Bloviating away about how horrible it is that the Department of Homeland Security could EVER, EVER dare to consider the possibility that a returning veteran could be a criminal, or be affiliated with a white power group.
"The last people on earth we need to worry about are our veterans," McCain said. "And by the
way, after the Vietnam War, for years there was this portrayal of the Vietnam veteran as crazed and committing — having committed war crimes. There were all of these problems they were going to have. Studies years later have proven that it's totally false."
And I imagine what you're saying: you're saying that how can we ignore the fact that veterans could be affiliated with white power groups when there's Timothy McVeigh out there? McCain has an answer:
"Timothy McVeigh didn't learn to make that huge bomb while he was in the military," McCain said. "He learned it afterwards.
Oh, well that explains it. He wasn't dangerous and a veteran, he was dangerous AFTER he was a veteran.
This is complete pandering bullshit, and patently false.
Decades of studies on the problems of Vietnam veterans have established links between combat trauma and higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, gun ownership, child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse — and criminality.
So there's a solution here: treat veterans for Post-traumatic stress disorder, help them get counseling, and ensure that they get jobs and respect for serving our nation. Or we could just stick our fingers in our ears and declare there's absolutely no problem.
Claiming invincibility for veterans is an enormous disservice to them: it flatly denies that they could have real problems, and subsitutes right wing militarist fantasy for protecting our soldiers, or nation, and our humanity.
McCain's statements were published here, at the CNN Political ticker.