Eyes on the White House, Kerry Keeps Focus on Vietnam

NY Times ^ | August 26, 2003 | DAVID M. HALBFINGER

[Pharmboy]

Oh...was Kerry in Vietnam? I didn't know that.../sarcasm

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

He might want to tell somebody about his war record. I guess modesty prevents him from mentioning it. /sacrasm

[dts32041]

The french looking Kerry was in Viet Nam must have been a dien bein phu (sp), along with the other french looking losers.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I didn't know that.

[Pharmboy]

Great tag line...

[OldBenFranklin]

Hey, at least he has one.

[South40]

I keep hearing Vietnam Veteran everytime this joker makes a speech. Below adds some perspective.

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 anti-war 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 U.S. 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 actions as an anti-war 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 result. 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 more 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 anti-war activist and a senator than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in Vietnam.

MICHAEL BENGE Foreign Service officer and
former Vietnam POW (1968 to 1973)

Washington

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

I'm sure this question has been asked before- but how does Kerry have the nerve to harp on his Vietnam service to help his election chances, when he came back and threw his (or actually I think they were someone else's )medals over the fence at the White House because he was so opposed to the war?

Now he claims to want America to have the "strongest" and "best-funded" military- but he has not been doing anything to make that happen inthe Senate.

What a loser- he feels entitled to the Presidency because he is "better" than the rest of us, and by the way married to a super-rich widow, who can afford to indulge his little hobbies.

Puke.

[faithincowboys]

Doesn't Kerry know that the Vietnam era ended officially on 9-11? It's odd that someone who so viciously opposed the war would use his serice there to justify his presidential run. It makes absolutely no sense.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I've never seen anyone throw his service record in peoples' faces as much as Kerry and crew. Most fellow vets I know don't feel the need to brag about it.

[Pharmboy]

Thank you for filling in some important details.

[Pharmboy]

Facts mean nothing to demonrats...

[Pharmboy]

Sense? You want to talk "sense" and "Democrat" in the same sentence? I think not...

[AntiGuv]

Kerry might as well keep his eye on 'Nam, since he's more likely to be elected premier of Vietnam than he is president of the United States.....

[shrinkermd]

Thanks. By the way Nixon got us out. When he was removed from office the NVA brought down tanks. Frank Church had the Congress prevent any kind of air power retaliation or defence and, later, Congress even stopped adequate funding of the South Vienamese. It was a deplorable action and a betrayal of the 56,000 Americans who died.

[South40]

Additional material from the US Veteran Dispatch here.

Kerry's not well liked by veterans, and for good reason.

[Ax]

Recently, Kerry was addressing a crowd, saying words to the effect that when he was in Vietnam, he was "fighting for my country." Now that's a good thing. But when he turned against the effort in 1971, it was a bad thing. I think he needs to clarify that. What a phony. I don't remember where or when he said that, but it's been in the last few months.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

He shore has purty hair, though!!!! Never trust a man who goes to a hairdresser.

[WorkingClassFilth]

You've said it all perfectly. I keep thinking that whatever he once may have been sure ain't part of what he is now.

[OldFriend]

I will not forget the rousing reception the VFW gave to slick willie and the barely civil reception they gave to President Bush during the 92 campaign.