Senator Covered Up Evidence of P.O.W.'s Left Behind

http://www.villagevoice.com/ads/popunders/intercept_media.php ^ | February 24th, 2004 | Sydney H. Schanberg

[RickofEssex]

features

Senator Covered Up Evidence of P.O.W.'s Left Behind When John Kerry's Courage Went M.I.A. by Sydney H. Schanberg

Related Articles: "Did America Abandon Vietnam War POWs?" by Sydney H. Schanberg

"Follow the Microfiche"

enator John Kerry, a decorated battle veteran, was courageous as a navy lieutenant in the Vietnam War. But he was not so courageous more than two decades later, when he covered up voluminous evidence that a significant number of live American prisoners—perhaps hundreds—were never acknowledged or returned after the war-ending treaty was signed in January 1973.

The Massachusetts senator, now seeking the presidency, carried out this subterfuge a little over a decade ago— shredding documents, suppressing testimony, and sanitizing the committee's final report—when he was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on P.O.W./ M.I.A. Affairs.

Over the years, an abundance of evidence had come to light that the North Vietnamese, while returning 591 U.S. prisoners of war after the treaty signing, had held back many others as future bargaining chips for the $4 billion or more in war reparations that the Nixon administration had pledged. Hanoi didn't trust Washington to fulfill its pro-mise without pressure. Similarly, Washington didn't trust Hanoi to return all the prisoners and carry out all the treaty provisions. The mistrust on both sides was merited. Hanoi held back prisoners and the U.S. provided no reconstruction funds.

The stated purpose of the special Senate committee—which convened in mid 1991 and concluded in January 1993—was to investigate the evidence about prisoners who were never returned and find out what happened to the missing men. Committee chair Kerry's larger and different goal, though never stated publicly, emerged over time: He wanted to clear a path to normalization of relations with Hanoi. In any other context, that would have been an honorable goal. But getting at the truth of the unaccounted for P.O.W.'s and M.I.A.'s (Missing In Action) was the main obstacle to normalization—and therefore in conflict with his real intent and plan of action.

Kerry denied back then that he disguised his real goal, contending that he supported normalization only as a way to learn more about the missing men. But almost nothing has emerged about these prisoners since diplomatic and economic relations were restored in 1995, and thus it would appear—as most realists expected—that Kerry's explanation was hollow. He has also denied in the past the allegations of a cover-up, either by the Pentagon or himself. Asked for comment on this article, the Kerry campaign sent a quote from the senator: "In the end, I think what we can take pride in is that we put together the most significant, most thorough, most exhaustive accounting for missing and former P.O.W.'s in the history of human warfare."

What was the body of evidence that prisoners were held back? A short list would include more than 1,600 firsthand sightings of live U.S. prisoners; nearly 14,000 secondhand reports; numerous intercepted Communist radio messages from within Vietnam and Laos about American prisoners being moved by their captors from one site to another; a series of satellite photos that continued into the 1990s showing clear prisoner rescue signals carved into the ground in Laos and Vietnam, all labeled inconclusive by the Pentagon; multiple reports about unacknowledged prisoners from North Vietnamese informants working for U.S. intelligence agencies, all ignored or declared unreliable; persistent complaints by senior U.S. intelligence officials (some of them made publicly) that live-prisoner evidence was being suppressed; and clear proof that the Pentagon and other keepers of the "secret" destroyed a variety of files over the years to keep the P.O.W./M.I.A. families and the public from finding out and possibly setting off a major public outcry.

The resignation of Colonel Millard Peck in 1991, the first year of the Kerry committee's tenure, was one of many vivid landmarks in this saga's history. Peck had been the head of the Pentagon's P.O.W./M.I.A. office for only eight months when he resigned in disgust. In his damning departure statement, he wrote: "The mind-set to 'debunk' is alive and well. It is held at all levels . . . Practically all analysis is directed to finding fault with the source. Rarely has there been any effective, active follow-through on any of the sightings . . . The sad fact is that . . . a cover-up may be in progress. The entire charade does not appear to be an honest effort and may never have been."

