John McCain: Our "Fraud Hero;" Artemije, His Disgrace... and other Kosovo stories (Mar 1, 2000)

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TiM GW Bulletin 2000/3-1

Mar. 1, 2000

Albright for President?

McCain: Our "Fraud Hero"

His Disgrace, Artemije - Also Cavorting with the Enemy; U.S. Troops Accused of Brutalities against Serbs; and Other Kosovo Stories...

1. If “Madam Halfbright” May Become President, Why Not a “Fraud Hero” with Mob Ties?

NEW YORK, Feb. 29 – If “Madam Halfbright” (the U.S. Secretary of Hate – Madeleine Albright) can aspire one day to be president (of her native Czech Republic), why would a home grown American “fraud hero” not deserve a shot at a presidency? (John McCain for President - of Greater Albania).

Text Box: Future Czech President?
(wearing her Rambouillet egg on face)

Albright’s office denied that the woman who had a war named after her (“Madeleine’s War,” TIME magazine, see S99-81, Day 55. Item 2, May 17, 1999) has even greater ambitions. Which is, of course, to be expected from the folks who are in the “lie and deny” business. But western establishment media widely reported on Feb. 28 that the Czech President, Vaclav Havel, one of Eastern Europe’s many New World Order quislings had expressed his desire to have Albright succeed him when his term expires in 2003.

A corner office at the Prague Castle would sure beat an alternate abode which both Albright and Havel, among other NATO leaders, so richly deserve –interior solitary cells at the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague - for masterminding a mass murder of over 2,000 Serb civilians, and nearly 600 hundred police and soldiers.

But the western establishment media has not focused on John McCain’s KLA-Albanian connection. By kissing up to the Albanian campaign donors, the Senator from Arizona is following in the footsteps of his Republican colleague, the former Senate Majority leader and the Republican presidential candidate in 1996 – Bob (Kosovar) Dole (see “How Albanian PAC Money Bought the Kosovo War,” S99-119, "Peacefarce" 13, Item 2, July 4, 1999). Here’s an excerpt from that TiM report:

“Ben Works, a Vietnam veteran, and a New York-based political analyst and commentator for CBS Radio and Fox News, has been researching this issue for a long time. And he has concluded that the Albanians basically bought this war on Serbia with a combination of drug-tainted money, and legal and illicit campaign contributions.

Back in 1986 (yes, 13 years ago!), Works dug up a Senate Resolution proposed by the then Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, decrying Yugoslavian official oppression of the Albanian population of Kosovo. At the time, "the Albanian autonomous government (set up by the Tito's Yugoslav communists) was still fully operational," Works notes. At the same time, "Joseph DioGuardi, a New York Republican, an Albanian-American, sponsored the companion House Resolution, both of which never emerged from committee."

But the Dole and DioGuardi's actions signaled the start of what was to be their long-term campaign to "dismantle Yugoslavia and ruin the Serb people," Works says. "Their goal has been to effect the division of Yugoslavia and the cleansing of Serbian populations from their territories, while purporting that 'Greater Serbia' was the menace to European security, and not the post-fascist 'Greater Croatia' and 'Greater Albania'.”

And now take a look at McCain being cheered on Feb. 11, 2000 in New York by the very same Joe DioGuardi, draped in an Albanian flag-shawl, at a fundraising rally held across the street from the senator’s New York City hotel (see the photo). Like father, like son… like Dole, like McCain.

As for McCain’s KLA connection, perhaps the truth about this “closet Albanian supporter,” who has now come out in the open, can help us understand better why the Arizona senator was an even greater war hawk than Bill Clinton, whom McCain supported and egged on every step of the way during NATO’s war on Serbia over Kosovo.

But even prior to the Kosovo war, when McCain’s overt support of the drug-financed KLA Albanian terrorists proved that, like Clinton, the Arizona Senator will do anything for a buck, those who followed this “fraud hero’s” public life had realized that McCain had sold his soul to the devil a long ago (see “Who Is Senator John McCain of Arizona?”, TiM GW Bulletin 97/4-6, Apr. 20, 1997). The following is an excerpt from a Feb. 22 reaction the TiM editor had sent to a radio producer who was high on McCain:

“Did you write the above comment about McCain? Hope not...As you know, I hail from Arizona. And Arizonans can tell a "fraud hero" when they see one. Especially among ourselves.

“This surely must be a joke? Has the author of the above line forgotten about the "Keating Five," one of whom was McCain? Someone once noted that "the only honest politician is the one who stays bought." McCain didn't even have enough scruples for that.

Have you forgotten how this POW, upon his return to the States dumped his first wife (crippled in a car accident) in favor of marrying the rich socialite - Cindy - his current (trophy) wife? Oh, you didn't know he had another wife? Strange how character-building details like that are omitted from his official bio, isn't it?

Have you forgotten how he squealed to his Vietnamese captors, who in turn, rewarded him with privileges our other POWs could not even dream of. Some of the others who refused to betray their country even under torture got a bullet in the head as the reward from the same captors.

Have you forgotten how McCain supported Boy Klinton, a.k.a. Ayatollah Klintonmeini, on every foreign policy issue, even though they were ostensibly from different parties?

