"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
— Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William Smith, Nov. 13, 1787
Posted on 02/12/2005 7:40:07 PM PST by wagglebee
The votes have been cast – if not yet fully counted – and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy owes the brave people of Iraq a profound apology. Some 8 million Iraqis on Jan. 30 defied terrorists' threats of violence and death to cast their ballots for a more hopeful future than Mr. Kennedy was willing to grant them. In so doing, Iraqis, who hadn't voted in free elections in a half-century, gave the lie to the Massachusetts Democrat's nakedly partisan rant three days before the balloting that the war that made the voting possible was "a colossal failure, a continuing quagmire." In fact, although about three dozen people – minus the eight suicide bombers – died in election-related violence, the terrorists' vow to wreak maximum havoc nationwide to minimize the turnout and thereby render the vote illegitimate was what was the true "colossal failure."
Indeed, Iraqi voters gave the collective finger, a purple dye-stained finger, to the thugs and assassins – and to Mr. Kennedy, whose diatribe at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies Jan. 27 gave demagoguery a bad name. For Mr. Kennedy to characterize the Iraq war as "Bush's Vietnam" in advance of the balloting served only to give propaganda aid and comfort to terror mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi and his henchmen. But beyond that, it grossly misrepresents the Vietnam War – specifically, the U.S. conduct of the war and the lessons thereof.
North Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap admitted that the January 1968 Tet Offensive was a disastrous defeat for the Communists – not for the United States, as it was portrayed in the U.S. media – and that in its wake, Hanoi was on the verge of surrendering. More tellingly, Gen. Giap acknowledged that it was the U.S. domestic anti-war movement that kept the North going. In other words, the very people who claimed they only wanted an end to the killing were actually responsible for prolonging the war for several years and by tens of thousands of deaths.
Zarqawi is no doubt aware of, and encouraged by, that sordid chapter of our history, and with the likes of Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya transmitting his remarks across the Middle East, Mr. Kennedy has become the Jane Fonda (the Lt. John Kerry?) of the Iraq war. It could be argued that not only are his remarks not likely to bring about an end to the bloodletting in Iraq, but rather, considerably prolong it by giving the terrorists hope that the United States will, in the late Sen. George Aiken's infamous Vietnam-era formulation, "declare victory and get out."
Leaving aside that it was President John F. Kennedy who got the United States into the Vietnam War in the first place, Sen. Kennedy's screed is the antithesis of his late brother's famous credo from his Jan. 20, 1961, inaugural address: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
If anything, Sen. Kennedy's shameful stance more closely mirrors that of his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, who as FDR's ambassador to Great Britain during World War II was the chief administration proponent of appeasement of Hitler and the Nazis. While the 1,400 U.S. troops whose lives have been lost in the nearly two years since Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched is sad and lamentable, one can only be grateful that Ted Kennedy was not in the Senate during World War II, when during the Battle of the Bulge alone, 19,000 U.S. troops died in six weeks' time. If he had been, much of Europe might well be speaking German today.
But perhaps Mr. Kennedy's most irresponsible and demonstrably false pre-election remark was his drawing of a moral equivalence between our troops and the terrorists. "Our military and the insurgents are fighting for the same thing: the hearts and minds of the people," he said, "and that is a battle we are not winning."
Apart from the fact that the suicide bombers – seven of whom on election day were Saudis, while only one was an Iraqi – are more interested in losing spleens and intestines than in winning hearts and minds, the Iraqi voters showed whose side they were on – with their index fingers.
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I have to tell ya, I was real happy and proud to have had a little time with a young Sen. TED KENNEDY in Vietnam. 5 years earlier I had also shaken hands with his brother JFK on the day he accepted his Democrat Party's nomination for President.
Those were very big deals back then.
When Senator TED KENNEDY got home the Vietnam Refugee problem was discussed in Congress. I really don't have a clue if he know about the special World War II history of his escort General KINNARD or not.
I didn't know about it myself until I read 'WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE and YOUNG' about our 1st major battle of Vietnam War that was to come just weeks after our visit with TED.
http://www.lzxray.com
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...You're learning something new everyday thru the Internet sorta highlights how if we returning Vietnam Vets had had that Internet to combat the TV Lies about the Vietnam War committed by the CRONKITE-RATHER Media team...
...a once Free South Vietnam would still be Free today.
...And millions of poor S.E. Asian souls would not have suffered horrendously, like they did, as a result.
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This is nothing new. Kennedy was a traitor in the late 1960s too. When I was in Vietnam, I remember listening to Radio Hanoi propaganda broadcasts of his speeches.
We definitely did the right thing in Nam. Indecent acts and war crimes, as always, should be punished, yet these isolated acts should never be escalated to the level of the Unrepresentative Sample Fallacy, which the MSM clearly does in an attempt to attack the integrity of our military.