Finally, Peck said: "From what I have witnessed, it appears that any soldier left in Vietnam, even inadvertently, was in fact abandoned years ago, and that the farce that is being played is no more than political legerdemain done with 'smoke and mirrors' to stall the issue until it dies a natural death."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What did Kerry do in furtherance of the cover-up? An overview would include the following: He allied himself with those carrying it out by treating the Pentagon and other prisoner debunkers as partners in the investigation instead of the targets they were supposed to be. In short, he did their bidding. When Defense Department officials were coming to testify, Kerry would have his staff director, Frances Zwenig, meet with them to "script" the hearings—as detailed in an internal Zwenig memo leaked by others. Zwenig also advised North Vietnamese officials on how to state their case. Further, Kerry never pushed or put up a fight to get key government documents unclassified; he just rolled over, no matter how obvious it was that the documents contained confirming data about prisoners. Moreover, after promising to turn over all committee records to the National Archives when the panel concluded its work, the senator destroyed crucial intelligence information the staff had gathered—to to keep the documents from becoming public. He refused to subpoena past presidents and other key witnesses.

When revelatory sworn testimony was given to the committee by President Reagan's national security adviser, Richard Allen—about a credible proposal from Hanoi in 1981 to return more than 50 prisoners for a $4 billion ransom—Kerry had that testimony taken in a closed door interview, not a public hearing. But word leaked out and a few weeks later, Allen sent a letter to the committee, not under oath, recanting his testimony, saying his memory had played tricks on him. Kerry never did any probe into Allen's original, detailed account, and instead accepted his recantation as gospel truth.

A Secret Service agent then working at the White House, John Syphrit, told committee staffers he had overheard part of a conversation about the Hanoi proposal for ransom. He said he was willing to testify but feared reprisal from his Treasury Department superiors and would need to be subpoenaed so that his appearance could not be regarded as voluntary. Kerry refused to subpoena him. Syphrit told me that four men were involved in that conversation—Reagan, Allen, Vice President George H.W. Bush, and CIA director William Casey. I wrote the story for Newsday.

The final Kerry report brushed off the entire episode like unsightly dust. It said: "The committee found no credible evidence of any such [ransom] offer being made."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A newcomer to this subject matter might reasonably ask why there was no great public outrage, no sustained headlines, no national demand for investigations, no penalties imposed on those who had hidden, and were still hiding, the truth. The simple, overarching explanation was that most Americans wanted to put Vietnam behind them as fast as possible. They wanted to forget this failed war, not deal with its truths or consequences. The press suffered from the same ostrich syndrome; no major media organization ever carried out an in-depth investigation by a reporting team into the prisoner issue. When prisoner stories did get into the press, they would have a one-day life span, never to be followed up on. When three secretaries of defense from the Vietnam era—James Schlesinger, Melvin Laird, and Elliot Richardson—testified before the Kerry committee, under oath, that intelligence they received at the time convinced them that numbers of unacknowledged prisoners were being held by the Communists, the story was reported by the press just that once and then dropped. The New York Times put the story on page one but never pursued it further to explore the obvious ramifications.

At that public hearing on September 21, 1992, toward the end of Schlesinger's testimony, the former defense secretary, who earlier had been CIA chief, was asked a simple question: "In your view, did we leave men behind?"

He replied: "I think that as of now, I can come to no other conclusion."

