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The truth is often overlooked in a sea of lies and mischaracterizations. The truth is not someones opinion or away of looking at something, it is simply the truth. Gen. Giap planned and directed military operations against the French and defeated them in 1954 in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The NVA under the command of Gen, Giap planned the now famed and offten lied about Tet Offensive against the United States in 1968. In his book Gen. Giap plainly shows that the NVA had few supplies and had been defeated in battle time and time again. The NVA...

The New York Times has turned down an op-ed written by Republican Presidential candidate John McCain. They are a private organization, and I suppose it is fair to say that they are welcome to publish or turn down whomever they want. His article, Getting Iraq Right, can instead be found at the New York Post. I felt compelled to expand on a couple points in his article. One: McCain makes the point that the Bush Administration waved the “Mission Accomplished” banner “prematurely” as is Barack Obama with his Iraq withdrawal policy. Well, the thing is: the banner did not signify...

Energy: Big Oil is easy to kick around — just ask any Democrat in Congress. But China's threats to Exxon Mobil are in another league. Its bid to use Exxon Mobil as a wedge against its rival Vietnam is a case in point.What China's doing in the South China Sea these days is not trade, but blackmail to assert regional dominance. On Sunday, the South China Morning Post reported Chinese officials are threatening to exclude Exxon Mobil from doing business in China if it doesn't pull out of an exploration deal with Vietnam's state oil company, PetroVietnam. The region in...

HONG KONG - CHINA has warned Exxon Mobil Corp to pull out of an exploration deal with Vietnam, describing the project as a breach of Chinese sovereignty, the South China Morning Post reported on Sunday, citing unnamed sources. The article, which cited 'sources close to the US firm", said Chinese diplomats in Washington had made repeated verbal protests to Exxon Mobil executives in recent months, and warned them its future business interests on the mainland could be at risk. The protests involve a preliminary co-operation agreement between state oil firm PetroVietnam and Exxon Mobil covering exploration in the South China...

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller, We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries—often with surprising results. More than fifteen years since its original publication, the number one New York Times bestseller, We Were Soldiers Once...and Young is still required reading in all branches of the military. Now Moore and Galloway revisit their relationships with ten American veterans of the battle—men such as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley and helicopter pilot Bruce "Old Snake" Crandall—as well as...

"Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." That was retired Gen. Wesley Clark's condescending assessment of John McCain's military service. Clark's words have great weight because he was speaking as a key political/military advisor to Barack Obama. If Gen. Clark had been talking about me, his remarks might be true. After all, I rode in a fighter plane and got shot down over North Vietnam. In no way do Clark's words apply to McCain. I know, because I was a firsthand witness to his singular leadership and courage....

The following is a Term paper written by a young Vietnamese woman now married to one of the Pilot's I served in Viet Nam with. Lily was born after American involvement ended in Viet Nam and the Communist takeover. She is enrolled in a Business Law Course and the Term paper was for that class. Her effort was awarded with a 100% Posted with the permission of Lily. Do You Really Want to Rear Your Child in a Socialist Society?By Lily Cuc WhiteI was born and reared in a Socialist Society. Here is my personal testimony as to how good,...

Former President Bill Clinton (D) warned voters against electing former prisoner-of-war Senator McCain president. “POWs are not like us,” Clinton observed. “They’ve been held captive in barbaric conditions, tortured and humiliated by this country’s enemies. How can they ever be objective enough to deal with our country’s enemies as president?” Clinton argued that his evasion of military service saved him “from building up the prejudices against and hatreds for different cultures and political systems that could have compromised my ability to govern effectively. My judgment was untainted by any suffering and privation that could have biased my views. The same...

These are the never-before-seen last known photos of Sen. John McCain's Hoa Lo prison cell, images that prove that even after being cleaned up for an American historical filmmaker, the terror of the Hanoi Hilton is real. Debra Watkins, who took the pictures and video in 1993 and 1994 before this and other areas of the century-old prison were destroyed, provided them to Whispers as part of a story that appears in the Washington Whispers column. Watkins did volumes of research before traveling to Hanoi, sparked by reports the government planned to rip down most of the facility. She...

THOMPSON FALLS — Rod Knutson is hardly the recluse dug up by John McCain’s campaign, as some bloggers and critics of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee contend. The former prisoner of war is a decorated war hero who earned two Silver Stars, served 32 years in the U.S. Navy, moved up the ranks at the Pentagon, lectured at the prestigious Top Gun flight school, wound up in the popular 1986 movie of the same name, lived in as many ports on the West Coast as on the East and after retirement, sailed with his family throughout the Caribbean for 4½...

