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exactly because there is also another angle here on Kerry that I thought would have been classic 60 Minutes, back in the day when 60 Minutes did real hard hitting exposes

now I think the Swift Boat vets only touched on this, but many veterans who were POWS and/or the families of POWs and MIAs also hate Kerry because they believe he helped shut the POW/MIA issue down for his own gain and generally let down his fellow soldiers yet again.........

let me summarize and I may not get it all correct, feel free to correct me but this is my understanding

first of all Kerry in his exploits as negotiating with the enemy whilst still an officer of the US army, you know his trips to Paris and all, had been a proponent of the deal that was made with Vietnam to end the war

now Nixon et al wanted the Viet Cong to hand over all the POWS first, Kerry and lefties lovers of the VC said that was unreasonable, first peace then turn over the POWS, well true to form the VC returned some POWS but not all

and there were various reports of sightings and informations about POWS and MIAS in Vietnam

now in 1990, 1991? Kerry was made Chairman of the Senate Select Committee of MIA/POW Affairs and they were supposed to decide if there was any evidence of POWS and MIAS in Vietnam and decide whether to normalize relations with Vietnam

well Sidney Schanberg, a noted war correspondent, liberal and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist (The movie the Killing Fields was based on his experiences in Cambodia)
in the Village Voice (no conservative rag there) writes that John Kerry, in his one and only leadership role in his whole Senate career,

and concludes:

either Kerry was very incompetent and/or he deliberately rushed the investigation in order to establish normal relations with Vietnam because, the angry families of the missing POWS allege, Kerry's cousin, a Forbes, clearly on good recommendation from Madame whats her head, Kerry's Paris friend, was sitting on $900 million dollars worth of reconstruction contracts in Vietnam once he got the go ahead

now I think Schanberg alludes to the fact it has never been proven or no one was able to prove that Kerry got a cut or referral fee for those reconstruction contracts, but come one, she looks suspicious enough for some primo digging and come on, that's a conflict of interest for the Chairman of the committee to decide whether to normalize relations with Vietnam.....

Schanberg has written more than one article on this subject matter, because he was so disillusioned, he thought Kerry was the best man for the job and he can't believe that Kerry sold out his band of brothers......he wrote on it again in the Village Voice when Kerry got the nomination and yet nary a ripple anywhere

Schanberg however goes further, he accuses Kerry of either suppressing evidence that would support the possibility
of POWS alive in Vietnam, because Schanberg found out the evidence that was never presented, or alluded to, by the Committee, and he says he has CIA sources that claim they caught Kerry's committee staffers shredding classified material and when the CIA agents demanded they stop, they smugly continued on.....what is it with Democrats and classified documents huh.....

now we know if this had been a Republican....

now there is one reason perhaps why this has not been pursued, there were Republicans on that Committee, John McCain for one and John Ashcroft I believe for another and they all seemed to be happy to close the file on the POWS.....McCain and Kerry became good friends at this time

however if Schanberg is right, and the Chairman clearly controls the flow of information at Committee, if Kerry was suppressing evidence it is possible that guys like McCain and Ashcroft weren't getting the whole story

I mean this is the sort of thing 60 Minutes would have torn their teeth into if it hadn't been their golden boy, for all we know they did tear into Kerry at the time of this committee, because I seem to remember 60 Minutes doing stories on the poor abandoned POWS etc......

and esp since Schanberg is no Bush lover, the lefties certainly couldn't discount Schanberg for a number of reasons, unless Schanberg has been "exiled" for some reason....he still contributes to the Village Voice periodically as best I know.....and it was a Bush bashing article as I recall......