John McCain Thinks We Should “Crater The Runways” In Syria

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – But a no-fly zone is an act of war.  He said “crater their runaways.”  You start bombing people’s runways, that’s an act of war.  The Congress has to authorize.  That’s what pisses me off about this.  You have this guy droning on about destroying infrastructure in a country that we’re not in a declared war with.  Under whose authority do you bomb and crater their runways?  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

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Senator John McCain: We need to have a game changing action, and that is no American boots on the ground, establish a safe zone, and to protect it and to supply weapons to the right people . . . I also hope the chairman and the joint chiefs of staff who has testified repeatedly, these air defenses that these Syrians have are so tough and we would have . . . the Israelis seem to be able to penetrate it fairly easily. The fact is, we are capable of taking out their air on the ground with cruise missiles, cratering their runways where all of these supplies, by the way, from Iran and Russia [Mike: Cratering their runways?] coming in by air . . .

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Mike:  I haven’t asked AG what he thinks about these latest developments here in Syria.  It seems like the president, Andrew, is still playing, still stiff arming the war hawk crowd on this.  [mocking] “Nope, not gonna go in there. Nope, you’re not getting me in Benghazi again.  It’s not our fight.  We need to stay out.”  Is that your view of it as well, that Obama is not going to pull the trigger?

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AG:  It’s interesting that you pretty much have unanimous consent across the board for no boots on the ground.  In that sense, if this was ten years ago, would we have that same kind of unanimous agreement that we don’t want U.S. troops there physically?  I’m not sure about that.  In that sense, is that a positive development in terms of the recognition of being war weary?  McCain has said it: the American public is war weary.  I’m not as concerned if we have, at the moment, an agreement that U.S. troops will not be there physically.  I would be naïve to say that couldn’t change if we started a no-fly zone and it wasn’t working out as idealistically as we had hoped.

Mike:  But a no-fly zone is an act of war.  He said “crater their runaways.”  You start bombing people’s runways, that’s an act of war.  The Congress has to authorize.  That’s what pisses me off about this.  You have this guy droning on about destroying infrastructure in a country that we’re not in a declared war with.  Under whose authority do you bomb and crater their runways?

AG:  I am torn a little bit with the idea that having — it’s not to say that the rebels being in charge of the chemical weapons depot is any better, but I think it is a concern to have Assad with chemical weapons in that area just because you’re not sure what he’s going to do and who his friends are at the current time and where those weapons could go.  I think what Israel is doing is completely fine.  If they feel there is a concern for their future and the safety of their people in the future because Assad is, by most accounts, starting to use these chemical weapons so they want to go in there and bomb these depots, that makes sense.

Mike:  They live nearby.  They actually have a vested interest.

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AG:  I guess I’m not as torn up over the decision, if the U.S. were to go in there and bomb the chemical weapons depots.  I can see the problems that you can start to have.  If he is gassing his own people, I don’t know.

Mike:  Should the Canadians come in here and bomb our chemical weapons depots?  We’ve got them.  Hell, we’ve got nuclear weapon depots.

AG:  If the Obama administration were deciding: Texas is acting up; we’re going to use chemical weapons on the people of Texas, I would think there would be international —

Mike:  I think international outrage and disapprobation is just fine.  If you’re going to start talking about cratering people’s runways — play the “crater the runway” clip again, would you?  You better declare — that is an act of war.  You just brought Texas up.  If the Syrians cratered the runway, as McCain said, at Love Field in Dallas, what would our reaction be?  It’s an act of war!

AG:  But if they were doing it because the administration powering the U.S. was gassing the people of Texas —

Mike:  It doesn’t matter.  It’s still an act of war.

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AG:  But if the weapons were being — all right, if the weapons were being held in Oklahoma and the administration was ferreting those weapons to then gas the people of Texas because there was an uprising over whatever issue there is, I would expect — it’s not an apples to apples analogy just because of the size and strength of the U.S. military.  As we’ve talked about, simply military spending in the U.S. is so out of proportion as compared to the rest of the world.  So maybe no one else would do anything.  I think it would work across the board in other regions of the globe if an administration, a prime minister or king or whatever kind of hierarchy that the government in power decided to gas a portion of their citizenry —

Mike:  Let’s talk apples and apples.  Syria is about the size of New Hampshire.  Can you imagine a scenario under which New Hampshire preemptively craters runways in Syria?  My answer to that is no.

End Mike Church Show Transcript