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To: E. Pluribus Unum
McCain was a hero for being a POW. OK.

What should we call McCain for doing this to POWs?

The War Secrets Sen. John McCain Hides
Former POW Fights Public Access to POW/MIA Files - Sydney Schanberg

Hurdles and limitations

Finally, in addition to these hurdles and limitations, the McCain act does not specifically order the declassification of the information. Further, it provides the Defense Department with other justifications for withholding documents. One such clause says that if the information “may compromise the safety of any United States personnel … who remain not accounted for but who may still be alive in captivity, then the Secretary [of Defense] may withhold that record or other information from the disclosure otherwise required by this section.”

Boiled down, the preceding paragraph means that the Defense Department is not obligated to tell the public about prisoners believed alive in captivity and what efforts are being made to rescue them. It only has to notify the White House and the intelligence committees in the Senate and House. The committees are forbidden under law from releasing such information.

McCain goes further to hurt future POWs...

Another bill gutted in 1996

And then there is the Missing Service Personnel Act, which McCain succeeded in gutting in 1996. A year before, the act had been strengthened, with bipartisan support, to compel the Pentagon to deploy more resources with greater speed to locate and rescue missing men. The measure imposed strict reporting requirements.

McCain amended the heart out of the statute. For example, the 1995 version required a unit commander to report to his theater commander within two days that a person was missing and describe what rescue and recovery efforts were underway. The McCain amendments allowed 10 days to pass before a report had to be made.

Vietnam Veterans Against McCain YouTube video 7:45

15 posted on 07/18/2015 5:18:50 PM PDT by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason and rule of law. Prepare!)
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To: TigersEye

Everyone should read Schanberg’s investigative report on McCain, which you link in your comment. Another excerpt from that report which is worth quoting:

“The Washington press corps had gone openly soft once before on the prisoner issue, again benefiting McCain. That was in 1991-93, during the proceedings of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. McCain starred on that committee, working hand in hand with his new ally, Sen. John Kerry, the panel’s co-chairman, to play down voluminous evidence that sizeable numbers of men were still held alive after the prisoner return in 1973. One example: At the time of the committee’s hearings, the Pentagon had received more than 1,600 firsthand sightings of live American prisoners and nearly 14,000 secondhand reports. The intelligence officers who gathered these reports from refugees and other informants in the field described a large number of them as “credible” and so marked the reports. Some of the informants had been given lie-detector tests and passed.

But the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, after reviewing all the reports, concluded that they “do not constitute evidence” that men were still alive at the time.

McCain and Kerry endorsed the Pentagon’s findings. They also treated both the Pentagon and the CIA more as the committee’s partners than as objects of its inquiry. As one committee staff investigator said, in a memo preserved from the period: “Speaking for the other investigators, I can say we are sick and tired of this investigation being controlled by those we are supposedly investigating.”

McCain stood out because he always showed up for the committee hearings where witnesses were going to talk about specific pieces of evidence. He would belittle and berate these witnesses, questioning their patriotism and otherwise scoffing at their credibility. All of this is on record in the National Archives.”


53 posted on 07/18/2015 6:02:49 PM PDT by MikeNJ
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To: TigersEye

Glad you posted this. J. McCain is no friend of POWs.


82 posted on 07/18/2015 8:10:47 PM PDT by apocalypto
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