John McCain's Purity Of Essence (Updated)

By Cernig

During the last presidential debate, John McCain repeated his remark that he had looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and seen, not his soul, but three letters - K.G.B. He didn't say what he'd seen in President Medvedev's eyes, if anything.

It was a remarkably tone deaf thing to say for a prospective world leader about the Prime Minister of a nation he would need the goodwill of on containment of loose nuclear materials or on supply lines to Afghanistan and would likley want the co-operation of on energy policy and on responses to Iran, the financial crisis and a host of other issues. But it was of a piece with McCain's harsh rhetoric on Russia - saying he wanted to kick it out of the G8 and sideline it in international forums even before its conflict with Georgia, started when his chum Saakashvili bombed his own regional capital in South Ossetia, brought out talk of a resurgent Imperialism and US-armed "porcupine" states in Eastern Europe.

Now, though, we're beginning to see why McCain hates Russia so - even above the antipathy his neocon Wormtongue advisers have for anyone even remotely able to challenge their dreams of perpetual American hegemony.

McCain hates Russia because he's virulently anti-communist to the point where he cannot let go of the idea that Russia and the old USSR are identical and willingly associates with the worst kind of right-wing "purity of bodily fluids" nutcases, who have funded death camps and illegal deals in a decades long conflict of "you are what you hate". Step forward the U.S. Council for World Freedom.

...during the 1980s, Sen. John McCain served on the board of a far-right conservative organization that had supplied arms and funds to paramilitary organizations in Latin America.

Democratic strategist Paul Begala lit the fire when, during an appearance on Meet the Press, he warned that this relatively obscure detail from McCain's past could draw him into a guilt-by-association game he was bound to regret.

"John McCain sat on the board of...the U.S. Council for World Freedom," said Begala, "The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981 when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League - the parent organization - which ADL said 'has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.'"

The U.S. Council for World Freedom was a key player in the Iran-Contra affair too, the public cover for Ollie North's activities. It's parent organistation, the World Anti-Communist League,began as the Asian People's AntiCommunist League formed by followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, head of the Unification Church. One was a war criminal, another a plain criminal.

The head of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, has a long history of involvement in "anti-communist: covert operations.

Singlaub was an officer in the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor to the CIA) during World War II. He served on the China desk of the CIA in 1948 and 1949 and became deputy chief of the CIA in Seoul during the Korean War. (30) He served for two years in Vietnam during the 1960s. There he was commander of the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force (MACVSOG), the outfit that ran Operation Phoenix, infamous for its assassinations and counterterror tactics, and responsible for the deaths of thousands of Vietnamese civilians. Singlaub denies participation in Operation Phoenix. (11) As chief of staff of the United Nations Command in South Korea in 1978, he publicly condemned the decision of President Jimmy Carter to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Korea. He was then forced to retire. (11) Singlaub served as honorary chairman of Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign in Colorado. (30) In 1984, Under Secretary of Defense Fred Ikle appointed Singlaub to head a committee studying U.S. responses to the insurgency in El Salvador. (28) When questioned on the CBS Television show "60 Minutes" about his connections with contra funding Singlaub was asked by Mike Wallace,"Let me put a thesis to you, General Singlaub. Private citizen Jack Singlaub has become Ronald Reagan's secret weapon to sidestep a Congress that will not permit him to act in the areas where he believes that our security interests are at stake. True?" Singlaub's response: "True."(52)

McCain, whose name was once on the group's letterhead, says he resigned from the U.S. Council for World Freedom in 1984. Singlaub says he knows nothing about any resignation. If McCain in fact did quit the group, he was even so still turning up for meetings according to an AP-syndicated article from 1985 found by Juan Cole back in February.

"Rep. Tom Loeffler, R-Tex., presented the 'Freedom Fighter of the Year' award to Afghan resistance leader Wali Khan on behalf of the U.S. Council for World Freedom on Oct. 3. … The U.S. Council for World Freedom, a Phoenix-based conservative political organization headed by Gen. John Singlaub, has lobbied hard for an increase in aid to the struggle against the Soviet controlled regime in Kabul. … Other congressmen who joined Loeffler included Rep. Eldon Rudd and Rep. John McCain, both Arizona Republicans." [States News Service, 10/15/85]

But whether or not he did resign, the fact that John McCain was ever a fellow traveller with anti-semites, Nazis and organisers of death squads - and his apparent inability to realise that Russia isn't the USSR - should worry the hell out of voters. How on earth is he supposed to be a frontman for U.S. diplomacy while carrying that baggage...and what might be the fallout of letting him try?

Update: Woah - from Matt Yglesias' comments and very interesting if true (h/t Kat) :

John Singlaub, whose headquarters for the U.S. Council for World Freedom and the World Anti-Communist League was in Scottsdale, Arizona, next door to Charles Keating’s company, American Continental.

As in, right next door? Curiouser and curiouser.

Update 2: Even the UK's rightwing Telegraph can't resist piling on (h/t Kat, again).

Shortly before Mr McCain takes to the stage in Nashville for the second of three presidential debates with Senator Barack Obama, Democratic activists took their revenge for his decision at the weekend to let his supporters turn the Republican campaign “nuclear” with repeated negative attacks on his rival including calling Mr Obama a liar.

Democratic bloggers and party loyalists publicised a series of skeletons from Mr McCain’s early political career.

They include his friendship with Gordon Liddy, the former White House operative who spent four and a half years in jail for planning the break-in at the Watergate building [and planning murders of reporters and liberal activists - C]. Appearing on Mr Liddy’s popular radio show last year, Mr McCain said his host showed “adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great” and said he was “proud” of Mr Liddy and his family.

The senator most recently appeared on the show in May

And, just in case you didn't believe me about the Rev. Moons close association with and funding for the U.S. Council for World Freedom and the World Anti-Communist League, he boasts about it on his own website - along with how he uses the Washinton Times and UPI Wire Service to push those group's agendas.

So maybe we've now got an explanation as to exactly why Charlie Black and John McCain are so friendly. Remember Black?

...none other than uber-lobbyist Charlie Black -- not just McCain's "chief political adviser" but a right-hand man for the Bush clan as well -- played a role in making that coronation happen.

According to Gorenfeld, Black admitted to helping invite people to attend the coronation. And he's listed as a sponsor in the coronation's printed program.

You recall what happened at that event: A number of congressional figures, including at least one Democrat, Danny Davis of Illinois, participated in a ceremony in which Moon was crowned "King of America" and his place as the new Messiah rather officiously confirmed. The ceremony declared "the era of the Eternal Peace Kingdom, one global family under God." Immediately afterward, Moon confirmed to the participants that he was consulting with great leaders of the past in the spirit world: "The five great saints [Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Mohammad, and Shankara] and many other leaders of the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murder on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons."

Black wasn't the only politico there, although McCain wasn't listed as an attendee. But I've got to ask, under the circumstances. Is McCain a secret Moonie or just a fellow fascist traveller?