It’s been noted time and time again that US Senator John McCain has a reputation as a foreign-policy connoisseur. Nobody can argue that he pays attention to little other than foreign affairs. In the midst of his presidential campaign back in 2008, when the financial crisis was raging, he admitted that he didn’t care much about economics, which helped doom his candidacy. Unfortunately, there’s signs that he’s no better equipped regarding everything that concerns his favorite topic, geopolitics.
In fact, he has routinely advocated what amounts to sacrificing US interests while pushing confrontation and sometimes war with a long and ever-expanding list of countries around the globe: Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, North Korea and, worst of all, Russia. There is scarcely a conflict he doesn’t want to see the United States plunged into. And there is rarely a military deployment he does not want to make permanent. Whatever the international issue, he sees US military action as the answer.
Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that The National Interest has repeatedly criticized him for this ultimate flaw regarding his geopolitical vision. However, The National Interest is hardly the only one to notice what has been apparent to most geopolitical analysts for quite some time.
Last April, Fox News released a poll conducted by Morning Consult aimed at establishing the most and least favorite politicians in the US. According to this poll, John McCain found himself the least favorite, with his disapproval rating being as low as 43%.
In turn, The American Thinker would argue that it’s time McCain turned his back on the political career he’s been pursuing, noting that he could still work for MSNBC or Sunday political shows, where he spends most of his time anyway. But The American Thinker is willing to go one step further, arguing that McCain should resign and in his retirement star in a remake of Dr. Strangelove as General Buck Turgidson. He does not need to act – just to be himself.
Since mid-June, McCain has been caught in the center of a financial and political scandal that resulted in many beginning to not just question his decency, which was always doubtful, but also his so-called patriotism.
The scandal broke when international media began looking into the eligibility of parties sponsoring the McCain Institute for International Leadership.
Back in 2008, the British Guardian would criticize Senator McCain for his close ties with the Rothschild brothers, with him going as far as receiving grants from these oligarchs in direct violation of American laws. Along with these Western oligarchs, McCain’s Institute has also been sponsored by a Moroccan state-owned phosphate mining company (invested 100,000 dollars), Iranian lobbyists from the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) (another 205,000 dollars in the bank), and, finally, the most generous sponsor of Senator McCain, Saudi Arabia, who invested one million dollars in the above mentioned institution back in 2014.
Formally, foreign interests are prohibited from sponsoring elected representatives in the US, yet McCain was quietly elected to the Senate for his sixth term in November 2016 through precisely such support.
The most peculiar fact of McCain’s political career occurred during his presidential campaign back in 2008. Back then his headquarters mailed an official letter requesting financial support from the Russian mission to the UN so Moscow could also help him to get elected. In spite of repeated demands to investigate the so-called “Russian trail” in recent US elections, he, for some reason is desperately trying to hide the desire he himself once had to establish “closer ties” with Russia to advance his political career.
Why would the Saudi Embassy waste a million dollars on the McCain Institute and what did it expect in return for its outstanding generosity? McCain was needed to persuade veterans of American overseas wars to occupy the capital and start protesting against the JASTA law.
The voyage that the veterans whom McCain persuaded would take to Washington was only a small part of the campaign which Saudi Arabia wasted over 8.4 million dollars in total on. For two years, according to documents filed with the US State Department regarding lobbying from abroad, a total of 14 companies have been wasting money on articles across American media about the alleged danger of the JASTA law for American soldiers and even for US diplomats abroad. The sole goal of this whole propaganda campaign was the prevention of JASTA’s adoption.
But relatives of 9/11 attack victims were waiting for this law in order to be able to seek compensation for the deaths of their loved ones in US courts, suing Saudi Arabia for billions of dollars for its numerous acts of terrorism sponsorship. However, all their claims were dismissed by American judges under the false pretense that Saudi Arabia, being a sovereign state, is immune and under US law it is impossible to oblige it to pay the requested sums.
However, there’s one group in the United States fighting tooth and nail for the right that the American people have to know how McCain and other elected officials deceived the victims of 9/11 and how they deprived them of the ability to seek justice. This organization is called 28 pages and it consists mainly of the relatives of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. This organization has repeatedly pointed out the role that Senator McCain along with other lobbying interests representing Saudi Arabia, had in taking Saudi money and obstructing reparations sought from Riyadh. It has also reported how deceived US veterans were enraged when they learned that they were tricked by Saudi Arabia and the “patriot for sale” John McCain, into opposing the best interest of the American people.
Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
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