The bottom line is, of course, that the entire presidential race has become a multi-million dollar, quad-annual exercise in "demo farce" (you can check out my Washington Times column from Nov/96 about that - www.truthinmedia.org/Columns/clip9.html ). And that no matter which of the three establishment parties' frontrunners - Bush, McCain or Gore - becomes the next president, American will be just as badly off as under Boy Klinton. Because all three are the whores of the New World Order.

Bottom line? Interests of the American people would be indeed well served if McCain were to run for president – of “Greater Albania.” That way, at least, America would rid herself of at least one “fraud hero.” Alas, there are still many more to go…r

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 – “This morning (Feb. 25) Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright met with

Kosovo Serb leaders Bishop Artemije Radosavljevic and Father Sava Janjic to discuss the situation of the Serb community in Kosovo and to continue a process of engagement with moderate opposition leadership,” a State Department press release stated.

TiM Ed.: Correction. “Kosovo Serb Leaders?” Neither Bishop Artemije, nor any other Serb vassal who has ever accompanied him in his visits at the State Dept., are “Serb leaders” by any stretch of the imagination. They have been neither elected nor appointed as such, neither in Kosovo nor anywhere else in Serbia. They may be “Serb leaders,” therefore, only by a State Department’s effort to assign them a higher rank than they deserve. Or by their own exaggerated and self-congratulatory claims.

Text Box: Just over a month after this photo was taken, NATO started bombing Serbia

Take a look at the caption under a photo at the Decani web site (http://www.decani.yunet.com/ ), maintained by Artemije’s close aide, Fr. Sava Janjic, who, as you saw from the above State Department release, was also present at their Feb. 25 meeting with Albright. The caption reads: “Bishop Artemije - the missionary of peace again in US to speak on behalf of his people.” The photo was taken in Washington, DC, Feb/99.

“On behalf of his people?” His Disgrace would be well advised to speak only on his own behalf. And to remember how “his people,” the Serbs of Kosovo, jeered him and Albright the last time around when he cavorted with the enemy during the U.S. Secretary of State’s visit to Kosovo in July 1999 (see "Albright, Artemije Jeered by Serbs, Cheered by Serbs, Cheered by Albanians" - S99-131, "Peace" 25, Item 1, July 31). We understand that the Serb media have also published photos of Artemije and Albright taken on Feb. 25, though we have not yet been able to obtain one. For the time being, here’s a photo from an earlier visit by Artemije et.al. to the State Dept.

As if cavorting with the person whom the London Telegraph dubbed “the West's most influential anti-Serb hawk” in its Feb. 27 “post mortem” to the Kosovo war weren’t bad enough, His Disrace also joined Albright in reaffirming “their strong commitment to a multiethnic, democratic Kosovo and their rejection of partition,” according to the Feb. 25 State Dept. release. “The Secretary and Bishop Artemije strongly endorsed Special Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG) Bernard Kouchner's Agenda for Coexistence and agreed that it provided a basis for moving forward toward participation of the Serb community in Kosovo's democratization.”

Raymond Kent, a former history professor at the Berkeley University in California, described this French Jew as “France's most vocal and opinionated Serbophobe,” in a Feb. 18 letter of protest against the PBS/Jim Lehrer anti-Serbian bias (you can see the full text of his letter in Item 6 below). Prof. Kent added, “this writer has personally listened to him on the French TV on a dozen occasions spewing his anti-Serb venom.

And so, His Grace stumbles from one disgraceful act to another… From posing with the “the West's most influential anti-Serb hawk,” to “strongly endorsing” the “France's most vocal and opinionated Serbophobe.” Both gestures represent another act of Artemije’s subservience to the New World Order, and another act of disservice to the Serb people.

In a December 1999 TiM Bulletin, “Cavorting with the Enemy”, we also condemned similar actions of some pro-western Serb opposition leaders who traveled to Berlin to kiss up to Albright. Here’s the opening paragraph:

“Can you imagine a Serb leader posing for reporters with one of Hitler's top aides - after the Luftwaffe's April 6, 1941 bombing of Belgrade which killed hundreds of civilians? Not if he hoped to be a Serb leader for long, right?

Well, on Dec. 17, three would-be Serb leaders - Zoran Djindjic, Milo Djukanovic and Vuk Draskovic did just that at a Berlin (how appropriate!) Dec. 17 meeting with an unindicted war criminal, Madeleine Albright, the U.S. Secretary of State. Or Hate, to be more accurate. Take a look at the photo posted at our Web site. What are these people smiling about? The thousands of Serb civilians killed or maimed by the bombs in, what TIME magazine called, "Madeleine's War?" (see S99-81, Day 55, Item 2, May 17).”

More than 2,000 Serb civilians were killed by NATO under the auspices of the war criminals, like Albright. Nearly 1,000 other Serb civilians killed under the watchful eyes of Kouchner. Over 200,000 Serbs who were driven from their ancestral homes in Kosovo during the NATO/KFOR “peace farce.” And after all that, Artemije et. al. and the pro-western vassals among the Serb opposition meet with, and pose for photographs, with the NATO war criminals?

Nor are we talking only about Artemije-Albright tête-à-tête sessions. Take at a look at the Decani web site. It’s full of boastful photographs of this Serb bishop posing with leading New World Order criminals. Artemije with Clinton… Artemije with Richard Holbrooke… Artemije with Hashim Thaci… Artemije at the Council on Foreign Relations (in New York), etc.

