John Kerry's War Record
By Michael Benge
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 13, 2003
As Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, considers a bid for the White
House, Americans should know a few things about him that he might prefer go
unmentioned -- and I don't mean his $75 haircuts.
When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans Day,
a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked away. They
remembered Mr. Kerry as the antiwar activist who testified before Congress during the
war, accusing veterans of being war criminals. The dust jacket of Mr. Kerry's
pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features a photograph of his ragged band of
radicals mocking the US Marine Corps Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising
on Iwo Jima, with an upside-down American flag. Retired Gen. George S. Patton
III charged that Mr. Kerry's action! s as an antiwar activist had "given aid and
comfort to the enemy," as had the actions of Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda.
Also, Mr. Kerry lied when he threw what he claimed were his war medals over the
White House fence; he later admitted they weren't his. Now they are displayed
on his office wall.
Long after he changed sides in congressional hearings, Mr. Kerry lobbied for
renewed trade relations with Hanoi. At the same time, his cousin C. Stewart
Forbes, chief executive for Colliers International, assisted in brokering a $905
million deal to develop a deep-sea port at Vung Tau, Vietnam - an odd
coincidence.
As noted in the Inside Politics column of Nov. 14 (Nation), historian Douglas
Brinkley is writing Mr. Kerry's biography. Hopefully, he'll include the
senator's latest ignominious feat: preventing the Vietnam Human Rights Act (HR2833)
from coming to a vote in the Senate, claiming human rights would
deteriorate as a res! ult. His actions sent a clear signal to Hanoi that
Congress cares little about the human rights for which so many Americans fought and
died.
The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least
tolerant of religious freedom. Recently, 354 churches of the Montagnards, a
Christian ethnic minority, were forcibly disbanded, and by mid-October, more than
50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province alone. On
Oct. 29, the secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection
simply for protesting religious repression. The communists are conducting a
pogrom against the Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture of goat's
blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity. Thousands have been killed or
imprisoned or have just "disappeared." The Montagnards lost one-half of their adult
male population fighting for the United States, and without them, there might
be thousands m ore! American names on that somber black granite wall at the
Vietnam memorial.
As Mr. Kerry contemplates a run for the presidency, people must remember that
he has fought harder for Hanoi as an antiwar activist and a senator than he
did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in Vietnam.
Michael Benge is a Foreign Service officer and a former Vietnam POW (1968 to
1973)
East Texas Cyclone
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Jesus Christ--The reason for the season!
If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a veteran.
If you're certain you know everything, there's little opportunity to learn anything.
He will make clinton look like a "right wing extremist", I believe is the the term they use.
Golly, what are we going to do if he gets elected. we thought ol slick was to far to the left and now this jerk, Man is America in troiuble or what when 1 of the 2 main parties picks someone like this to run.
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THE NRA, WHERE WOULD YOU AS A GUN-OWNER BE WITHOUT THEM.
GUN-OWNERS, UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL.
The Real John Kerry
