By Ben Barrack

Like French General Philippe Pétain in World War I, John McCain has seen war up close. Also like Pétain, McCain was largely considered a war hero, though for different reasons; McCain had been a POW for several years and was tortured. Pétain was widely regarded as the Lion of Verdun for his outstanding military leadership.

Philippe Petain

In 1940, Pétain was practically called out of retirement, accepting a job as vice premier after being France’s ambassador to Spain. Based on his pedigree, it was thought that Pétain could resurrect some of the magic at Verdun and push back against the rise of the Nazis. When he believed the situation to be hopeless, Pétain sought an armistice. In exchange, he became a figurehead of Vichy, France. Pétain even helped the Nazis by passing anti-Semitic laws and rounded up European Jews who were then deported to concentration camps in Germany.

After World War II, Pétain was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, though his sentence was commuted to life in prison by Charles de Gaulle. Note in this short account of his trial that it was more than Pétain who was put on trial. It was a “way of thinking” that included “indifference to defeat” and a belief that said defeat would lead to an authoritarian state:

So, Pétain was tried for “a way of thinking”.

That leads us to John McCain, a man whose “way of thinking” has always been peculiar but under the Obama administration, it has more closely mirrored that of Pétain, a man who collaborated with the enemy in the latter years of his life.

For the sake of brevity, let’s start with the 2008 Presidential campaign. Since that time, McCain has been on and ever-increasingly downward spiral of collaboration with America’s enemies. The selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate was quite likely an attempt to satiate a vocally conservative base with a political novice McCain’s people thought they could control.

Instead, Palin energized voters far more than McCain did. By her own admission, Palin said she was “banned” from talking about Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers during the campaign. Engaging in these fights was clearly the way to win but McCain’s team didn’t want a way to win because of some “way of thinking”.

Here is John McCain in March of 2008, in which he defended Barack Obama’s affiliation with Wright:

Here is McCain on October 10, 2008, at a town hall, in which he tells legitimately fearful voters, whose concerns have more than borne out, that they have no reason to be scared of a Barack Obama presidency. Though the woman at the end of this clip refers to Obama as an “Arab” while expressing her concern, calling Obama a Muslim would have been quite prescient based on what we’ve seen. McCain dismissed the concerns of both people in this clip. As such, he was very wrong in his “way of thinking”:

In April of 2011, McCain paid a visit to Benghazi and gushed over the Muslim Brotherhood rebels there. At the very beginning of the clip, you can see Ambassador Christopher Stevens trailing McCain. At the end, you can see Stevens over McCain’s shoulder:

When the Qadaffi Regime fell in August of that year, McCain issued a joint press release with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in which they praised the fall of the regime but also said:

“Ultimately, our intervention in Libya will be judged a success or failure based not on the collapse of the Qaddafi regime, but on the political order that emerges in its place.”

In June of 2012, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and four other Congressmen wrote letters to various Inspectors General at five different Departments about their concerns regarding Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. Government. The individual who seemed to garner the most public attention was Huma Abedin, Deputy Chief of Staff to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Abedin’s familial ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are simply irrefutable. Yet, McCain took to the Senate floor and attacked his Republican colleague in the House with a vehement defense of Abedin.

Perhaps key in this speech is McCain’s admission that he had come to know Abedin “over the last decade”.

Shortly before McCain defended Abedin, Mohammed Mursi had been elected president of Egypt. Mursi, whose wife was a colleague of Abedin’s mother as leaders within the Muslim Sisterhood, was a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Less than two months after McCain’s public defense of Abedin and his despicable rebuke of Bachmann, Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans would be murdered in Benghazi.

Two days after that attack in Libya, McCain appeared on Sean Hannity’s television show and came across as being more than just a little defensive. After saying “it’s not clear” that the Muslim Brotherhood would take over in Egypt (despite Mursi’s election), he boasted about Libya’s election of moderates (two days after his “heroes” murdered Stevens):

Hannity was right about the Muslim Brotherhood taking over in Egypt. Despite what McCain didn’t want to admit and what is bearing out, the “moderates” are proving powerless against the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya.

In July of 2013, McCain was among those who were upset with the people of Egypt for amassing in numbers that trumped world history to demand Mursi’s removal. The Egyptian military sided with the people and removed Mursi on July 3rd. McCain was practically apoplectic and adamantly stated that the removal was a coup d’etat that required the end to U.S. aid to Egypt. McCain was siding with Islamists who had been persecuting Christians in a way not all that dissimilar from how French General Philippe Pétain was aiding and abetting the persecution of Jews in World War II.

In the first week of August, 2013, McCain traveled to Egypt to demand the release of imprisoned Muslim Brotherhood leaders:

In May of 2013, McCain traveled to Syria with Mouaz Moustafa and Elizabeth O’Bagy. At the time, Moustafa was the Executive Director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) and O’Bagy was the Political Director. McCain found himself mired in controversy when it was learned that during his trip, he may have posed with a couple of kidnappers.

A couple of weeks after McCain’s visit to Egypt, there was a Chemical weapons attack in Syria. McCain immediately began defending the rebels, calling them “freedom fighters” and insisting that they never had access to such weapons. He did this despite compelling evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood rebels themselves had been behind the attack. Here is McCain on August 27th with Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto:

Here he is with Piers Morgan on August 29th:

On September 3rd, McCain cited the SETF’s Elizabeth O’Bagy as an expert on the Syrian rebels. Since doing so, O’Bagy in particular, and the SETF in general have been exposed in a major way. The scrubbing at the group’s website is the stuff of legend. Since McCain’s outing of O’Bagy, the SETF now boasts a staff of one.

The bottom line is simple. McCain continues to fight for the Muslim Brotherhood based on some “way of thinking” no rational person can understand. It is indeed interesting that the French had a difficult time understanding Pétain’s way of thinking when the French General sided with the Nazis in the name of protecting France.

Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood that McCain is defending today aligned with the Nazis in WWII. Pétain was a traitor and if McCain isn’t one today, he is coming perilously close to becoming one.

The difference between Pétain and McCain is growing smaller by the day.