Such a disgraceful behavior by a Serb bishop, especially after the NATO bombing of Serbia, dishonors all Serb victims of the New World Order crimes.

If Artemije plans to keep on acting as a quisling of the western powers that be, which he is free to do as an individual, at least he should have enough decency to take off his clerical robes when he cavorts with the war criminals. For, his behavior can be also construed by uninitiated or malicious people as the Serbian Orthodox Church’s endorsement of his shameful missions. We don’t know who is paying for his trips to Washington and New York, butas far as TiM is aware, Bishop Artemije only represents himself, not the Serbian Orthodox Church, which has publicly denounced Slobodan Milosevic, the NATO bombings, and the KFOR “peace farce.”

Artemije’s recent actions have rightly earned him the epithet – His Disgrace. May he wear it in shame. r

BELGRADE, Feb. 26 - No more Serbs are left in the Kosovo village of Klobukar after a 65-year old Serb woman, Mitra Vasic, was brutally murdered at her home, near Novo Brdo, Belgrade’s Beta news agency has reported. Amateur radio operators from Gnjilane in the American sector said that the woman was murdered with a wooden stake driven through her torso, and pinned to the floor. She had lived all alone.

The murderers, believed to be ethnic Albanian extremists, then set fire to the house. The body would have burned completely had not an international KFOR force helicopter patrol seen the smoke, and saved the body of the old woman. According to the Church People's Council, the murder took place on February 9, and the body of the woman is still in the morgue of the hospital in Gnjilane.

The crime was confirmed by the representative of Novo Brdo community, Srboljub Maksimovic. According to him, contact has been made with the sister of the murdered woman, who lives in the village of Tomanac near Kosovska Kamenica.

Mitra Vasic was the last Serb inhabitant of her village, which had had an ethnically mixed population before NATO's aggression on Yugoslavia last spring. All 73 Serb families were driven out of the village last summer. Their homes were torched.

Meanwhile, Albanian terror has spilled into Serbia with the U.S. assistance, charged Vojin Kostunica, president of the Democratic Party of Serbia, in a statement released on Feb. 27. “

An attack on a police checkpoint in the village of Konculj, west of Bujanovac, in which one policeman was killed and three injured, along with the planting of explosive into the Bujanovac heating plant and the murder of Dr. Josif Vasic, a member of the Serb National Council of Kosovo and Metohija, in Gnjilane, showed that Albanians seem determined to properly mark February 28, the day when they founded the Kosovo Liberation Army, with terrorist actions,” Kostunica said.

“Albanians obviously want more - to seize new Serbian territories. The fact that this was the fourth attack on police in the Bujanovac area in the last two months alone made their intention perfectly clear,” Kostunica added.

It is also noteworthy that the region of Bujanovac practically borders with the U.S. sector of KFOR. Since the Albanians have managed to ghettoize the Serbs of Gnjilane in the very heart of the U.S. sector, and since none of the U.S. "peacekeepers" critisized them for doing so, they now expect that they can easily cross into central Serbia and sow death and fear there without restraint.

A few weeks ago, America's soldiers fired tracer bullets in order to prevent an alleged infiltration from Serbia into Kosovo, now a Serb territory under NATO/KFOR occupation. All along, however, American spokespeople have been expressing “deep concern” for the Albanians in the south of Serbia. Yet all they have achieved are only killed and injured Serbs, the DSS statement concluded. r

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 24 - Yugoslavia has accused United States members of the NATO-led force in Kosovo of being "particularly brutal" in carrying out searches for weapons in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, the Reuters news service reported from New York on Feb. 24.

In a letter to the Security Council complaining about the actions of KFOR in the Serbian province, Yugoslav U.N. envoy Vladislav Jovanovic said the "latest deterioration of the situation" had been brought about by the "unbecoming, uncalled-for and arrogant behavior of KFOR toward Serbs" in Mitrovica on Feb. 20.

The town, in which ethnic Albanians and a minority Serb community are divided by a bridge across the Ibar River, has become a tinderbox in recent weeks. "Under the pretext of looking for hidden arms that the Serbs had allegedly refused to hand over to KFOR, American and German soldiers ransacked Serbian houses, apartments, shops, schools, students' dormitories, even children's clinics and Red Cross warehouses," Jovanovic said.

"Particularly brutal were the American members of KFOR: they broke doors, school benches and lockers, they even vandalized a lab," he added. "This brutality proved entirely fruitless, except for the havoc and enormous material damage left in its train," he said. He also said there were ethnic Albanians among them, "allegedly as guides or translators."

Jovanovic said the "most recent mistreatment of about 4,500 Serbs" in Mitrovica was "yet another example of KFOR's policy of double standards, aimed at intimidating the remaining Serbs" and driving them out of Kosovo.

