Who is Senator John McCain: The man who left encouraging messages for Bosnia

Who is John McCain, the US senator who visited BiH and sent messages that were received extremely positively by the public here?

Senator McCain is the Chairman of the Committee on Armed Services. 

McCain's family members were renowned naval officers for several generations. John's grandfather and father were US Navy admirals. McCain was a pilot in the Vietnam War. His plane was shot down in 1967, and he was captured with severe injuries. He spent six years in captivity and, according to witnesses, he behaved particularly bravely even when subjected to constant torture. The fact that in 1968 he refused a North Vietnamese offer of early release because it would have meant leaving behind some of his fellow prisoners who had been in captivity longer than him speaks to what a special individual he was. He was released in 1973, only after the Paris Peace Accords.     

After that, he left the army and in 1982 entered politics, joining the Republicans. He was elected to the US Congress representing Arizona that same year. Since 1986, he has been elected to the Senate.    

He was a candidate for president in 2008, but on the other side was Barack Obama, who enjoyed the highest possible popularity at the time. 

He is an extremely respected figure on the American political scene. McCain's role in stopping the war against Bosnia and Herzegovina is also well-known. American demands for military strikes on artillery around cities were always blocked by British policy. This continued until 1995, when Britain stood alone in its views, even against European countries.

At the request of the renowned Senator Bob Dole to launch the "Lift and Strike" operation, specifically to lift the arms embargo and strike Serbian artillery positions, British policy consistently refused.

John McCain himself was skeptical about US military intervention at the beginning of the war. However, in early 1993, when images of civilian killings in cities appeared on television screens, he began to directly advocate for active US participation in resolving the Bosnian tragedy. Senator McCain openly criticized Europeans for passively observing the Bosnian slaughter.      

British Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind was particularly persistent in rejecting American demands for a solution to Bosnia's agony. At one point, he told Bob Dole: "You Americans do not know the horrors of war." Unfortunately, he said that to a man who had lost an arm in the war. Such tones from Rifkind could not pass with John McCain. During one negotiation between the American and British teams regarding the tragedy of Bosnia, things almost came to a boiling point. The renowned publicist Brendan Simms, in his book "The Most Shameful Moment," quotes a team member saying, "it looked like an exasperated John McCain was going to hit Rifkind.".

Richard Holbrooke, in his memoirs, states that McCain's "courage and integrity are unsurpassed in the Senate." After all, Senator McCain has been decorated multiple times for his bravery.