-style grumbling which sounds as if it’s opposition to the war but which in fact never rises to the level of saying, “I’m against what we have done in Libya, it is wrong.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 27, 2011 10:54 AM | Send