In what the media are hailing as “a breath of fresh air that adds a large dollop of class to the campaign,” presidential contender Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) disassociated himself from supporter General Wesley Clark’s contention that Republican rival Senator John McCain’s military record should count against him. “The truth behind General Clark’s remarks is beyond question,” Obama said. “While fighting in Vietnam, McCain did bomb innocent women and children, lose his plane and get captured by the enemy. Not a sterling record, to be sure. But these mistakes occurred long long ago, when McCain was a young man. They...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA-nOeLSM7E Television's Vietnam: the Impact of Media 1 of 6 Charlton Heston Narrates

Retired General Wesley Clark has gotten into hot water for his remarks expressing doubts about John McCain's fitness to lead the nation, despite McCain's Navy service and status as a former prisoner of war. It's a good Clark has 23/6's resident PR expert to defend him: STATEMENT FROM THE WORLD'S WORST PR GUY: Ladies and gentlemen of the press, thank you for meeting me at this Captain D's Seafood Kitchen as I elaborate on the comments of my client, Wesley Clark. First off, Gen. Clark's comments were taken wildly out of context. Yes, he said, "I don't think riding in...

The New York Times published an article Monday about the anger some Vietnam veterans feel over the vessel they used to serve on, Swift Boat, now being synonymous with "the nastiest of campaign smears." In dredging up this issue, Times' writer Kate Zernike not only misrepresented many of the facts surrounding the claims made by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but also completely ignored the mainstream media's role in turning the name of this patrol craft into a political pejorative. In fact, something the Times conveniently chose not to share with its readers was how one of its own...

WASHINGTON -- Being shot down may not qualify one to be president, as retired Gen. Wesley Clark infamously said recently. But what men do under fire might tell us about the character we may discover in a president. Clark's precise words, aimed at undermining John McCain's executive experience, were: "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." In fairness, Clark also praised McCain's heroism, saying that he honored his service as a prisoner of war and even that "he was a hero to me." Predictably, Republicans were outraged and Democrats...

There is a statue in Hanoi where McCain was shot down. I am amazed this exists: taken from http://www.everywheremag.com/places/4940/ The inscription apparently says " on October 26, 1967, John McCain was shot down here. Thirty-one other U.S. aircraft were also downed on this day, according to the inscription. " very strange. I guess they want tourism.

To start off, as many of you have already read, Obama threw Wes Clark, if not under the bus, at least into the bumper "As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and of course he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark," said Obama campaign spokeman Bill Burton. Is this what the Hope 'n Change xPress will bring us throughout the campaign? Some Obama supporter comes out, says something nasty, gets the talking point out there for all to see, then Obama, who really needs to wash the blood and gore off his bus...

Day three of the Clark controversy, and things keep getting more and more interesting. Today, Barack Obama is apparently denying that his own speech yesterday in Ohio -- where we all assumed he was specifically repudiating Clark's comments -- was, in fact, aimed at Gen. Clark. Here is what Obama had to say today: "... I notice that I think in at least one publication it was reported that my comments yesterday about Senator McCain were in a response to General Clark. I think my staff will confirm that was in a draft of that speech that I had written...

Correction Appended Years ago, when William Miller talked about being in the Vietnam War — if he talked about being in the Vietnam War — he would tell people he served on a Swift boat. At least now they have heard of it. But not in the way he would like. “I was proud of what I did, and all the guys I was with,” Mr. Miller said. “Now somebody says ‘Swift boat’ and it’s a whole different meaning. They don’t associate it with the guys we lost. That’s a shame.” “Swift boat” has become the synonym for the nastiest...

Failed 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) lashed out today at the most decorated living American serviceman, Col. Bud Day, who was awarded the Medal Honor for his heroism as a POW during the Vietnam War.Kerry attacked Day for his role in the McCain Truth Squad (a new effort by presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain to defend his military service from criticism) because of Day's participation in the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth (SBVT) 2004 campaign which criticized Kerry's service in Vietnam as a junior naval officer and his actions protesting the war when he returned...

John Aravosis of Americablog has decided that since Barry Obambi doesn't have the service record or experience that McCain does....the clear attack should be to call John McCain a war criminal and incompetent for having been captured by enemy forces and spending several years as a POW during his service in the Vietnam War. Aravosis writes: "Getting shot down, tortured ...is not command experience". Does anyone else wanna slap this guy? I believe the American people are well aware of the McCain's service record and many consider him an American hero for enduring and sustaining all that he did. For...

John Aravosis of Americablog has decided that since Barry Obambi doesn't have the service record or experience that McCain does....the clear attack should be to call John McCain a war criminal and incompetent for having been captured by enemy forces and spending several years as a POW during his service in the Vietnam War. Aravosis writes: "Getting shot down, tortured ...is not command experience". Does anyone else wanna slap this guy? I believe the American people are well aware of the McCain's service record and many consider him an American hero for enduring and sustaining all that he did. For...

This quote was from Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, an organization that gave $600,000 in cash and supplies in "humanitarian aide" to an insurgent-controlled Fallujah several years ago in our current war (the Marines won anyway, which is perhaps why Code Pink is leading the assault against the Marines in Berkeley). That is just one toxic outburst is a collection of indefensible comments from the radical fringe of the Democratic Party laughably called "progressives" in a series of personal attacks levied at Presidential candidate John McCain and chronicled by Ben Smith in a Politico article. Prominent progressive blogger John...

