McCain Lobbies For Taiwan Arms Sales After Taiwan Signs Lobbying Contract With His Adviser’s Firm
McCain Lobbies For Taiwan Arms Sales After Taiwan Signs Lobbying Contract With His Adviser’s Firm
The Bush administration is currently in discussions to send $6 billion in arms to Taiwan. Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) sent a letter to President Bush, urging him to “add more submarines and new fighter jets to the package” as Taiwan had requested:
“The package will not include submarines or new F-16 aircraft. I urge the administration to reconsider this decision, in light of its previous commitment to provide submarines and America’s previous sales of F-16s,” McCain said. “These sales — which could translate into tens of thousands of jobs here at home — would help retain America’s edge in the production of advanced weaponry and represent a positive sign in these difficult economic times.”
McCain’s desire to increase arms sales to Taiwan, however, raises questions about yet another conflict of interest involving his chief foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, who previously lobbied for the Taiwanese government. The Washington Post reports:
In 2005, Scheunemann signed the contract between his firm, Orion Strategies LLC, and Taiwan’s Washington office. On June 4 of this year, his partner, Mike Mitchell, signed a renewal of the contract, which calls for quarterly payments of 50,000.
Scheunemann represented Taiwan from 2003 to March at Orion. The LA Times reported that McCain has pushed for pro-Taiwan legislation, as Orion’s lobbying forms cite “bills benefiting Orion’s other foreign clients: Latvia, Macedonia, Romania and Taiwan.”
Scheunemann introduced McCain to a representative of Taiwan as it lobbied for free trade. In all, Scheunemann’s firm has lobbied McCain or his aides on at least 47 occasions since 2001 on behalf of the governments of Taiwan, Macedonia, Romania and Latvia.
Matt Duss notes that Scheunemann has lobbied for Lockheed-Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor, which manufactures the F-16s that McCain is demanding the U.S. give to Taiwan. Scheunemann had also been employed as a lobbyist for Georgia at the same time he was providing foreign policy advice to McCain, lobbying McCain himself nearly 50 times between 2004 and 2007.
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20 Responses to “McCain Lobbies For Taiwan Arms Sales After Taiwan Signs Lobbying Contract With His Adviser’s Firm”
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Oh, THAT's a good idea, McCain - let's just piss off China right before we go asking them for a few hundred billion more dollars...
October 8th, 2008 at 10:52 amAre any of mccain's lobbyist advisors fighting with each other yet by lobbying on opposite sides of the same question? mccain's talk of not having lobbyists running things is, of course, hollow like everything else he says.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:54 amThe problem with the SSK (submarine) promise was and IS that U.S. shipyards (there are only three to speak of) have no experience in conventional submarine construction, let alone modern SSK construction. There was no U.S. conventional submarine (SSK) design since the 50's.
That's also why the USN isn't really prepared against SSKs and had to exercise with a Swedish one for some months to understand SSKs.
The SSK export market has been dominated by Germany (Typ 209, Typ 214), Russia (Kilo class family) and France (marketing the Scorpène class now) since about 30 years.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:57 amSee, what you Libruls don't understand is that this is the genius of McCain. He really is a maverick because he has a strategy to fight the corrupt lobbyist culture of Washington.
Scheunemann and Davis and all the rest being so intertwined with McCain's campaign is simply part of his strategy of nullifying them. After all, you keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? He's just cozying up to all these lobbyists in order to lull the rest of them into a false sense of security until he brings the hammer down.
The hammer comes down when he magically wins the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the (coming) Iran War, fixes the economy, fixes health care, AND lowers taxes on EVERYONE at the exact same time.
SUPER MCCAIN TO THE RESCUE!!!
October 8th, 2008 at 10:57 amAlso - isn't this in violation of stated U.S. foreign policy and the 1982 U.S.-PRC joint communique?
October 8th, 2008 at 11:01 am“These sales — which could translate into tens of thousands of jobs here at home — would help retain America’s edge in the production of advanced weaponry and represent a positive sign in these difficult economic times.”
