Satirical news website,The Onion came out with a story this week titled "Family Concerned After John McCain Wanders Into Syria," that now seems painfully close to reality.
Senator John McCain’s office is pushing back against reports that while visiting Syria this week he posed in a photo with rebels who kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shi’ite pilgrims.
The photo, released by McCain’s office, shows McCain with a group of rebels. Among them are two men identified in the Lebanese press as Mohamed Nour and Abu Ibrahim, two of the kidnappers of the group from Lebanon.
A McCain spokesman said that no one who met with McCain identified themselves by either of those names.
“In coordination with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, Senator John McCain traveled to and from Syria with General Salim Idris, the chief of staff of the Supreme Military Council of the Syrian opposition, to meet with two senior Free Syrian Army commanders,” said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers on Wednesday in an email to BuzzFeed. “None of the individuals the Senator planned to meet with was named Mohamad Nour or Abu Ibrahim. A number of other Syrian commanders joined the meeting, but none of them identified himself as Mohamad Nour or Abu Ibrahim.”
It seems that rogue Senator McCain just isn't sure who he met with.
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said that if the man in the photo turns out to actually be Mohamed Nour, that is “regrettable.”
But, McCain is sure that President Obama needs to listen to whoever those people were and get the U.S. militarily involved in Syria by enforcing a no-fly zone and supplying weapons.