Jovanovic said that, since the deployment of KFOR and the U.N. administration in mid-June 1999, "4,249 terrorist attacks have been committed mainly against the Serbs and other non-Albanians, in which 889 persons have been killed, 784 wounded and 834 abducted." He called on the Security Council to take urgent measures to "put an immediate end to ethnic Albanian terror and vandalism and to prevent the lynchings and liquidations of Serbs and other non-Albanians, which could result in unforeseeable consequences." r

SYDNEY, Feb. 18 – Some photos from the TiM editor’s Sydney lecture, “New World Order and Serbia” are now available at our Web site. Just click on the above title to view the pictures. r

BERKELEY, Feb. 18 – The following is the letter that Professor Emeritus Raymond Kent, of the University of California at Berkeley’s history department, sent to Channel 9 in San Francisco, which broadcasts PBS (Public Broadcasting System) programs in the Bay Area:

On three previous occasions, I have sent fairly detailed letters to the same Hour debunking in detail (a) The Bosnian mass-rape stories; {b}The romanticizing of the Kosovo Liberation Army; and {C) The utterly bogus account of the "smashing NATO success at Kosovo" promoted through an interview with an English parrot of Tony Blair. Independently of the News Hour I have sent to Bill Moyers and PBS an extensive critique of the "Srebrenica" presentation most recently. In case of (B) I predicted it to be a prelude to the U.S. support for the KLA, which it was. On two of the three occasions (B+C) I have received the same two-line letter from Jim Lehrer with the statement "I hear you." It has been, at best a joke, since no "retractions" or "amendments" ever followed. In writing you today, I am sure that the most I can hope to attain is an avuncular note from Jim Lehrer "I hear you," period. On the sham that passed for a "documentary" on Srebrenica, there has been no attempt to come to grips with the kind of celluloid journalism that does not deserve support.

Thus, I am writing to you for the record. It will, sooner or later, expose a PBS/News Hour pattern. As Mr. Clinton likes to say "I am working on it." On Yugoslavia over the last decade, specifically, you have been and are willing partners in manipulating the American People into "buying" whatever deceit is being promoted by the Clinton Administration. With the radically changing nature of warfare, we the American people are footing the billions spent on egregious foreign policy stupidities around the world for which we will eventually come to pay in blood and destruction at home while many current foreign-policy "strategists" will retire in comfort, accountable to no one. The time is fast approaching when we will need to demand an approximation to honesty and integrity not only in the White House but in journalism as well, admittedly a much, much tougher task.

The panel which you selected for the Kosovo up-date, consisting presumably of certified and hence impartial "experts," represents little more than promotion of propaganda and disingenuous asymmetry that has permeated the "air war" and its real consequences. The apparent assignment of the "Kosovo Update" was to so "level" {through a segment of Kosovo still containing a concentration of Serbs} any differences between the Serb and Albanian "extremists."

In this way, the Serbs are not allowed to appear even remotely as victims" of anyone else's aggression. This "de-victimizing" formula has been used consistently in all the other parts of ex-Yugoslavia. Let us start first with Kosovska Mitrovica. and Northern Kosovo.

At the end of the "air campaign" (an Orwellian term in its own right) there was a firm agreement between Sir Michael Jackson, NATO ground Commander at Kosovo, and the General commanding the Serb Third Army. One item in the agreement was that NATO would allow the return of limited Serb forces into Northern Kosovo. The reason for the accord? To protect the ancient Serb monasteries and the remaining concentration of Serbs in Kosovo against an Albanian attempt sure to come in order to attain a "pure" Albanian Kosovo. The attempt is now there to be seen but there are no Serb units around which would have been a real deterrent.

No one on the panel mentioned the monasteries, preferring the "neo-Marxist " "economic explanation that "mineral resources" in the North are what it is more or less all about. For the Serbs, that slice of Kosovo is a combination of Jerusalem, the Alamo, and the thirteen statelets that sired the United States of America. No Serb government can "trade" this area off. Again, no mention of the "discounted" "feelings" of the Serbs as they are today, in the Civilized West, the "Untermenschen" of Nazi yore. Sub-humans can have no feelings, no right to self-determination, no right to self defense and no right to perceive their history in ways "unacceptable" as "atavistic" to the Enlightened West which is innocent of nationalisms and skeletons in multinational closets.

Let us return to the astonishing asymmetry leaping out of the panel. There are about 9,000 Serbs on one bank of Ibar and 90,000 Albanians on the other. The first shots of the film part showed what appeared to be destitute and despondent Albanian women, portrayed presumably as the latest victims of Serb expulsion from their side of the Ibar River (EE-bar by the way not I-bar) (there is a moving song "Ibar Vodo" but I doubt that your well-paid experts would really understand the lyrics, with the possible exception of "Ivo"). Much of the panel commentary addressed itself to the recent expulsions or flights of the Albanian minority living on the Serb side of the Ibar Bridge. It somehow could not bring itself to give at least "equal time" to the fact that all the rest of Kosovo has been virtually "cleansed" of the Serbs, with only a few pockets remaining. To the Serbs should be added also the Roms. Greeks, Turks, Croats, Albanian Catholics and a few Jews. Some 180,000 Serbs have already gone to northern Kosovo and/or into Serbia proper from points south of Kosovska Mitrovica to avoid being exterminated in the presence of a massive NATO force "not trained" to keep order.

While seeing the ubiquitous hand of "Milosevic" in the escalating violent stance of local Serbs, no one even mentioned the KLA. It is today a shadowy organization but it exists and its leaders are not only in real charge of great deal of Kosovo. They are orchestrating the last drive to expel all Serbs from Kosovo, their reasoning being that NATO will not allow the Serb Third Army to re-capture Kosovo, a view that is entirely correct in the short run. As for the argument that the "partition" of Kosovo would only insure a future conflict it could just as well be turned around. Failure to allow the Serbs and Albanians to divide Kosovo with the same overwhelming international support claimed for a non-existing "plural" and "Democratic" society is only a prelude to another war.