He was asked to explain why Nixon would have accepted leaving men behind. He said: "One must assume that we had concluded that the bargaining position of the United States . . . was quite weak. We were anxious to get our troops out and we were not going to roil the waters . . . "

Another example of a story not pursued occurred at the Paris peace talks. The North Vietnamese failed to provide a list of the prisoners until the treaty was signed. Afterward, when they turned over the list, U.S. intelligence officials were taken aback by how many believed prisoners were not included. The Vietnamese were returning only nine men from Laos. American records showed that more than 300 were probably being held. A story about this stunning gap, by New York Times Pentagon reporter John W. Finney, appeared on the paper's front page on February 2, 1973. The story said: "Officials emphasized that the United States would be seeking clarification . . . " No meaningful explanation was ever provided by the Vietnamese or by the Laotian Communist guerrillas, the Pathet Lao, who were satellites of Hanoi.

As a bombshell story for the media, particularly the Washington press corps, it was there for the taking. But there were no takers.

I was drawn to the P.O.W. issue because of my reporting years for The New York Times during the Vietnam War, where I came to believe that our soldiers were being misled and disserved by our government. After the war, military people who knew me and others who knew my work brought me information about live sightings of P.O.W.'s still in captivity and other evidence about their existence. When the Kerry committee was announced (I was by then a columnist at Newsday), I thought the senator—having himself become disillusioned about the Vietnam War, and eventually an advocate against it—might really be committed to digging out the truth. This was wishful thinking.

In the committee's early days, Kerry had given encouraging indications of being a committed investigator. He said he had "leads" to the existence of P.O.W.'s still in captivity. He said the number of these likely survivors was more than 100 and that this was the minimum. But in a very short time, he stopped saying such things and morphed his role into one of full alliance with the executive branch, the Pentagon, and other Washington hierarchies, joining their long-running effort to obscure and deny that a significant number of live American prisoners had not been returned. As many as 700 withheld P.O.W.'s were cited in credible intelligence documents, including a speech by a senior North Vietnamese general that was discovered in Soviet archives by an American scholar.

Here are details of a few of the specific steps Kerry took to hide evidence about these P.O.W.'s.

He gave orders to his committee staff to shred crucial intelligence documents. The shredding stopped only when some intelligence staffers staged a protest. Some wrote internal memos calling for a criminal investigation. One such memo—from John F. McCreary, a lawyer and staff intelligence analyst—reported that the committee's chief counsel, J. William Codinha, a longtime Kerry friend, "ridiculed the staff members" and said, "Who's the injured party?" When staffers cited "the 2,494 families of the unaccounted-for U.S. servicemen, among others," the McCreary memo continued, Codinha said: "Who's going to tell them? It's classified."

Kerry defended the shredding by saying the documents weren't originals, only copies—but the staff's fear was that with the destruction of the copies, the information would never get into the public domain, which it didn't. Kerry had promised the staff that all documents acquired and prepared by the committee would be turned over to the National Archives at the committee's expiration. This didn't happen. Both the staff and independent researchers reported that many critical documents were withheld.

Another protest memo from the staff reported: "An internal Department of Defense Memorandum identifies Frances Zwenig [Kerry's staff director] as the conduit to the Department of Defense for the acquisition of sensitive and restricted information from this Committee . . . lines of investigation have been seriously compromised by leaks" to the Pentagon and "other agencies of the executive branch." It also said the Zwenig leaks were "endangering the lives and livelihood of two witnesses."

A number of staffers became increasingly upset about Kerry's close relationship with the Department of Defense, which was supposed to be under examination. (Dick Cheney was then defense secretary.) It had become clear that Kerry, Zwenig, and others close to the chairman, such as Senator John McCain of Arizona, a dominant committee member, had gotten cozy with the officials and agencies supposedly being probed for obscuring P.O.W. information over the years. Committee hearings, for example, were being orchestrated to suit the examinees, who were receiving lists of potential questions in advance. Another internal memo from the period, by a staffer who requested anonymity, said: "Speaking for the other investigators, I can say we are sick and tired of this investigation being controlled by those we are supposedly investigating."

The Kerry investigative technique was equally soft in many other critical ways. He rejected all suggestions that the committee require former presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush to testify. All were in the Oval Office during the Vietnam era and its aftermath. They had information critical to the committee, for each president was carefully and regularly briefed by his national security adviser and others about P.O.W. developments. It was a huge issue at that time.

