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THE LATE US Senator John McCain has urged Americans to “tear down walls” in a farewell statement that will doubtless be seen as a rebuke to US President Donald Trump.
McCain died on Saturday following a celebrated career in US politics that saw him serve in the Senate, the House of Representatives and twice run for president.
McCain endured an adversarial relationship with Trump and this has continued following the senator’s death over the weekend.
White House officials have said McCain’s family had asked, before the senator’s death, that Trump not attend funeral services for the former Naval pilot.
The US flag was flown at half-mast over at the White House yesterday, but earlier today it returned to full-mast, unlike at other sites in the capital where they remained at half-mast.
Later this afternoon however, it returned to half-mast after the White House was criticised for its decision.
In the Oval Office earlier, Trump refused to answer questions from reporters about his thoughts on the death of McCain, staying silent as they sought a response.
But later this evening, Trump released a statement speaking about his “respect” for McCain.
Speaking today in McCain’s home state of Arizona, spokesperson Rick Davis would not confirm whether McCain’s family had asked Trump not to attend the funeral, but did confirm that “as far as we know” the president would be not be attending.
Davis also read out a statement prepared by McCain before his death from brain cancer.
This is the full text of that statement:
My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for sixty years, and especially my fellow Arizonans, thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office has allowed me to lead. I have tried to serve our country honourably. I have made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them.I have often observed that I am the luckiest person on earth. I feel that way even now as I prepare for the end of my life. I have loved my life, all of it. I have had experiences, adventures and friendships enough for ten satisfying lives, and I am so thankful. Like most people, I have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life, in good or bad times, for the best day of anyone else’s.I owe that satisfaction to the love of my family. No man ever had a more loving wife or children he was prouder of than I am of mine. And I owe it to America. To be connected to America’s causes – liberty, equal justice, respect for the dignity of all people – brings happiness more sublime than life’s fleeting pleasures. Our identities and sense of worth are not circumscribed but enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.‘Fellow Americans’ – that association has meant more to me than any other. I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world. We have helped liberate more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. We have acquired great wealth and power in the process.
We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.
We are three-hundred-and-twenty-five million opinionated, vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country we will get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before. We always do.
Ten years ago, I had the privilege to concede defeat in the election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with the heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully that evening.
I feel it powerfully still.
Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.
Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you, and God bless America.
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Trump has no class
@bmul: We have helped liberate more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. We have acquired great wealth and power in the process…….
I have no doubt that McCain sincerely held his beliefs in American Execptionalism but I also have no doubt he was wrong.
Its touching that in McCains final words he speaks about the power of the family, his wife, kids, etc, but also sad that McCain and the policies he supported resulted in millions of families getting torn apart and blown to smithereens on the sands of Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq, etc.
The people of Libya and Iraq wont shed any tears for lockheed martins best sales rep.
McCain was a Warhawk of the highest magnitude, it is sickening the way mainstream media are whitewashing his calls for war, meetings with the leader of ISIS, meetings with “rebels” in other countries, including the Ukraine before it all kicked off, where ever you saw McCain turn up, a war was likely to follow,
This is a map from 2013 of the many countries where unrepentant warmonger John McCain had called for US military intervention:
- Syria
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Libya
- Kosovo
- Nigeria
- Bosnia
- North Korea
- Iran
- Russia
- Sudan
- Mali
- China
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/john-mccain-world-attack-map-syria/
@Pixie McMullen: Have you new evidence of McCain meeting the leader of ISIS? That’s been widely debunked. Feel free to have any opinion on him that you wish, but outright lies don’t help and ultimately undermine your credibility.
@Pixie McMullen: could never see myself being in full agreement with you but you’re right on the money here.” warhawk of the highest magnitude” about sums up McCain’s foreign policy ambitions.I don’t like to talk negatively about the recently departed but this guy was no Gandi.
@Frank Dubogovik: And yet, McCain and his ilk are the bridge between the murdering republican party and the murdering democratic party. Go figure.
@Cal Mooney: so very true
@Pixie McMullen: I think we can all agree that genocide warranted intervention in one or two of those places but on the whole he did want American intervention in nearly any conflict
@Dave O Keeffe: in Kosovo he actually sided with genocidal jihadists KLA.
@Dave O Keeffe: I’m afraid I don’t agree. America is responsible for far more deaths than any so called genocides. By your point Its actions are akin to killing the patient to stop the disease as was so succinctly put by the marines in Vietnam who wiped out villages to “save them”. It’s also the country that supplies more arms than any other which must be somewhat helpful to those that are in the mood for genocide.
@Clifford Brennan: Don’t know about McCain meeting Isis, but he was 100pc a warmongering a..hole that killed and impoverished millions and now the MSM wants to make a saint of him for some reason, whitewash his horrendous crimes against humanity.
Whilst John McCain may well be remembered for his political bipartisanship but I cannot imagine many peoples around the world can feel too much sorrow in his passing. Even in his final words his resounding sense of blind nationalism must be a reminder to us all that American exceptionalism is and always has been a scourge to the rest of the peoples of this world. He and his fellow Americans may delude themselves into believing they have freed millions from tyranny around the world but in truth nearly all of us are subject to the tyranny of the “greatest country in the world” by its coercion, manipulation, lies and hypocrisy all backed by brute “patriotic” force. God bless the rest of the world.
