John McCain-War hero Jonathan Graubart-Jerk
San Diego State University Jonathan Graubart has called Senator John McCain a "war criminal".
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/07/san-diego-state-prof-under-fire-for-calling-john-mccain-a-war-
criminal/
Here is an article on the controversy in The Daily Aztec, SDSU's campus paper. I have already entered my response in the reader comment thread.
First of all, a response to the "war criminal" charge. John McCain was a Navy pilot in the Vietnam war and was shot down on a bombing raid over Hanoi. He spent several years as a POW before being released. During that time, he was subjected to torture and other forms of abuse. At one point, he refused an early release because he was the son of a Navy admiral. He would not desert his POW comrades.
I don't agree with everything McCain has done as a senator, but that does not lesson my respect for him as a war hero. I repeat: War hero-not war criminal.
As for Graubart, he is beneath contempt. I have encountered him before. Graubart is one of those legions of university professors who attempt to indoctrinate their students against Israel. In March 2014, Graubart hosted a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement at SDSU. I also attended and videotaped the event. The event was held as part of Graubart's class, which he opened to the public.
I don't know if Graubart has ever served in the military; I doubt that he has. He has, of course, the freedom to say what he wants about McCain. We in the public have the right to respond accordingly. Of course, Graubart already showed in 2014 that he himself cannot take the heat.
He would never have survived if he had been in the military. If he had had to undergo one tenth of the deprivations and torture that McCain went through, Graubart would more likely have committed suicide. For him to open (once again) his big mouth and ponderously call McCain a war criminal without any additional specifics shows this sinister individual's level of cowardice. I wish McCain would sue him for defamation.
ReplyDeleteOne of the fundamental lessons from the anti-Vietnam War movement is that those who serve in the military are not, ipso facto, the enemy. It was of course easy for young men and women who had barely passed an introductory course on WW II and spent a week reading about the Nuremberg tribunal to claim that anyone who fought in Vietnam was a war criminal. But actually, it is not even true that everyone who fought in the Wehrmacht was a war criminal. People had to be in a high command position, and order mass slaughter well outside the norms of war and international laws of war, or, personally participate in genocide, to be a war criminal. Merely flying a bombing mission over London did not qualify. Nor did being on the crew of a U-boat.
ReplyDeleteMcCain never rethought the mission he was sent on, and there is no reason in law or equity requiring him to do so. There were others who had just about decided the war effort was a great mistake, when they were capture by the Viet Cong, and steadfastly refused to say anything about it while a prisoner of war. They wouldn't betray comrades while in the hands of the enemy. Many of the most eloquent voices that moved a majority of American citizens to support getting out of Vietnam were, of course, veterans of the conflict.
To simply smear anyone who served is a cheap shot at best. This professor probably never served in the military, but he probably never studied the international laws of war, and probably never looked in detail into what the anti-war movement involved. We were still on a high from the war almost everyone agreed was righteous in its goals, if not always in its conduct, and it really took a lot to stop and think, maybe this time our government made a mistake.
William Calley was a war criminal, but, even in his case, one has to consider that when troops are sent to fight for the freedom of the people of South Vietnam and the people living in the southern zone of Vietnam are more often than not active participants in guerilla warfare against our troops, war crimes are almost inevitable. He should never have been put in that position in the first place.