John McCain is an American politician, a descendant of people who dedicated their lives in service to their homeland. His grandfather John S. McCain Sr. was a commander of US aircraft carriers in the Pacific during World War II, leading the American forces in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. He survived the war but died four days after the end of the war. His father, John McCain Jr. (1911-1981) was a commander of a submarine. He was decorated with Silver Star and Bronze Star. In 1967, he was promoted to the rank of four-star admiral and was appointed as a commander of the NATO Naval Forces in Europe. McCain himself was born on August 29, 1936 at the military base in Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone.
Sergei Dmitrievich Stanishev is a Bulgarian politician, descendant of active fighters against fascism and capitalism. His father Dimitar Stanishev was a former secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party responsible for international relations. The Bulgarian Communist Party was convicted as a criminal organization in Bulgaria by law in 2000. A paragraph in this law says that the Communist Party came to power with help of a foreign country (USSR) which declared war on Bulgaria and brought the country to a national disaster. According to various paragraph in that law the communist party is responsible for a variety of things ranging from "destroying traditional values of the European civilization" and "the moral and economic decline of the state" to the violation of human rights and freedoms in many ways and obeying the national interests of a foreign state "to degree of practical loss of sovereignty”. There are also allegations against the leaders of Communist Party.
Sergei Stanishev was born on May 5, 1966 in the city of Kherson, Kherson County, Ukrainian Soviet Union. He was a citizen of the Soviet Union and only in 1996 he gave up his Russian citizenship.
McCain graduated from high school in 1954, and entered the Naval Academy. There, he was not one of the best cadets. He had problems with the discipline and each year was given hundreds of penalty points for quarrelling with his superiors and etc. His grades were not excellent. He had good grades only in subjects that were interesting to him like English literature and history. This is the place to ask ourselves what was going to happen if he was Bulgarian and his father was a Bulgarian general. Do you believe that he was going to be punished for anything and he was going to graduate fifth in his class from the bottom up? In Bulgaria he certainly would have received honors and a gold medal as one of the best in his school.
Stanishev graduated 35th high school “Dobri Voinikov” in Sofia. In 1989 he graduated the History Faculty of the Moscow State University with a gold medal with a thesis “The role of the uniform for the morale of the soldiers in the Red Army” although he has never served in any army throughout his life – neither the Bulgarian, nor the Soviet. In 1994 he defended a thesis for the degree Candidate of Sciences (replaced by a Ph.D. in Bulgaria) on the theme "System of advancement of higher civil ranks in Russia and its evolution in the second half of the 19th century." In 1998, he studies political science at the Moscow School of Political Studies and in 1999-2000 - international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he defended the research project "Modern Foreign Policy of Russia”.
Before starting his political career John McCain went a long way. After graduation he entered a school for air pilots.
In 1967, the aircraft carrier Forrestal, where McCain served was sent to join the campaign for the bombing of North Vietnam. Later on McCain joined the crew of the USS Oriskani and until October 1967 he already had 22 combat missions. We should ask ourselves again if there is any contemporary Bulgarian general or senior Bulgarian military official who would send his son to such combat missions that he may never come back alive.
On October 26, 1967 McCain along with 19 aircraft pilots attacked a power plant in Hanoi. McCain's airplane was shot down after he dropped his bombs. He fell into a lake, fracturing both his arms and one leg and he nearly drowned. Around him gathered a crowd, who spat on him, kicked him and took his clothes. His shoulder was crushed with the butt of a rifle and he was stabbed with a bayonet in the left foot and abdomen. Vietnamese captors decided that he would soon die and did not send him to a hospital, but once they understood that his father was an US admiral, they took care of him and announced his capture. During this time his father was appointed a commander of the US forces in Vietnam. Let me ask one more time what was going to happen if it was for the boy of the Bulgarian senior military official. Wasn’t his father going to use all of his political influence and connections to save his son?