Kerry also refused to subpoena the Nixon office tapes (yes, the Watergate tapes) from the early months of 1973 when the P.O.W.'s were an intense subject because of the peace talks and the prisoner return that followed. (Nixon had rejected committee requests to provide the tapes voluntarily.) Information had seeped out for years that during the Paris talks and afterward, Nixon had been briefed in detail by then national security advisor Brent Scowcroft and others about the existence of P.O.W.'s whom Hanoi was not admitting to. Nixon, distracted by Watergate, apparently decided it was crucial to get out of the Vietnam mess immediately, even if it cost those lives. Maybe he thought there would be other chances down the road to bring these men back. So he approved the peace treaty and on March 29, 1973, the day the last of the 591 acknowledged prisoners were released in Hanoi, Nixon announced on national television: "All of our American P.O.W.'s are on their way home."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Kerry committee's final report, issued in January 1993, delivered the ultimate insult to history. The 1,223-page document said there was "no compelling evidence that proves" there is anyone still in captivity. As for the primary investigative question —what happened to the men left behind in 1973—the report conceded only that there is "evidence . . . that indicates the possibility of survival, at least for a small number" of prisoners 31 years ago, after Hanoi released the 591 P.O.W.'s it had admitted to.

With these word games, the committee report buried the issue—and the men.

The huge document contained no findings about what happened to the supposedly "small number." If they were no longer alive, then how did they die? Were they executed when ransom offers were rejected by Washington?

Kerry now slides past all the radio messages, satellite photos, live sightings, and boxes of intelligence documents—all the evidence. In his comments for this piece, this candidate for the presidency said: "No nation has gone to the lengths that we did to account for their dead. None—ever in history."

Of the so-called "possibility" of a "small number" of men left behind, the committee report went on to say that if this did happen, the men were not "knowingly abandoned," just "shunted aside." How do you put that on a gravestone?

In the end, the fact that Senator Kerry covered up crucial evidence as committee chairman didn't seem to bother too many Massachusetts voters when he came up for re-election—or the recent voters in primary states. So I wouldn't predict it will be much of an issue in the presidential election come November. It seems there is no constituency in America for missing Vietnam P.O.W.'s except for their families and some veterans of that war.

A year after he issued the committee report, on the night of January 26, 1994, Kerry was on the Senate floor pushing through a resolution calling on President Clinton to lift the 19-year-old trade embargo against Vietnam. In the debate, Kerry belittled the opposition, saying that those who still believed in abandoned P.O.W.'s were perpetrating a hoax. "This process," he declaimed, "has been led by a certain number of charlatans and exploiters, and we should not allow fiction to cloud what we are trying to do here."

Kerry's resolution passed, by a vote of 62 to 38. Sadly for him, the passage of ten thousand resolutions cannot make up for wants in a man's character.

[RickofEssex]

Ex-green beret to Kerry: 'You are a liar'
Scathing column makes rounds on Net, Vietnam vets cheer approval

Posted: February 26, 2004



By Ron Strom


A former Special Forces green beret who served in Vietnam has touched a nerve with fellow veterans after penning a scathing column hammering Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

"I've been deluged with e-mails," Don Bendell told WND. Most of the e-mails and phone calls he's received are from fellow Vietnam veterans, though he says some are from military personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Take a look at my website," Bendell said, "and the number of guest-book entries."

Bendell says the servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan who have contacted him have been "fervent" about their desire not to see Kerry as their commander in chief.

In his column, Bendell accuses Kerry of "rewriting history" through his 1971 testimony to Congress. In that speech, which has been referenced by many opponents of Kerry, he said of fellow soldiers in Vietnam: "They personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."

