Code Pink: Those Low-Life Scum

Senator John Sidney McCain III's putative service to empire continues. Those who possess faint hearts and minds face the very human temptation to believe that McCain's sycophant subservience to the empire will mellow with age. Nope.  Oddly, though, as the power of the U.S. empire loses its dominance, McCain obstinately defends its virtues. Perhaps he is a modern Don Quixote?

McCain's latest sycophant exhibition occurred during a recent meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee at which Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger provided a testimony. Members of Code Pink disrupted this Committee's meeting by shouting repeatedly that Kissinger should be tried for various war crimes. The Code Pinkers' disruption was only indulged for a few minutes before McCain summoned a security guard(s). Next, the guard(s) removed these civil disobeyers or as McCain referred to one of them as "low life scum." McCain's comments spoken immediately thereafter to the audience at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing show his aggravation at Code Pink's abuse of freedom of speech when they chanted:

In the name of the people of Chile

In the name of the people of Vietnam

In the name of the people of East Timor

In the name of the people of Cambodia

In the name of the people of Laos

Code Pink's reciting these historical tragedies briefly interrupted McCain's sycophantic yet smooth sequencing of his agitprop scene. These historical tragedies are historical facts. They occurred. McCain felt embarrassed by Code Pink's chants and wielding props like plastic handcuffs in front of Kissinger. But, what about Kissinger's record....when he was in power and his decisions when acted upon that harmed millions of the defenseless?

Did McCain scrutinize Kissinger's record? This record includes Kissinger's support of the U.S. bombing of Cambodia during 1969-70. This bombing campaign occurred between March 18, 1969 and sometime in May 1970, during which "3,630 such raids were flown across the Cambodia frontier." [1]. Much information demonstrates Kissinger's knowledge of this bombing campaign. For example, U.S. Air Force Colonel Sitton who as an expert on B-52 tactics at the Joint Chiefs of Staff "began to notice that by late 1969 his own office was being regularly overruled in the matter of selecting targets. 'Not only was Henry carefully screening the raids.....he was reading the raw intelligence." [2]. Yes this happened 45 years ago, but the expanded bombing campaign over both Laos and Cambodia killed an estimated 350,000 and 600,000 civilians, respectively. [3]. If Code Pinkers' theatrics warranted one of their members being referred to as "low-life scum," what about those who planned B-52 bombing campaigns over Cambodia and Laos?

I know many others have asked similar questions with respect to Kissinger being held accountable for his connection to these tragedies voiced by Code Pink. Yet no answers are forthcoming except for McCain's visceral insults of dissenters. Maybe the answer will feature an upcoming color counter-revolution called deCode Pink.

1. Hitchens, Christopher. The Trial of Henry Kissinger. page 48 of 249 Kindle version.
2. Ibid. p. 53.    
3. Ibid. p. 49.