To turn now to some of the Big Men at Kosovo. Bernard Kouchner, who is shedding crocodile tears for the West's failure to provide megadollars with which to create a civil society, just happens to have been France's most vocal and opinionated Serbophobe. This writer has personally listened to him on the French TV on a dozen occasions spewing his anti-Serb venom, totally brainwashed by the propaganda emanating from the media and governments in NATO since about the start of the 1990's. What this man has done and not done at Kosovo goes a long way to account for the extant mess.

The military leader of the KLA, General Agim Ceku, is a major war criminal. He led the U.S.-trained Croat Army during August 1995 in the cleansing of over 200,000 Serbs from Krajina, the systematic looting and torching of Serb properties and the systematic execution of several thousand elderly Serbs who could not or would not leave their homes. The brother of the political head of KLA was just arrested with a large cachet of arms and some $800.000 in cash, the first such arrest by NATO. Many of the KLA leaders have been connected with drug trade, fact well known to NATO and intelligence agencies in the west. The point here is that while the panel "equalized" the Serb and Albanian "extremists" at Kosovska Mitrovica, it "forgot" the extremists in the larger picture. Also forgotten and abandoned by NATO and UN is Ibrahim Rugova, the poet who is the only true leader of Kosovo Albanians. It would appear, from the results, that Madeleine Albright had made a "deal" with Hakim Thaci. Against the Serbian refusal to sign, the KLA signature (initially refused) to a would-be Rambouillet Agreement in February 1998 provided her with the triggering mechanism to start the "air campaign." In return the KLA leadership was given the promise for gradual U.S. support toward independence in one form or another. The dismal performance of NATO troops in preventing the de facto ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo is hardly an accident.

Another omission by the panel is failure to present Kosovo after the return of the refugees for what it is - a land resembling the Wild West. It is a lawless society overwhelmed increasingly by the droves of Albanian mafiosi from Albania who no longer have to fear the Serb units guarding Kosovo's southern frontiers. They are ecstatic in "helping" the needy NATO troops by providing them with prostitutes from different Balkan countries and are behind an escalating intra-Albanian crime wave.

In depicting "the Serbs" as an intolerant people, incapable of co-existing in the same landscape with other ethnicities, and not withstanding the lip service to "some moderate Serbs still remaining in Kosovo," the panel failed to mention that there are some 200,000 Kosovo Albanians living in Serbia proper as Yugoslav citizens, generally unmolested by the Serbs . About 80,000 of them live in the Greater Belgrade area alone. In fact, with 27 different ethnicities, Serbia is the only true plural society in the Balkans.

There is one point on which it is possible to agree with the panel as a whole. A UN "rule" shored-up with large numbers of NATO or European troops outside of NATO cannot exit Kosovo soon. In the meantime, however, billions of dollars are being spent without a lasting, long-term resolution of the Kosovo Problem. No one has mentioned again that we have just built the largest US base in Europe in Kosovo. One could go on but I end on this point. Think about it in geo-political terms and think also of the law of unintended consequences.

In conclusion, I have just learned that another PBS "up-date" is coming on Tuesday, 22nd February. It is called " What has the War in Europe Accomplished?" As the title's Freudian slip hints, it will be yet another (probably even more subtle) attempt to present the US/NATO intervention in Yugoslavia as a pioneering work of Humanitarian Ideology, some unfortunate by-products notwithstanding. It is obvious that we are in a year of Presidential Election. Mr. Gore, the heir apparent to the "Clinton Legacy," knows that he is vulnerable on the egregious mess of that intervention and its results. Hence, re-hash of the same unsubstantiated smears in the Srebrenica "documentary," the "Kosovo up-date," and the coming Tuesday presentation served to the American People. I shall watch it with care. It will be ripped to shreds if it assumes that we are all a bunch of uninformed imbeciles; and the deconstruction and demolition job will be spread all over the Internet and about a thousand E-mail recipients, most of whom will today be urged not to miss the Tuesday show and very many of whom will add their own appraisals. I will also send my own present and other relevant texts to all the running Presidential Candidates.”

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 – The following is an excerpt from a long essay about John McCain written by Edward Zehr of the Washington Weekly:

“…McCain dumped his first wife after she had been disabled in an auto accident. Although this woman had worked tirelessly to get him released from captivity, he did not hesitate to betray her with other women upon finding her crippled when he returned home. In fact, McCain has racked up quite a reputation as a womanizer. This time he was determined to do it right. Since he had no fortune of his own, he acquired one through his second marriage. (Ted) Sampley writes that the senator's net worth is "possibly as much as $1.2 million or more, excluding personal residences . . . McCain listed his [second] wife, Cindy, as the source of most of his assets. . ." According to the Phoenix Gazette of May 19, 1987, "the bulk of McCain's assets consisted of stock in the Glendale firms -- Hensley & Co., a beer distributorship headed by his father-in-law; Western Leasing Co., which leases trucks and equipment; and Eagle Enterprises, which invests in real estate and stock."

In fact, the senator married the daughter of one of the richest men in Arizona. It seems that McCain got more than just a wife in the bargain, he married into a family that already had quite a reputation in that state. Since family ties are always somewhat convoluted and difficult to track, I have prepared a chart to assist the reader in following the narrative.

