Thursday, May 22, 2008

McManchurian Candidate

Could John McCain's five year confine- ment in the Hanoi Hilton have really been a Manchurian Candidate indoc- trination?

I love a good conspiracy and seem to have found one over at Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain. From an article at Veterans Dispatch:
For years, the mainstream news media has refused to stop idolizing the so-called straight talking maverick John McCain long enough to question the mental health consequences of the years he spent as a "special" prisoner of the communists in North Vietnam.

McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate for President, who could one day have his finger on the "red button," claims the communists subjected him to 5 ½ years of nonstop indoctrination sessions so intense that he attempted suicide.

Unfortunately for McCain, after his bomber was hit by anti-aircraft fire near Hanoi on October 26, 1967, he parachuted into the hands of an evil communist enemy who 7 years earlier had adopted Soviet methods of prisoner interrogation.

At that time, the Soviets were perfecting techniques designed "to put a man's mind into a fog so that he will mistake what is true for what is untrue, what is right for what is wrong, and come to believe what did not happen actually had happened."

Psychiatric Journals are flush with reports concluding that former POWs may remain entangled in "harsh psychological battles" with themselves for decades after returning home including difficulty in controlling intense emotions such as anger and stress.

In political circles, McCain, sometimes referred to as "insane McCain," is well known for having a "volcanic" temper which his colleagues say often erupts into vulgar language and personal insults.
Read the rest of the article and cruise around the VVAJM site and see what you think.

4 comments:

Cujo359 said...

For craziness in the entirely opposite direction, I submit for your consideration this WaPoo article:

Sen. John McCain's 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam undoubtedly changed the course of his life. But now that he is 71, that remote trauma seems unlikely to shorten his life span or to lead to mental or physical conditions that are not already apparent.

Yep, all of the "Bomb, bomb Iran"'s, mood swings, trips to Baghdad to buy rugs, etc., nothing to see there.

The article goes on to mention a study that indicates that occurrences of PTSD among Vietnam-era POWs is about one fourth of normal. It doesn't mention, however, that most of these guys were smart people motivated to hide any trauma so they could resume their military careers. It's a fairly common view in psychology these days that smart patients can be more difficult to diagnose, because they're better at hiding their illness.

Anonymous said...

Johnny doesn't really hide his insanity, and his very real dementia is becoming clear, in spite of the MSM's resolute non-coverage of it.

HopeSpringsATurtle said...

Whether of not he has PTSD or is a govt' 'experiment,' McCain is not fit for the White House. His temper alone is enuff to disqualify him from such an important post. I read the WaPO article and it infuriates me the way the MSM coddles McCain. The records released only go back to 2000, and who knows if the records are complete? NTM they were available for viewing a mere 3 hours. Whatever. I'm not sure if the corruption in politics we now experience is at a new level, or it's always been this bad and I'm just noticing.

Cujo359 said...

I'm not sure if the corruption in politics we now experience is at a new level, or it's always been this bad and I'm just noticing.

More the latter, I suspect. Reading about things like the Teapot Dome scandal can certainly open your eyes. To me, the question is whether that corruption and the attendant stupidity is making us unable to cope with the world around us. On that score, I'm not very optimistic.

The press's treatment of McCain is a case in point. How can people make informed decisions when there's such obvious bias in coverage?