@Ivan Connolly: exactly right. Well said. Most Americans believe they are always the good guys. No matter what the situation they are
@Colin O’Sullivan: ..oops..
No matter what the situation they convince themselves they are right under God, country or whatever justification suits
@Martin Quinn: of course it was to his own people. That’s the point. When the “best man in the senate” is telling Americans they are the best in the world and the country that brings democracy and freedom to the rest of the world what hope is there. He was as convinced of their exceptionalism as any of them and that is what convinces them that they are entitled to go around doing as they wish to whom they wish. A rogue state of ever there was
Trump has all the hallmark’s of a fella having trouble with the Missus and taken it out on everyone else.
‘McCain has take shot at Trumps policies in farwell letter’. Ya, I’ve read it and didn’t see any such thing. A lot of waffle alright about how the US are so great and that we should all be thankful for their bombing campaigns.
@Luke Sharpish: When you read a title like that it just puts you off reading the article…..
Has take a shot
@joeyhem: nearly every article has the most basic errors in them. Very amateurish.
Amazing the number of faux-Irish names supporting Trump’s agenda to belittle McCain and blame him for a generation of military misadventure despite his willingness to put himself directly in harm’s way on the front line for his country in conflict; avoided of course by silver-spoon Trump due to his ‘bone spurs’ and cowardice on multiple occasions.
McCain was never President, nor was he tall or obese, but he’ll ever be remembered as a far larger man than Trump.
Just watched a documentary on Vietnam on Netflix, those helicopters on the Saigon rooftops looked a lot like quitting to me. Life and death are all a matter of one’s own perspective it seems….
@Irish Names: dead right, one of the U.S.’s greatest embarrassments. Operation Orange should be spoken of on in the same parameters as the holocaust. Chemicals to kill innocent civilians. Same bracket.
@Hellenize Dublin: Operation Orange was justified based on the belief that slaughtering millions of civilians was bound to catch a few militants. Some countries including the US still carry on that approach without fear of a measurable backlash.
@Cal Mooney: And anyone attacking them in response is classified as a terrorist.
@Hellenize Dublin:
I think you’re getting agent orange mixed up with napalm.
@lochinvar56: causing deaths of who knows how many innocent people from cancer including their own soldiers as well a still causing thousands of deformities in children today. Hardly worth mentioning the local environment either. Think they like to call it chemical warfare now when other countries do it.
@Ivan Connolly:
That was the end result for many (including their own as you rightly point out) but the intention of spraying agent orange was to defoliate trees, not to cause death by cancer in the civilian population.
So McCain is a hero now to the lefties. Total hypocrisy.
They had nothing good to say about him in 2008.
@Joseph Caulfield: The Democrats and Republicans are all one when it comes to spreading violent death and government overthrowing. Sorry, i meant Freedom and Democracy. Those vested intetests arent going to make any money if peace breaks out.
@Joseph Caulfield: actually I had great respect for him in 2008. Especially when he frequently did this https://youtu.be/jrnRU3ocIH4 PS you look good in that wig in the second clip.
@Joseph Caulfield: you do realise most sane people are centre and not lefties right?? you bloody americans are a disgrace when it comes to intelligence.
@Dave O Keeffe: Me too. Even prior to 2008. I was living in an Irish area in the Bronx and he was VERY supportive of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform. He changed his tune when running for President.
He was an old school Republican. Well he was, he has to move very right to even get the 2008 nomination. I sometimes wonder did he regret selling out like he did.
Personally, I cannot see US intervention , directly & indirectly, in so many conflicts since WW2, as anything other than militarist capitalism let loose on relatively weaker states, creating great wealth for armaments business, & widespread misery for victim populations. The examples are many, including Palestine, where they give unfettered support for the Israeli subjugation of the native population, subversive activity & invasion in South America, Chemical & pattern bombing throughout Cambodia , Laos & Vietnam, war in Afghanistan across generations , the objective of which seems to have been lost.
No point in blaming the late Mr. Mc Cain, for that is the American way to enforce their foreign policy, Wyatt Earp style on a worldwide scale. Only Russia & China can limit their rampage.
Watch out the Russian trumpian bots are out in force today. All over the place. Usual stuff warhawk etc etc same crap for any trump opposition. Easily detected and ignored
Trump is a child…. Wait, that’s an insult to children.
Look into “Keating Five” and then tell me what a good guy John McCain was.:
John McCain voted yes for NAFTA.
And one of John McCains great grandfarthers was from Antrim Hugh McCain, Sr 1729 then before that various grandfarthers from Londonderry than even earlier William McKean 1615 from Argyleshire Scotland one of his earlier great grandfarthers funny really Donalds Trumps mum was from Scotland the roots of this disagreement between John McCain and Donald Trump can be traced back to Scotland just a bit of history
Another evil hypocrite gone to meet his maker.
Not a fan of Trump but on this occasion I salute him. McCain was a warmongering a..hole that killed and impoverished millions and now the MSM wants to make a saint of him for some reason, whitewash his horrendous crimes against humanity. They didn’t like eachother anyway, McCain said he didn’t want Trump at his funeral (as far as I’m aware) so why should Trump praise this guy?! Now can we get back to REAL issues that affect us all, not frivolous ones like Trump and his bad manners.
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