The situation in Arizona was, for a long time, reminiscent of that line in "Memphis Blues" that goes, "Mistah Ed Crump, he runs this town." Only "The Man" in Arizona was named Kemper Marley, beer baron extraordinaire, player with real estate and other lucrative ventures too numerous to mention. At the time of his death in 1990, Marley was said to own "5 square miles of Carefree -- the highest priced real estate in Arizona," according to left-wing columnist Brian Downing Quig. Sort of like having hotels on Boardwalk AND Park Place, in addition to a monopoly on booze -- but of course that's the name of the game.

Right after the Second World War Kemper Marley had a monopoly on liquor distribution in Arizona, which is every bit as good as having a license to steal. In 1948 his company, United Liquor, ran afoul of federal liquor laws -- fifty-two of his employees went to jail, including Jim Hensley who is presently the father- in-law of Senator John McCain. Some say that Hensley took a fall for Marley. Hensley was general manager of Marley's firm at the time. Be that as it may, when Hensley re-emerged from the slam, Marley rewarded him with a Budweiser distributorship which is now said to be worth $200 million, even though Hensley was prohibited from working in the liquor industry for the remainder of his days. And who stands to inherit this? John McCain and his devoted spouse, who else?

But Marley was more than just an entrepreneur. Quig writes that for forty years "Marley bankrolled Harry Rosenzweig who doled out Marley's great wealth to a slate of Republican candidates who were almost universally successful in obtaining high political office."

But that isn't all -- it seems that "Marley was able to control the Democratic party as well. Every congressman and every senator in Arizona currently owes his position to the Marley machine." So you see, it's sort of like W.C. Handy said: "Mistah Ed Crump, he runs this town." Crump controlled the Tennessee Democratic Party from his stronghold in Memphis, and ran the state's Republican Party as a sort of sideline, using a venerable old gentleman named Perry Howard as his front man. (In those days the Republicans were the "colored man's party" in Tennessee). But that was years ago. Unfortunately, we seem to have made little progress in the interim.

Anyway, is the plot beginning to make sense? Can you see the broad outlines of John McCain's strategy taking shape here? Do we really need a diagram to understand how he got his start in politics? Clearly he has had his eye on the prize for some time now, and is completely unsentimental as to how he attains it. Oh, say the senator's partisans, his former wife remains completely loyal to him. Yeah. I'll leave that part of the scenario to the reader's imagination.

Richard Scheffel, a lobbyist for Anheuser-Busch, is said to have boasted that Sen. McCain's father-in-law used him as a conduit to funnel money to politicians. Sampley quotes an Arizona newspaper as saying that, "Cars, homes and bank accounts of 18 people, including eight state legislators, were confiscated in a civil racketeering lawsuit that paints a portrait of lawmakers eager to sell their influence for as little as $660 and as much as $750,000." Although Scheffel was not targeted in the civil suit, he is said to have been paid $20,000 to approach legislators who showed an interest in selling their votes for hard cash, as part of an apparent sting operation, according to the Phoenix Gazette of February 6, 1991. The same newspaper identified Jim Hensley as "a financial godfather to hosts of lobbyists" in a story that appeared on March 16 the same year.

It would seem that Sen. McCain has not always been such an ardent advocate of campaign finance "reform." A Phoenix Gazette editorial published on December 8, 1987 asked:

"So why has Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., gone to unprecedented lengths to block reform of the Senate campaign finance system? Why does he oppose letting this important matter even come to a vote? Perhaps it's because he is a prime beneficiary of the special interest funding of congressional elections. McCain raised over $2.5 million for his 1986 election . . . more than $760,000 of his campaign funds came from political action committee (PACs) . . . especially disturbing are the contributions to McCain's campaign coffers from PACs outside of Arizona."

Ah, but that was then. As soon as the opportunity opened up for him to curry favor with the mainstream media by backing the "reform" measure he had so steadfastly opposed all along, the scales fell from his eyes -- McCain saddled up and went galloping down the road to Damascus (as H.L. Mencken used to say of such miraculous political conversions, an allusion to St. Paul). Let's face it folks, that boy done SEEN the light.

Why did Sen. McCain help Mr. Charles Keating fight off those federal regulators who had become so inquisitive about the way he had been running Lincoln Savings and Loan? What's this -- a twinge of deja vu? (Here's to you, Jim McDougal, wherever you are). The Arizona Republic reported on October 8, 1989, that "John McCain contends there was no conflict in his helping Keating battle federal regulators." And yet, in the same article we are told, "Documents show that Sen. John McCain's wife, Cindy, and father-in-law, James W. Hensley are the largest investors in Fountain Square Shopping Center. Their partnership is managed by subsidiaries of American Continental Corp., run by Charles H. Keating, Jr."

That's not a conflict of interest? The senator's wife and father-in-law, the source of all his wealth, are the biggest investors in a business enterprise run by the man he is helping to keep federal investigators at bay, but the senator sees no conflict here? The newspaper reported that "when an Arizona Republic reporter asked him about business ties between his wife, Cindy McCain, and Keating," the senator snarled, "That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot." Gosh, I'm sure glad he cleared that up. Wouldn't do to have anyone think there's something shady going on.

