Now that everyone feels sorry for him being a POW, which I do too, we need to get him to explain this.
http://www.namvets.com/Reading/john_mccain_is_no_war_hero.htm
(SNIP)
For years, I was confused by his actions with respect to this issue. He would oppose any POW/MIA related piece of legislation, including the recent Missing Personnel Act, and the bill I sponsored through Fred Upton, the POW/MIA Rescue Act, which would have granted political asylum to any southeast Asian national who brought a living American POW to freedom.
Why would anyone oppose such a bill ... particularly a former POW?
He disagreed with the findings of the 1990 Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which concluded that our government had indeed abandoned some of our men when the war ended. '
Then, in 1991, he was appointed to serve on the long-awaited Senate Select Committee, which was created to investigate the entire issue. Chairman John Kerry wanted to appoint him as co-chairman, but this was greeted by a national uproar from the American Legion, and virtually every national veteran's group in existence who were already suspicious of his previous actions.
U.S. Sen, Bob Smith from New Hampshire was chosen instead, a minor victory at the time by POW activists, .
This particular Senate Committee was single-handedly undermined (in my opinion) by the actions of John McCain. During the course of their several month-long investigation, they heard unbelievable testimony from hundreds of people. No less than four former Secretaries of Defense testified that men were left behind. National Security analysts testified that they tracked the movements of our men long after the war ended. Radio transcripts of American POWs being moved in Laos were recorded in the early 1980s:
There were satellite photos of pilot distress signals taken as recently as 1992, complete with pilot name and authenticator code numbers. Former Soviet Commanders testified that they debriefed our men in the Soviet Union, and even Boris Yeltsin admitted American POWs had been transferred there.
No less than four committee investigators provided the Senators of their estimates ranging from a low of 150 to as many as 600 men who they believed were still alive and in captivity. This doesn't even include the testimony they heard behind closed doors that supposedly endangered our national security.
The conclusions of this committee was that "no credible evidence was provided to support the possibility that Americans were still alive and in captivity," This, despite documents from Soviet Archives that showed that the Vietnamese were holding more than 1,200 American POWs, and released less than 600, John McCain signed his name on this incredibly flawed report.