In McCain’s case something else happened. Not only didn’t his father use his influence but also when McCain was offered by the Vietnamese to be released, he refused. McCain turned down the offer; he would only accept repatriation if every man taken in before him was released as well. Such early release was prohibited by the POW's interpretation of the military Code of Conduct: To prevent the enemy from using prisoners for propaganda, officers were to agree to be released in the order in which they were captured.
McCain chose to remain a prisoner and then the torture began. He was tied in awkward postures and every two hours was beaten, while suffering from dysentery. His bones were broken again. Torture and pain became unbearable and McCain attempted suicide, but was stopped by the guards. To this day he cannot lift his arms above his head because of the injuries he received. Once one of the guards secretly loosened the ropes that McCain was tied with, and on a Christmas day he stood beside him and drew a cross on the ground with his foot. McCain later told this story as an example of humanity.
Let us assume hypothetically the son of a Bulgarian general was in McCain’s shoes. Was he going to choose torture instead of freedom? Was he going to care for the life of the other prisoners? Was he going to care that he would be dishonored by choosing freedom?
It is not that the Americans are much better than the Bulgarians. The difference is how the elites were formed in these two societies. In the United States it was formed for many centuries in meritocratic environment, whereas in Bulgaria it was imposed by the communists and USSR – an empire hostile to us, by killing and imprisoning the Bulgarian intelligentsia after 1944.
McCain captivity ended as a result of the Paris Peace Agreement. After he returned to the US, many doubted that he could return to flying. But McCain was determined to return and he subjected himself to nine courses of physiotherapy in order to be able to bend his knees again. At the end of 1974 McCain took a physical exam and his certification was renewed. He became commander of a squadron based in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1977, McCain became a liaison officer of the Navy in the US Senate. In 1981 he retired from the army with the rank of captain. He was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Cross of Merit flight.
After his retirement from the army McCain began his political career.
Unlike McCain, Stanishev entered politics immediately after his graduation. The criminal Bulgarian Communist Party continued to exist under a new name - BSP (Bulgarian Socialist Party) and Sergei Stanishev was appointed Chief Expert in "Foreign Policy and International Relations" department of the Supreme Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party from 1996 to 2001.
From then on his job is to be a deputy and a chairman of the BSP. In 2005 he is appointed as a prime minister of Bulgaria. He remained a chairman of the Bulgarian Socialist Party until 27th of June, 2014.
We did not make this comparison to show how nice people are the Americans. People everywhere are the same; the environment is different in which they live. We made this comparison to illustrate the absurdity in we live in. Communism was imposed in Bulgaria, despite the resistance of the people. We were ruled by criminals like Dimitar Stanishev - Sergei Stanishev’s father, guilty of killing and repressing thousands of Bulgarians. These communist leaders were linked to terrorists like Abu Iyad and the terrorist groups like "Black September", whose representatives were living in Bulgaria like they were at home. These same communists orchestrated the transition to market economy after 1989 and handed the power to their sons and daughters, and announced to the world that Bulgaria is a democratic country.
We have known for a long time that in order for someone to succeed in Bulgaria, he or she needs to be connected to the only political party in Bulgaria which was convicted by law or its sinister secret services.
For us Bulgarians al this is understandable, given that we were unofficially the 16th republic of the USSR, and that after the fall of the regime, the power remained in the hands of the same people. However, it is incomprehensible why those people are accepted abroad as worthy politicians. We can’t stop wondering how these people can sit at the same table with people like John McCain, and how they can be considered as equal partners. What do you call people who participated in a criminal organization that was convicted and prohibited by law? Aren’t they called criminals and why only their heirs are allowed to be in the government? Can you imagine the son of Osama bin Laden to be the president of the United States or the son of Hitler to be the chancellor of Germany? Sounds ridiculous right, but in Bulgaria it is real!
Today Sergei Stanishev is not only a Bulgarian politician; he is also a member of the European Parliament and a chairman of the European Socialist Party. Today all of the Bulgarian politicians are connected to the former communist party and its secret services in one way or another.
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