But, of course the mainstream press just can't under-STAND why Arizona newspapers keep saying all those mean, hurting things about their fair-haired boy. "You do understand English, don't you?" McCain explained in the same conversation. The Republic article continued, "Not content with just bullying reporters, McCain tried belittling them: 'It's up to you to find that out, kids.' . . . McCain wasn't talking to liars. He wasn't talking to juveniles. The senator was talking to two reporters." Isn't that what the mainstream newsies have been saying about the senator of late -- he knows how to talk to reporters? Got that, George Dubya? They like it when you treat 'em rough. But investments were not the whole story. The Arizona Republic reported on October 8, 1989 that:

"Sen. John McCain had more than a constituent relationship with Charles H. Keating, Jr. prior to 1987 . . . the McCains -- sometimes with their daughter and baby sitter -- made at least nine trips at Keating's expense from August 1984 to August 1986 aboard either Keating's American Continental Corporation's jet or chartered planes and helicopters owned by Resorts International. Three of the trips were for vacations at Keating's luxurious retreat in the Bahamas." But shucks all get-out -- dudn' mean a thing. The senator would do as much for anyone. Why he's just as helpful as can be -- unless you happen to be the relative of a POW/MIA. The Arizona Republic reported on August 24, 1994, that Sen. McCain's wife, Cindy, had admitted in a series of interviews with the media that she had been "addicted to the painkillers Percocet and Vicodin" from 1989 to 1992 and admitted to stealing the drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team. She had used her position as president of this charitable organization to continue her habit of taking 15 to 20 pills a day. The normal dosage for a seriously ill patient would be 6 to 10 pills per day, and only for a short period of time. On the following day, the same newspaper carried an article that revealed one of the former employees of the medical team had "accused her of demanding that he commit perjury in adoption proceedings for her daughter, Bridget."

What were the consequences of all this? Apparently nothing much. Rank has its privileges and privilege has its perks, as John McCain, the admiral's son, well knows. The mainstream media who were so outraged at the thought that George W. might have snorted coke 27 years ago (he gets away with it while ordinary people go to jail) have been strangely silent about this episode.

But what role does Kemper Marley play in John McCain's extended family? I think that we could reasonably assign him the role of "godfather." It is difficult to believe that McCain would ever have made it to Congress without Marley's approval. Apparently nobody from Arizona made it to Congress without his approval -- and that includes Barry Goldwater. Do you begin to see why these smelly situations never get exposed? Back in the days when I was walking a precinct for Goldwater -- some time back before the Flood -- an acquaintance, who happened to be a Democrat, told me that my candidate had been seen from time to time in the company of "Jewish gangsters." I dismissed this out of hand. Not only was the guy nuts, he was clearly an anti-Semite. The following quote regarding a crook named Gus Greenbaum is from Brian Quig:

"Greenbaum was a Phoenix socialite seen at all the society balls in Phoenix, usually in the company of the Barry Goldwaters and Harry Rosenzweigs. In 1958 Greenbaum and his wife were found dead in their bed -- their throats cut. This inaugurated a series of grisly gangland-style slayings." Yes, I know that Quig is a left-wing ding-a-ling, but that doesn't make his information wrong, does it? Would that it did. (Actually, Goldwater's acquaintance with Greenbaum is well established). John McCain, like a lot of others, made his Faustian bargain in order to have a career in politics. It wasn't the first he had made, nor was it his last. If we continue to put such people at the head of our government, in time the entire country will become as rotten as Arkansas and Arizona already are. On second thought, a country that would abandon its sons to endless torment in Communist captivity as this country has done under the tutelage of the bureaucracy and the mainstream press, is pretty far gone already.

Kemper Marley, the Arizona godfather, certainly didn't lack for connections. In 1948, when so many of his employees were sent to prison, Marley had a slick mouthpiece who kept him in the clear. The lawyer's name is William Rehnquist, who is presently the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Mind you, I'm not suggesting that there is anything shady about lawyers keeping their clients out of prison -- that, after all, is their job, even if the clients are guilty. The point is that Marley was very well connected with the power elite.

Marley was often seen on the periphery of scandalous or illegal activity, but was never directly implicated in any of it, although strong suspicions persist even to the present day, particularly with regard to the murder of an Arizona Republic reporter named Don Bolles. According to Michael Wendland, who belonged to a group of journalists known as the "Investigative Reporters and Editors" that set up shop in Arizona to investigate the slaying, the group concluded that Marley was behind the killing of the Don Bolles.

It seems that Marley had arranged his own appointment to the state's racing commission by then-Gov. Gov. Raul Castro when Bolles began writing a series of articles about him detailing his checkered past. Bolles' expose forced Marley to resign from the commission. One of the revelations involved Eugene Hensley, the brother of McCain's father-in-law, who had done five years in a federal prison for skimming profits from a business venture. This is a well-known tactic used by organized crime figures. Bolles also mentioned that the Hensleys had sold their dog track to an individual connected with Emprise Corp., a mobbed-up dog track interest. Sen. McCain has been seen in the company of the principals of Emprise, according to Sampley. Quig notes that Bolles' motives in writing the articles may not have been entirely pure -- he appeared to have been living beyond his means and had been dealing with certain underworld figures. When he testified before the House Organized Crime Committee, Bolles had asked for and was given immunity.