Writes Bendell:


I was a green beret officer who volunteered for duty in Vietnam and fought in the thick of it in 1968 and 1969 on a Special Forces A-team on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, just for starters. We were the elite. We saw the most action. Everybody in the world knows that. But we did not just kill people; we built a church, a school, treated illnesses, passed out soap, food and clothing, and had fun and loving interaction with the indigenous people of Vietnam, just like our boys did in Normandy, Baghdad, Saigon and everywhere American soldiers ever served. We all gave away our candy bars and rations to kids, our hearts to oppressed people all over the globe.
My children and grandchildren could read your words and think those horrendous things about me, Mr. Kerry. You are a bald-faced, unprincipled liar and a disgrace, and you have dishonored me and all my fellow Vietnam veterans. Sure, there were a couple bad-apples, but I saw none, and I saw it all, and if I did, as an army officer, it was my obligation to stop it, or at the very least report it. Why is there not a single record anywhere of you ever reporting any incidents like this or having the perpetrators arrested? The answer is simple. You are a liar. Your medals and mine are not a free pass for lifetime, Sen. Kerry, to bypass character, integrity and morality. I earn my green beret over and over daily in all aspects of my life.

Since it was first posted on Feb. 11, Bendell's column has been passed all over the world via e-mail and has been posted on several different websites.

Besides criticizing Kerry's testimony before Congress, Bendell slams him for opposing a bill that would have helped the Montagnard people of Vietnam:


John Kerry, you personally derailed the Vietnam Human Rights Bill, H.R.2883, in 2001, after it had passed the House by a 411 to 1 vote, and thousands of pro-American Montagnard tribespeople in Vietnam died since then who could have been saved, by you. Earlier, as chair of the Senate Select Committee on MIA/POW Affairs, you personally quashed the efforts of any and all veterans to report sightings of living POWs, when you held those reins in Congress. You have fought tooth and nail to push for the U.S. to normalize relations with Vietnam for years. Why, Mr. Kerry? Simple, your first cousin C. Stewart Forbes, CEO of Colliers International, recently signed a contract with Hanoi, worth BILLIONS of dollars for Collier's International to become the exclusive real estate representative for the country of Vietnam.
Bendell says he has an expose coming out in the April issue of American Spectator that further details his charges against the senator.

In talking with WND, the veteran also criticized Kerry for marrying two women who happened to be multibillionaires: "I'm sure that it was true love," he said.

Emphasizing the fact his opinions do not represent any organization, Bendell mentioned he has been involved in non-political veteran groups, including a stint as president of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Special Forces Association.

He says he tells Democrats to vote for John Edwards in the primaries: "Just don't vote for Kerry."

Bendell, who has spoken on many radio shows since his column gained popularity, is the author of several books and owns karate studios in Colorado.

The parting shot from Bendell in his column: "Medals do not make a man. Morals do."

[mcg1969]

Holy Toledo, what in the world is this article doing in the Village Voice?

[mcg1969]

This is the proper link:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0408/schanberg.php

[RickofEssex]

thanks

[Free ThinkerNY]

Kerrystein is a self-serving, under-handed, lying snake. He is the perfect representative of the Demonrat Party.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - KERRY

[JPJones]

bump

[Homer1]

Hillary's work perhaps?

[Leroy S. Mort]

Holy Toledo, what in the world is this article doing in the Village Voice?

[okie01]

Holy Toledo, what in the world is this article doing in the Village Voice?

Opens up a real can of worms, doesn't he? A bi-partisan can, at that:

Syphrit told me that four men were involved in that conversation—Reagan, Allen, Vice President George H.W. Bush, and CIA director William Casey.

Someday, we really need to get to the bottom of the POW/MIA story in Nam. But, somehow, I don't believe "someday" is yet here...

[TheSpottedOwl]

So this means that Kerry deliberately covered up the existence of other POW's left in Vietnam?

[MadMoo]

Oh, Boy oh Boy! This is gonna be a good one! Bump for the memories... Too many men and women knew about this.

[lurker214]

I think it means everyone and their second cousin deliberately covered up left behind POWs in Vietnam. If all this is true it will never amount to anything. Too many big wigs from every era since the war were involved.

