Although now back in the cozy confines of America's grossly overheated electoral climate, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain landed in the always strife-torn Middle East for a crucial "fact-finding mission" last week. As the senior GOP statesman on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the presidential hopeful spearheaded the venture and, naturally, claimed most of the limelight. But, likely in order to couch the trip as official Congressional business, he was accompanied by fellow committee members, Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C).
While the media assailed McCain's explicit denial that this trot around the world (with two of his most ardent political supporters nonetheless) was intended to bolster his already hawkish international image and used as a campaigning opportunity, it clearly was politically expedient, as everything is in these "harrowing" months of electioneering. But there is a more fundamental and necessary question that must be asked: why is anyone in the wider American political machine traveling on a fact-finding mission to, pardon the laughter, Israel/Palestine and Iraq with stopovers in Britain and France?
Are there any areas on the planet that U.S. politicos should, or do, know more about than these four locales? Exactly what unknown "facts" were McCain and his cronies learning at the taxpayers' expense, relating to either the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the American-unleashed civil strife in Iraq? And what is left in Britain and France-the most traditional of American allies-that still perplexes the Congressional mind after Dan Brown revealed the secrets of the glass pyramid outside the Louvre? Sure, fact-finding missions are likely vital to understanding relatively nascent conflicts and probably served the international community well in 1948 when Israel was conceived at the Palestinian expense as many did not understand the complex peculiars of either the theoretical situation or that on the ground.
2008 Woodie Awards
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