If the Leftist media never waged a virulent and despicable PSYOP war against our guys, the entire country would definitely see us as the heroes that we were as would all free Vietnamese.
What is a noble calling? To Free The Oppressed.
http://www.soc.mil/SF/SFfacts1.shtml
Rock on!
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.."It is indeed an honor being here today representing California State Assemblyman VAN TRAN, the 1st Vietnamese-American State Legislator in California History, on this the 1st Day of the Lunar New Year's Year of the Rooster.
.."It was 40 years ago this very year that I left this Little Saigon area for the 1st major battles of the Vietnam War in 1965, the Year of the Horse. And then I was blessed to return here.
.."The Assemblyman that I represent today, VAN TRAN, was but a 1 year old little boy in Saigon at the time.
.."Then 30 years ago this year Freedom fell in Saigon and we are all now fighting for Freedom's return there.
..."Wouldn't it be wonderful if at the end of this the Year of the Rooster, that's this time next year, we see the Rooster singing its last song...
...and it's one filled with JOY as Freedom finally arrives to those beautiful white sandy beaches of Vietnam? Allowing the people there to more freely LOVE and be loved in return..?
.."For after all, isn't LOVE the only reality and...
...GOD is LOVE..?" *
* Speech given by a Vietnam Veteran at this week's Lunar New Year's Opening Ceremonies held at Little Saigon's Vietnam War Memorial and Annual TET Festival.
http://www.VanTran68.com
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Freedom only "fell" because 'Rats like Kennedy, at the behest of anti-Americans like Jane Fonda and Walter Cronkite, forced America to abandon it!
Thanks for the link to Van Tran's speech.
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BRAVO.
Don't forget DAN RATHER's mis-reporting the Vietnam War to the American People as well...
just like now.
For more...
See my "WE WERE SOLDIERS" bookmark threads:
Hit: "ALOHA RONNIE" here
Hit: 'Links' on my Freeper Home Page
MAHALO
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Tet Offensive losses:
US/Australia/South Korea:
Killed: 1,536
Wounded: 7,764
Missing: 11
South Vietnam:
Killed: 2,788
Wounded: 8,299
Missing: 587
North Vietnam/Viet Cong:
Killed: 45,000
Wounded: not known
Missing: not known
Civilian
Killed: 14,000
Wounded: 24,000
Missing: 630,000 (homeless>
Source: Tet Offensive
How anyone can reach any other conclusion than the Tet Offensive was an overwhelming victory for the US is beyond me!
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You are correct...
unless they were...
on the side of...
our communist terrorist enemy..
and against Freedom for others...
while posing otherwise on TV...
all along..?
All them...
Friends of HILLARY...
all along..?
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"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
— Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William Smith, Nov. 13, 1787
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From my Bookmarked Thread List:
At a year 2000 London World Conference Anti-U.S. Internationalist WALTER CRONKITE called for all our Southern States to secede from our union which would be a violation of our U.S. Constitution.
This from the still No. 1 Media defensive linebacker for HILLARY, who has herself declared our U.S. Constitution's Electoral College as her own No. 1 target.
The Enemy is now Within...
and always has been.
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Constitution of the Soviet Union
She would, however, want to change Article 53, line 2.
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NEVER FORGET
JANE FONDA
TOM HAYDEN
WALTER CRONKITE
DAN RATHER
JOHN KERRY
DIANE "Hillary" RODHAM
WILLIAM CLINTON
RAMSEY CLARKE
JESSE JACKSON =
Pictures of a vietnamese Re-Education camp
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308949/posts
All Enemies of the U.S. of A., still.
Only now it's our own Freedom that's at stake...
in a new time of war...
in a new Century.
Something that we can all ill afford..?
NEVER FORGET
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Article 53, Line 2. Interesting find, wagglebee.
Even the Russians have got it right over HILLARY about what really makes a Marriage, it seems..?
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The Real Deal =
HAL G. MOORE: The Legacy and Lessons of an American Warrior
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/page_left_column.php?content=show_curr_issue_0904a
http://war-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14752&page=1
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...TED KENNEDY preferred dancing with unmarried young women at Martha's Vineyard...
...to being present at America's 1st manned launch to the surface of the Moon, beating the Russians there,
...that his own brother JFK's Presidential leadership had made possible years before.
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I don't know if you happened to notice Article 52 in the Soviet Constitution, it contains a phrase which appears NOWHERE in the US Constitution but is very popular with the American leftists.
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Praise GOD that...
LOVE is the Only Reality and...
GOD is LOVE.
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Ted is NOT an A-Hole because an A-Hole provides a very necessary and useful function!
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