Firstly an order for, say 40 f-16's and 2 or 4 subs would mean that current job holders would get to keep their jobs, but it wouldn't create any jobs ( as McCain is implying ) or even recover any jobs previously lost.
Nor would such an order actually involve "tens of thousands", not even indirectly.
Secondly at least as far as F-16's go, they are not "advanced weaponry" in the current sense being close to 30 years old now--though they are still very effective planes when fully optioned.
McCain will surely use this exaggeration in his campaign ( just has he claimed that the saved the US billions on the USAF Air Tanker when in fact the contract is being re-written, apparently in Boeing's favor, after EADS/Airbus won the contract partly by default due to Boeing's bribing of the procurement officer. McCain happens to have been given campaign contributions by EADS/AIRBUS.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:04 amAfter Boeing cried "no fair" the whole thing is back to square one, the current USAF tanker fleet is creaking along and absolutely NO money has been saved.
If we elect McCain, we can just look forward to four more years of foreign policy crafted around the needs of political cronies. And we see how well the Halliburton foreign policy has worked so far, haven't we?
The only people McCain knows are lobbyists. They will be the only people his administration will serve.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:06 amJohn McCain is such a Maverick that he doesn't care about stated U.S. foriegn policy!
October 8th, 2008 at 11:06 amSven Ortmann... thanks sven, I wasn't sure about the state of US conventional sub construction, but I was sure I hadn't heard of any diesel-electrics coming out od the US yards for years.
And now of course the new thing is the Air-Independent subs which the US has no expertise in either, nor any advances in electrical propulsion.
In a 'free-market' Taiwan could buy from anyone other than the US, but no doubt the US will try to bully them into buying American.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:11 amHe's admitted access is influence. That he came to Washington to change it and it changed him.
You'd think he wasn't speaking English when tells the country he's corrupt.
McCain being McCain, give 'em a pass!
October 8th, 2008 at 11:24 amGee, no conflict of interest in any of that, huh?
Move along, move along... nothing here to see... look... something shiny!!
October 8th, 2008 at 11:30 amI wish we’d give up on the idea that we should find global hot spots and make sure that they are as militarized as possible. I see why this benefits our domestic military industrial complex, but it feels like insulating around your stove, furnace, and fireplace with dynamite – not a smart way to keep your house at a comfortable temperature.
Taiwan is a VERY sensitive issue to China. That LAST thing we need are more cowboys ‘shooting from the hip’ to help out their crony-friends in the defense industry.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:48 amAwwww, now, isn't that just cozy...?
October 8th, 2008 at 11:54 amSo much for reforming, Mcwars will continue to say and do anything probably after the election too.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:25 pmCorrupt and unprincipled, that's our opportunistic candidate John McCozy.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:27 pmThe "Maverick" and his team in action - Sounds very "Washington politics" to me.
The sad thing is McCain isn't totally bad (he really is bad on economics and the resolution of Iraq situation), but he has been "jello molded" into the republican platform and the far right wingers agendas - he just looks very uncomfortable in it.
His body language in last night's debate was a sure sign (stiff shoulders, looked tired, no eye contact, leaving the debate site without mingling with the audience).
October 8th, 2008 at 12:49 pmThe bush / mccain military industrial complex just goes on and on. And what will be the consequence? McCain may think more jobs, but I might see mainland China asking to for hundreds of billions of dollars that the US owes them in return. Sort of a trade. When republicans up the ante they better have the resources to back themselves up. But bush / mccain have spent all their capitol, remember? Or can they request another bailout from the American taxpayer to build more weapondry to shoot up in smoke? So is now the time to start trade-offs of more military might? As bush loves war so may the whole world if mccain steals the election.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:49 pm.
Divestment of Lobbyist ties begins...
... NEVER?
.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:58 pmThe work would probably be outsourced to China anyway.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:00 pmI'm missing something here. We're kissing up to China who is demanding Taiwan. So if we sell arms to Taiwan but support China, aren't we egging both sides on ?
Sounds like that lobbyist who took money from the Indians only to lobby against them.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:23 pm