John McCain’s Role In Hiding Information About US POWs In Vietnam

3:18 pm EST September 19th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 4 Comments

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John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero people would logically imagine to be a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain’s role in it, even as McCain has made his military service and POW history the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War have also turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn’t talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a Special Forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington and even sworn testimony by two defense secretaries that “men were left behind.” This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number–probably hundreds–of the US prisoners held in Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.

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4 Responses to “John McCain’s Role In Hiding Information About US POWs In Vietnam”

  1. jr says:
    September 19, 2008 at 6:36 pm

    the more McCain votes against veterans benefits the more cable news says he’s “pro-military”

  2. John Casey says:
    September 20, 2008 at 3:10 am

    This is total utter bullshit.

    The ‘POW/MIA’ story was completely discredited years ago.

    None were left behind.

    The only decent thing John McCain did in his entire public life was, working with John Freaking Kerry!!!, to finally and definitively put to rest the lies told by the POW/MIA industry.

    Do not feed this particular troll, oliver, please.

    Shame on The Nation for publishing this crap.

  3. merl says:
    September 20, 2008 at 3:35 am

    He’s being blackmailed by the Vietnamese. He doesn’t want them to release evidence that he gave away military secrets.

  4. Duros Hussein62 says:
    September 20, 2008 at 8:40 am

    The ‘POW/MIA’ story was completely discredited years ago.

    None were left behind.

    Then why the secrecy? Why does McCain get physically outraged at the mere mention of the issue?

    Something ain’t right.