If you heard that an aircraft had crashed you wouldn’t say ‘must have been a pretty awful steward’, would you?
If you heard that a ship had sunk you wouldn’t say ‘that cabin crew must have been a bunch of real drongos’, would you?
Of course not.
Because in both instances you’d actually want to know the circumstances that led up to each event before you offered your opinion.
You’d also want to know the detail of each event and, for the sake of having a total picture, you’d want to know what happened in the aftermath.
Because anyone who did say these things, without knowing the full events that led up to and the detail of each event would be… what?
An ignorant c*nt?
So when someone says, of a former military serviceman:
‘John McCain may have been a POW but all that means is he wasn’t a very good soldier’ we clearly are dealing with someone far worse than an ignorant c*nt.
We are dealing with a human being whose opinion is flawed, whose decision-making is malfunctioning, whose ability to seek and determine the truth completely failed to get out of bed that day. And perhaps on many, many other days.
We have a human being whose level of personal ignorance is way up there, amongst the best and most ignorant people we’ve ever produced on this planet.
Paul Parkinson aka Parky London, producer of the This Week in London podcast… stand up and take a bow, you’ve earned it. And on your way to the podium to collect your Uber-c*nt award, please feel free to tell us when you pulled on a uniform, when you saw action, when you faced enemy fire on three fronts?
I’d like to know, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
B.
There are so many things to say about McCain’s politics that I fail to understand why his opponents can’t stop bitching about pointless things like his age or his being a POW.
(And I do not know anything about wars but I don’t believe that being made prisoner has anything to do with being a bad soldier. It certainly has something to do with being a soldier, though — I would imagine being one dramatically increases your chances of being a POW.)
If we are to engage in a civilised conversation about this (and I’d like to) I’d really like you to withdraw the “c*nt” comment as I find THAT offensive in the extreme.
As for the Tweet I accept you could read more into it than was intended. I am not slagging off servicemen (or women) in any way shape or form. They all have my respect and admiration for the work they do. Difficult and dangerous – they are all heroes in my book.
My problem is with McCain who will, most likely, take America further on from where it is now and not take the opportunity to learn from the mistakes GWB has made and step back from the brink. McCain scares me.
I will delete the Tweet if you delete this post.
Paul, I think you just don’t get it. You just don’t get the seriousness or the offensiveness of your ignorant rant.
I lost a colleague in Cyprus to flanking fire when the Turks pushed through the UN DMZ and started shelling the Sovereign Base as we were airlifting civilians out in unarmed and un-armoured C130s. I nearly lost another colleague in Africa when, as part of the UN, we were outflanked by the African forces who were supposed to be giving us covering fire but who had done a deal with a local warlord.
In addition I have lost friends and colleagues in Belize, The Falklands, Iraq I, Bosnia and Iraq II.
Name calling is sticks and stones, nothing more – and that is what I have done.
But what you have done is to slur the memory of every single serviceman and servicewoman who has ever been unfortunate enough to be taken as a POW. Your mealy mouthed attempt to wriggle on the hook cannot deflect the truth of the words you have uttered.
If I reproduced your words in any of the Armed Forces bulletin boards you would know what name calling really is.
Your abject lack of any kind of an apology gives the game away – that is what underlines the breadth of your insincerity.
Asterisk or no you calling me a cunt warrants an apology. I have already deleted the Tweet.
You want an apology? Okay. I’m sorry.
Calling him a cunt is ok. I mean if it looks like a cunt and it smells like a cunt it’s a cunt. You’ve just hung a label on it, that’s all. Good for you. And anyway you didn’t use that word. The first person who did was him! What a tosser.
His crude and dishonest attempt to back away from the cretinous thing he said just shows this guy for the mouthy little worm he is. More power to your elbow. No body can say that being taken POW (and all the horrible things that usually happen afterwards) is because someone is a poor soldier. Bastard!
im the last person who will ever hero worship the armed forces but even i find parkinson’s comment offensive. thats like saying people who drown after ferries sink ‘well cant have been very good swimmers’.
any person unfortunate to have been captured as a POW and lived to tell the tale has probably sacrificed alot more ‘for their country – cos the yanks are big on that) than the ones who had the good luck to get away.
and i dont even like mcain.
What I don’t understand is why Mr. Parkinson feels the need to insult John McCain as a solider and make a glib remark about his fighting skills when it is his politics that he is opposed to. I don’t see how the two link.
And there… out of the mouth of a babe is the simple inescapable logic of reason. Well done Amy.
An old Greek said: “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”
Parkinson has supplied adequate evidence thereof.
bulldog – what a fantastic analogy.
by the way – mcain was actually a US Navy pilot, shot down over vietnam by and anit aircraft missile – post capture on the gorund by the north vietnamese he went on to be a figurehead and leader for all the captured us airmen in the hannoi hilton which i think resulted in his prolonged detention there. so in short – yeh he was a rubbish solider.
Tan,
You hit the nail on the head. He was a sailor, not a soldier, I guess too fine a distinction for a guy trying to be a smartass over someone else’s misfortune. BTW, he was a prisoner 5 1/2 years, and refused to be released at least once because others would be left behind.
bulldog – i’m not republican but thats a pretty admirable thing to do and giving up something of yourself for the preservation of others is a quality we are often left wishing for in politicians. that parky bloe is just an ignorant prat.