Bolles was killed when a bomb was detonated beneath his car. He lived long enough to gasp, "They finally got me. The Mafia. Emprise. Find John (Harvey) Adamson." The police arrested Mr. Adamson who admitted placing the bomb, but maintained that it had been detonated by Jimmy (The Plumber) Robison. (It seems that Robison actually was a plumber who only did such odd jobs as a sideline). Tom Fitzpatrick of the Phoenix New Times wrote in an article dated February 10, 1993, that Phoenix police believed Marley wanted revenge against Bolles and sought the help of a local contractor named Max Dunlap who owed him a favor. Marley had once loaned Dunlap a million dollars and later told him that he needn't bother paying it back.

All of which brings to mind that line mumbled by Marlon Brando in his portrayal of The Godfather, "Sometime, maybe nevah, I ask for a favah in retoin." The state prosecuted Dunlap for allegedly hiring Adamson to carry out the murder of Bolles, and Adamson, in turn, is alleged to have hired Robison to assist him. All three were convicted and sent to death row. Robison was subsequently acquitted in a retrial which he was granted on appeal. Dunlap remains in prison. Both he and Robison maintain that they are innocent. Marley was never arrested. He died in 1990. According to Quig, the Phoenix police prepared a profile of Marley about a week after the murder of Bolles. It showed that at one time Marley had been directly connected with the Capone mob operating the Transamerica Wire Service, used by bookies throughout the country. It was established for Capone's successors in 1941 by Gus Greenbaum.

Another member of the "Arizona Project" as the journalist's task force was known, a reporter named Don Devereux, thinks they may have been taken in by local authorities. "We accepted very uncritically their scenario. In retrospect, we were very naive to get led around," he said later. "It really isn't something that we should be running around congratulating ourselves about," After most of the reporters had departed, Devereux stayed on and continued to dig into the Bolles case as a reporter for the Scottsdale (Ariz.) Progress. It was largely on the basis of his reporting that Dunlap and Robison were granted new trials. Robison was acquitted and Dunlap was convicted again.

Just to illustrate how the political fix works in Arizona, Democratic Sen. Dennis DeConcini was in big trouble when he came up for re-election in 1990. He had been caught creaming $5 million in an Arizona land deal on the basis of his inside information as a senator. The Arizona machine which controlled both parties in the state did not want to lose DeConcini's seniority, so they talked the Republicans into putting up their weakest candidate -- sort of like the corrupt political machine that seeks to run this country is attempting to do right now with John McCain's candidacy. Their choice to run against DeConcini was a hapless individual named Keith DeGreen who was such a red- hot Republican he hadn't even bothered to vote in the previous two elections.

But surely all of this amounts to guilt by association. You bet it does -- with a vengeance. A man who aspires to be President of the United States has no business consorting with known criminals. But how can John McCain avoid this? He married into the family. Does that help to put the following news clip from the January 17, 1995, Arizona Republic into perspective? "About 300 guests turned out Saturday night to celebrate the 90th birthday of Joseph 'Joe Bananas' Bonanno, retired boss of New York's Bonanno crime family. He retired to Tucson in 1968. . . John McCain, R-Ariz., and Gov. Fife Symington sent their regards by telegram."

Fife Symington was too crooked even for Arizona -- he was forced to resign as governor of the state after being convicted on six counts of fraud in connection with his corrupt real estate dealings. He was subsequently sentenced to two and one-half years in prison. Symington and McCain had been thick as thieves (so to speak) for years prior to the governor's little run-in with the law. They even shared attorneys and political consultants. John McCain has never been known to play on a level field, he always has to have a leg-up. As a junior officer in the Navy he avoided being washed out of flight school despite his dearth of ability because his father was a high-ranking admiral. As soon as he saw his opportunity to score big in political and financial circles in Arizona, he dumped the disabled wife who had worked so tirelessly for him while he was a POW and married into the crime-family that ran the state at that time. He played off his father's position while he was a POW in order to get special treatment.

When the "mainstream" (left-wing) media came knocking at his door with a proposition to support him in the presidential primaries in return for his backing of campaign finance "reform," McCain jumped at the opportunity. Never mind that this legislation would deprive his own party of the capability to be heard in future political campaigns and give the leftist media a monopoly on political discourse in the country, thereby undermining the democratic process.

Such treachery comes naturally to McCain -- selling out and stabbing his former friends in the back is his preferred tactic. Ask the families of the POW/MIAs who enthusiastically backed McCain when he first ran for Congress only to be dry-gulched by him when he no longer found them useful. As a gratuitous sadistic flourish, McCain even had them investigated by the Justice Department on trumped-up charges. The fact that they were exonerated on all counts has yet to make an impression on McCain's airhead supporters who continue to trumpet the phony charges in deceitful neo-McCarthyite fashion.

John McCain is an abysmal mediocrity who would never have made it on a level playing field. He was fifth from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy. He racked up three life threatening "Dangerous Downs" at flight school -- the last one for flying his aircraft into the sea while asleep -- enough to get anyone without his political influence bounced down the back stairs. As for his record as a senator, can anyone remember a single significant thing this man has accomplished in more than a dozen years as a member of that august body? Anything other than sell out the POWs and promote the interests of Communist Vietnam, that is. To those who have recently determined that we just HAVE to have this man as our next president, I pose the following question: why?”

Edward Zehr can be reached at ezehr@capaccess.org, published in the Feb. 14, 2000 issue of The Washington Weekly, Copyright 2000 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com ). Reposting permitted with this message intact. r