[De John Pilger] Like virtually every other Democrat and Republican, he supported the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, launching a war that is now approaching the end of its 17th year, the longest in American history.It was in the second Iraq War that McCain played his most prominent and reactionary role, cosponsoring the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, along with Democrat Joe Lieberman, endorsing the bombing of Iraq, first under Clinton and then George W. Bush, cheerleading the 2003 invasion and then pushing for a more aggressive use of force during the protracted US occupation, culminating in Bush’s «surge» of additional troops in 2006-2007.
McCain was a full-throated supporter of whatever lie the Bush administration chose as the basis of its war propaganda: Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to terrorism; his possession of «weapons of mass destruction»; the desire to establish «democracy» in Iraq; and finally, the need to preserve «stability,» i.e., to deal with the consequences of the US destruction of Iraq as a functioning society.
Along the way, McCain found time to advocate military action against North Korea in 2003, US intervention in Iran in 2007, and US support for Georgia in the war between Russia and that Caucasian republic in 2008 (when he dispatched his wife Cindy to Tbilisi in a show of support).
[…]
Throughout the Obama administration, McCain was a firm supporter of the Democratic president when he used military force, as in Libya, or threatened it, as in the South China Sea, and a critic when Obama pulled back, as in Syria. McCain and John Kerry introduced a Senate resolution to sanction the war in Libya, and McCain called for US air power to be used in «a heavier way.» In September 2013, McCain backed a resolution passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to give US support to military operations in Syria that would «change the momentum on the battlefield» and strengthen forces opposed to the regime of Bashar al-Assad. He repeatedly called for «more boots on the ground» for the US-backed war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. (wsws.org)
