I’m not an expert on Adolf Hitler but it is my understanding that he refrained from using alcohol and tobacco, and was a strict vegetarian. That didn’t prevent him from destroying his health by use of various medications, but it does indicate that he may have been somewhat health conscious. I’m not sure what Hitler knew about the deleterious effects of tobacco, but I can imagine him encouraging Jews to smoke more as a cost-effective way of exterminating them. Even more, I can imagine him joking about such a concept. Hitler was a rotten person, and dehumanizing humor was probably about the only humor he truly enjoyed. With that in mind, I want you to watch John McCain’s response to learning today that American exports to Iran have gone up significantly during the Bush years, and that tobacco is one of our main exports that Iran is receiving.
For those of you that can’t run video, McCain’s response to learning that we ship a lot of tobacco to Iran was:
“Maybe that is a way of killing them.”
McCain followed that up immediately by saying that his response was ‘obviously a joke’. But it’s not a joke. It wasn’t a joke when he said, “I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.” And it isn’t a joke when he kids about ‘killing’ Iranians as a matter of official U.S. policy.
John McCain should appreciate that the Iranians have the capacity to kill American soldiers in Iraq since he accuses them of doing just that all the time. You want to give them an incentive to kill our soldiers? Keep cracking lame jokes about killing Iranians with our tobacco products.
This is a recurring theme with McCain, who famously joked about bombing Iran.
At a town hall meeting in South Carolina Wednesday, Arizona Sen. John McCain was asked if there is a plan to attack Iran. McCain began his answer by changing the words to a classic Beach Boys’ song.
“You know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?” the Republican presidential candidate said. Then, he sang. “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.”
His campaign’s defense was pathetic.
“The senator was adding levity to the discussion and the crowd reacted with laughter,” campaign spokesman Kevin McLaughlin said. “He went on to discuss the seriousness of issue.”
This isn’t a matter of whether someone has a sense of humor or not. These jokes aren’t funny. Whatever laughter they produce is strictly of the ‘uneasy’ or ‘awkward’ variety. In no universe is it appropriate to describe discussion of the bombing of foreign nations as ‘levity’. That even applies to countries with which we are actually at war. But we aren’t at war with Iran. This isn’t some bombardier’s jocularity we are talking about. This is just plain immorality masked as something unserious.
John McCain is harming our foreign relations with not only Iran but the entire international community. He’s actively endangering our troops. And he’s not making anyone other than a few egregious morons and assholes laugh with these jokes.
Dehumanizing ordinary Iranians in this way is a precursor to making war on them. It’s exterminationist talk. Maybe Hitler would understand. I don’t.
