Posted on 09/24/2008 4:49:06 AM PDT by DJ Taylor
John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero people would logically imagine to be a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.
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Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as McCain has made his military service and POW history the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War have also turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.
The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a Special Forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington and even sworn testimony by two defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number--probably hundreds--of the US prisoners held in Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.
Because of Ramadan.
What I find remarkable is that the Nation magazine has, over the years, spent much time debunking the idea that men were left behind.
That’s in large part because they refused to believe that those wonderful Marxists in Hanoi could ever do anything so nasty.
Now, suddenly, they’re pushing the idea that the North Vietnamese held onto some of our men. Schanberg’s been consistent on this issue over the years, he’s not being hypocritical. But the Nation certainly is being totally two-faced.
Of course if you buy Schanberg’s story, the main perp was John Kerry, not McCain. Which makes you wonder why the Nation didn’t run this story in 2004 . . .
Typical stink from the lunatic Katrina Vanden Heuvel’s rag.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The POW thing is a quagmire, a black hole where one cannot see what is true and what is false.
I worked in DIA and Bangkok as part of the team that investigated POW issues. My last and worst assignment in my AF career. The whole POW thing is a tar baby, get involved and you get tar all over you.
Whoever said John Kerry was the ONE, nailed it. Worthless in all aspects of human endeavor.
The Nation best leave this one alone because the stink will knock them silly.
What do I believe about POWs? Still to this day have no idea what to believe or what not to believe.
Instead, his fellow POWs all support him and his candidacy. Bud Day's endorsement is good enough for me.
Instead, his fellow POWs all support him and his candidacy. Bud Day's endorsement is good enough for me.
The messiah’s handmaiden Sydney raises questions that trouble her as a true patriot.
Guys, keep in mind that FR was asking these same questions too. I remember the McCain threads on 2000 asking questions about his POW status and criticizing his military service. So don’t act all trifled over this.
Most Americans can't imagine what brutal captivity would be like.
In that regard, Obama, and his surrogates, who have suffered nothing for this country, are in no position to judge anything. McCain never said worse about his country under torture than Obama said of his own whimsy in Bill Ayer's living room.
I don’t question McCain’s time as a POW and what he endured during those six years, but his role in the POW/MIA hearings in 1993 is another matter. I watched most of those hearings and naively expected McCain to be a champion for investigating the possibility that men might still be in SEA. What a shock the reality was. He was hostile to any witness presenting evidence of POWs still alive in SEA, and did everything he could to prevent classified evidence from being declassified and aired in public. All the McCain personality extremes were on display, including a silly, glaring stance he used to try and intimidate “hostile” witnesses, or those presenting evidence of live men still in SEA.
This is all known to anyone who followed those hearings and that phase of McCain’s career. Just one more of those cases where he took the opposite stance most might have expected of him.
bfltr
This is a major reason why I am having trouble voting for McCain. I have never trusted him and I have followed his career since 1984. The POW thing really bothers me. I do think it’s been embellished. Of course he was tortured. I guess my biggest problem was that he was in a REAL big hurry to make friends with Vietnam when Bill Clinton became president. I’ve been very curious about this since then. Don’t kill me...it’s a gut instinct thing!
“I guess my biggest problem was that he was in a REAL big hurry to make friends with Vietnam when Bill Clinton became president. I’ve been very curious about this since then. Don’t kill me...it’s a gut instinct thing!”
Of course, “The Nation” presents this article at this time in an attempt to damage McCain’s candidacy. But I read the entire article and there does not appear to be anything new in it. Most everything there was known and kicked around before McCain even ran in 2000. People who’ve observed McCain over the years, and particularly those who kept up with the POW/MIA hearings, know that this article is highly accurate. I guess this might be one of “The Nation’s” even a stopped clock moments.
Another reason this election presents us with the two worst choices in many decades.
Hello Mary Mapes?.....
How's Dan Rather?......
What?
You don't speak to him anymore?
The Bush National Guard thing?
Oh.......
Sarcasm = OFF
See also:
The Nation, owned and operated by Katrina Van Den Heuval, that lying dirtbag. (my apologies to lying dirtbags)
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Team,
I’ve noticed this already getting out on blogs and forums. Obviously, bogus stuff worthy of the recesses of conspiracy websites only. Let’s get some talking points together. I am tied up most of today, but one thing we should check is news articles from around the hearings for ‘praise’ on both sides for McCain, debunking the ‘ignore the POW’ rumors.
Absolutely correct. I spent my POW hunting time running down scams and hearsay crap. Had all kinds of bones coming in from Laos and Cambodia that ended up being chicken bones buffalo bones and monkey bones. Crazy. Totally insane.
A group of these Ted Sampley-types offered a reward via pamphlets and passed them out all up and down the Mekong River. The guys along the river saw that the US (absolutely false as we never offered nothing for information) was offering something like one million USD for information leading to a POW. These people figured that if the POW was worth one million, then a finger should also be worth a few American dollars. Cannot count how many scams we got weekly including females who claimed to have married a POW and was keeping him safe just for us to pay her expenses to bring him in.
And a bit about George “Bud” Day and torture. He once told us in his class in Florida the story of an F100 fighter pilot who was shot down. At that time the F100 was low-tech and was used as kind of a spotter or some such. Heck, I do not even remember for sure what the jet was now but the story was that this pilot was frowned upon by his fellow POWs. They all thought he was a weasel and broke a little too quickly. Whenever there was a POW get together at a reunion, most of the guys would shun this pilot because they thought he was a coward.
Turns out this guy was a U2 pilot out of Europe and had the top security clearances the AF gave out. Big time stuff. The guy was scared that the Viets would break him and have access to the information that only he among the POWs had. He broke early and often to side track the Viets away from what would have been a huge intel coupe on their part. Got away with this for over five years.
The moral of the story is, as Colonel Day pointed out, best not second guess the torture that your fellow prisoners receive and the content of one’s soul to withstand the torture. He finished up by asking us who the really tough guy was among all those prisoners who were tortured.
Great story from the finest human I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. John McCain is a close friend of Bud Day. For me, that says it all.
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