[Reactionary]

Oh, on the contrary, the America of today is not the America of 1972.

The mere accusation that Kerry left soldiers to rot in prison camps is damning.

[philetus]

"Kerrystein is a self-serving, under-handed, lying snake"


He's more than that.
Can you imagine how our guys felt.
In a NVA prison, war over for years.
Guards laughing at them. Telling them their own U.S. senator and others conspired to leave them there and succeeded.
Telling them they were NEVER going home.
Some if not all getting a bullet in the head

[lainde]

Bump for weekend read!

[Fawnn]

I know that Thursdays are a busy day (away from the computer) for Tonk, so I'm pinging all three of you because: Even though I posted a link for this article to the Canteen, I believe a ping for this article should also be sent out to the Canteen. I hope you agree.

You may want to point out that Post #4 has the correct link to the article itself.

(It's telling when even left-leaning publications like the Village Voice have to acknowledge Kerry's dubious "service to our country.")

[There's millions of'em]

It's telling when even left-leaning publications like the Village Voice have to acknowledge Kerry's dubious "service to our country."

If the details do come out, and I pray they do, they will most likely expose folks on both sides.

No surprise that the money trail leads to Combat Kerry.

[PhilDragoo]

An excellent exposition of John Fifthcolumn Kerry's craven and calculated betrayal of our prisoners left behind in Vietnam.

Worth reading for the smoking-gun proof that John Fifthcolumn Kerry has continued as an enemy combatant for 34 years.

[Travis McGee]

MIA PING

[MeekOneGOP]

Kerry: America needs a 'regime change' too

[Wilhelm Tell]

If all this is true it will never amount to anything. Too many big wigs from every era since the war were involved.

I believe the establishment is irredeemably corrupt and just plain evil. There might be some people in the system that are trying to do the right thing, but the tide is against them. There are people from both parties who should have been in prison for years rather than running the show. I hope I live long enough to see the system implode like what happened in the Soviet Union.

[Matthew James]

Thanks!

[mabelkitty]

And what of John McCain during this time period?
Just curious, as he was so willing for normal relations with Vietnam, as well.

I guess when the Voice starts kicking Kerry, you know he isn't going to be the nominee.

[ravingnutter]

When Defense Department officials were coming to testify, Kerry would have his staff director, Frances Zwenig, meet with them to "script" the hearings—as detailed in an internal Zwenig memo leaked by others. Zwenig also advised North Vietnamese officials on how to state their case.

And it was reported that Frances Zwenig, Senator John Kerry's chief of staff for the now defunct Senate Select Committee on POW/MIAs, served for a short-time in the Vietnam interests section of Commerce until someone figured this might be viewed as a conflict of interest. As Kerry's aide, Zwenig, according to documents, coached the North Vietnamese to concoct plausible stories on the fate of POW/MIAs in order to show that Hanoi was cooperating to resolve the POW/MIA issue, a hurdle in the diplomatic dance to lift the trade embargo and renew relations with Vietnam.

Senator Kerry was caught on camera making a promise to the North Vietnamese communists that he would ensure that they weren't embarrassed by their concocted stories. Zwenig went on to serve with Madeleine Albright at the UN. Zwenig is now reportedly working with the Washington-based U.S.-Vietnam Trade Council, a group that lobbied heavily for lifting the trade embargo and renewing relations with Vietnam. Now their focus is to win most-favored nation (MFN) for the draconian communist regime in Vietnam, which recently burned a Buddhist Monastery in Hue and jailed the monks and nuns for advocating improved human rights, freedom of religion and democracy.

Source

We need to find that tape.

[jonno]

bump

[LibertarianInExile]

Agreed. Ever see April Morning? Solomon Chandler. That's the ticket.

[Don Corleone]

I guess when the Voice starts kicking Kerry, you know he isn't going to be the nominee.

