 |
Peter Forsythe. with pipe; anti-Vietnam war, Canberra, Nov 1972
With mate, Oz.
|
LETTER TO SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST:
If there's ever an opportunity to smear America you can count on Yonden Lhatoo to grasp it. His vitriol runs deep and long.
Lhatoo claims John McCain and America are warmongers, war criminals, homicidal child murderers, "evil minds bent on destruction". Whew!
But consider:
The United States did not want to enter either WW1 or WW2. Was this "warmongering"? If so, we're surely grateful.
Vietnam was hugely contentious in the United States, not a popular warmongering adventure. As an Australian of a certain age, I was in the ballot for conscription to Vietnam. I didn't support the war (pic above), but would have gone because I saw it as a duty. As surely did John McCain.
Lhatoo fails to mention that McCain refused early release by his Vietcong captors. He later publicly admitted and regretted breaking down under torture. Yet Lhatoo mocks McCain — this Lhatoo who I doubt has faced anything more dangerous than a snarky letter. How dare he?!
McCain's Vietnamese jailer paid tribute to him, showing more grace than your "chief news editor". (Also, by the way, a 9-11 "Truther")
Does Lhatoo also forget that after the war, McCain spoke repeatedly against torture? Or that he was instrumental in repairing US-Vietnam relations after diplomatic recognition?
On Iraq, the 1991 war was both justified and successful. Whereas most agree that 2003 was a mistake; including McCain, who had the courage to admit that he'd been wrong to support it.
On Serbia, doesn't Lhatoo remember that it was the US that stopped the butchering of Muslim civilians and mosques in Kosovo? This brought peace and indicted war criminals, though the US received no thanks, not even after Obama's 2009 apologia to the Muslim world.
The US is surely flawed, like most countries. Unlike most, it constantly debates its own shortcomings and tries to create "a more perfect union".
John McCain was as towering — and also flawed — figure in that effort to perfect. Of that there can be no doubt, except for the wilfully-blind bigots like Lhatoo and his online acolytes.
Shame on the Post for saying "Yonden Lhatoo sets the record straight…." when all he's done is pour us a generous helping from his copious store of vitriol.
Yours, etc,
Pf
Pf