Sounds like the newest version of "HillaryCare".

[lurker214]

If you believe this do you also believe that Reagen and GHB were also involved in leaving behind POWs as well? with a ransom offer as far back as 1981? . No pols are gonna touch this story with a ten foot pole. All will get pushed back underground i guess too many skeletons in everyones closet.

[dd5339]

P.O.W. ping!

Semper Fi

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for the ping.

John F'onda Kerry has been a Benedict Arnold since he returned from Nam.

His recorded comments, speeches and actions document that trail of treason as you noted for 34 years.

The Anti American wife of Kerry's may have been even more dangerous to America with her contributions to the Tides Foundation and other hate Americar organizations.

If Kerry becomes president, we can kiss this republic good bye.

[Petronski]

This was really written by Sidney Schanberg? Amazing! Just amazing!

[Petronski]

Who's Sidney Schanberg? ...one might ask.

He is the NYT reporter portrayed by Sam Waterston in "The Killing Fields."

In the film, Schanberg lays blame for Khmer Rouge excesses on the American bombings.

I can't help but wonder, is this the SAME Sidney Schanberg?

[Gritty]

So, Kerry's not only a traitorous bastard, but responsible for the abandonment and murder of hundreds of our POWs?

If nothing else, he is consistent.

[Uncle Hal]

I had never heard of the writer, Sydney Schanberg, but I understand he is a respected reporter in the NY area and has worked for various big liberal papers, including the NY Times. He ran the NYT bureau in SE Asia and his columns were the basis for the movie, "The Killing Fields". This guy is no lightweight and should know what he is talking about.

[BOBTHENAILER]

If Kerry becomes president, we can kiss this republic good bye.

Truer words were never spoken,

I'll be off the board thru next wednesday, out of town, so if I don't respond, I'm not being rude.

Keep up the good fight.

[SierraWasp]

Have a good, successful week! I may ping ya anyways, cause I like yer big, bold scream name on my replies as they scroll from top to bottom on the main board!!! (plus, it'll be stuff I want'cha to see when you gits back)

[BOBTHENAILER]

(plus, it'll be stuff I want'cha to see when you gits back)

Feel free, you always find the gems.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Bendell says the servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan who have contacted him have been "fervent" about their desire not to see Kerry as their commander in chief.

Most defintely a good column. Guess John Effin' Kerry would be treated about as well as the Hildabeast, if he went to Iraq or Afghanistan.

[RightWingMama]

Bump for later.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

This looks like this could be a two bagger for Hillary, Kerry and Cheney are mentioned .

Of course the Focus is on Kerry, which I like!

[PhilDragoo]

Two ho's with Vietnam's Jimmy Carter

In the Senate debate itself, Kerry, rather than embarass Vietnam by demanding the truth, launched a highly publicized diversionary investigation of the POW/MIA families and activists, who were demanding an honest accounting.

Kerry labeled them "professional malcontents, conspiracy mongers, con artists, and dime-store Rambos" who were only involved in the POW/MIA issue for money.

While John FORBES Kerry was desperately trying to expedite normalization by suppressing POW inquiries so his cousin FORBES could make hundreds of millions in exclusive real estate contracts in Vietnam.

John Fifthcolumn Kerry, enemy combatant for thirty-four years.

Did he mention he served in Vietnam? He got a medal--from Vo Nguyen Giap. Really.

[RickofEssex]

bump

[MeekOneGOP]

[MEG33]

John Fonda Kerry,Hanoi John,John Fiction Kerry,John Fraud Kerry,now John Fifthcolumn Kerry...I like it best.There's another one I shall not mention..

[PhilDragoo]

JOHN FERRET KERRY

[MEG33]

Yes!

[MeekOneGOP]

That's an insult to Weasels Worldwide ! ;^)
funny !

[dalebert]

He sure is the perfect rep for the Dems. I don't believe his navy job included what he claims happened when he was in Nam. In other words he is a Liar.