Department of Veterans Affairs Prepares to Strip John McCain of Vietnam Veteran Title News Release Date: 26 June, 2008 From: website, www.BlueWaterNavy.org  Note: This article refers to proposed changes to the rules defining 'Service in Vietnam' set forth by the Department of Veterans Affairs in response to the 'Haas vs. Peake' decision in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. By the implementation of changes as set forth in the Federal Register, April 16, 2008, regarding "Definition of Service in the Republic of Vietnam," for the purpose of clarifying eligibility for presumption of exposure to herbicides status, the DVA very clearly...

John McCain's presidential campaign sent out an e-mail today announcing the formation of the McCain Truth Squad to fight back attacks such as Wesley Clark's yesterday on Face the Nation.The Politico posted the e-mail:All: Please join us for a conference call launching the McCain Truth Squad -- a new group aimed at countering the recent attacks on John McCain’s military record. On the call will be Truth Squad leaders, including fellow POWs Col. Bud Day, USAF (Ret.) (Medal of Honor) and Lt.Col. Orson Swindle, USMC (Ret.), as well as Carl Smith, retired Navy pilot who served with Sen. McCain.Looks like...

WOW, what a fun and exciting rally!! 40-50 patriots shows up and the passers by were overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic!! OC Vaughn organized a day laborer site rally - Home Depot Westminster, CA - 40 ralliers were assembled at 7:30 am 6/28/08 At approximately 8:30am a male Hispanic, driving, stopped his truck and yelled at assembled ralliers. He asked "You Minutemen?" No one answered at first, then Kingfish stepped forward and stated "I AM." "You are sick!" The man yelled. "And you, are a little overweight" Kingfish replied. The man became enraged quickly exited the truck ran around and ran...

John McCain has fielded the unlikeliest of endorsements -- from his former captor in the Vietnam War. Tran Trong Duyet, who was in charge of the so-called "Hanoi Hilton" where McCain was imprisoned for more than five years after his plane was shot down in 1967, told the British Broadcasting Corporation that he now considers McCain his "friend" and that if he had the chance he would vote for him for president. "If I were American, I'd vote for John McCain," Duyet, now 75, told the BBC. "I think he'd make a very capable president. He's done so much to...

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2008 – Support from their fellow citizens is vital to the success of servicemembers fighting the war on terror, a soldier who earned the Bronze Star Medal in Iraq said today. “Support means everything,” Army Staff Sgt. John Aughtman saidin an interview on the “ASY Live” program on BlogTalkRadio. “A letter, a care package, a telephone call, a visit, a blanket -- anything means everything.” “ASY Live” is part of the Defense Department’s America Supports You program, which connects citizens and companies with servicemembers and their families serving at home and abroad. As a squad leader,...

If you have a moment, please email Ben at Border Stories and let know what you think. ben@borderstories.org (Note the close up on the "Free Ramos and Compean" and "Duncan Hunter for President" signs.) THANKS!!

<p>REPUBLICAN US presidential candidate John McCain has got some unexpected support from his former Vietnam War jailer, who said he would vote for the former navy pilot if he could.</p> <p>Speaking to the BBC from Haiphong, Tran Trong Duyet also insisted that Senator McCain's assertions that he was tortured during his time at the prison were lies, and that no one held there was ever subjected to torture.</p>

Tran Trong Duyet - a sprightly retiree and amateur ballroom dancer - must rank as one of John McCain's more unlikely supporters.Four decades ago, during the Vietnam war, Mr Duyet was in charge of the notorious Hoa Lo prison - the place where Mr McCain says he was brutally beaten and tortured during five-and-a-half years as an American prisoner of war. "McCain is my friend," said 75-year-old Mr Duyet as he feeds the caged birds he now keeps in his garden in this coastal city. "If I was American, I would vote for him." Informal chatsNavy pilot John McCain was...

For most people, “Swift boat” has become a political verb, a synonym for the kind of attack that helped destroy the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry in 2004. But for a group of Vietnam veterans at the center of the attacks, it is still a fresh fight. On Friday, the group, who served with Mr. Kerry in Vietnam, sent a letter to T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire Texas oilman who helped finance the 2004 attack advertisements, taking him up on a challenge he issued last November: that he would give $1 million to anyone who could disprove a single...

It’s been a tough year for the Spitzer family, to say the least. Now that the legislative session is coming to a close, and he’s no longer responsible for steamrolling lawmakers into achieving reforms anyway, papa Eliot is taking the whole gang on a summer vacation. On Monday, according to sources, the disgraced ex-governor, wife Silda and their three girls will depart for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. A spokeswoman for the Spitzers, Anna Cordasco, confirmed the trip and said the family was going to Southeast Asia but didn’t know the specific countries. Spitzer is still under investigation by the Feds...

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is Lt. Cmdr. Ralph C. Bisz, U.S. Navy, of Miami Shores, Fla. His funeral arrangements are being set by his family. On Aug. 4, 1967, Bisz took off in an A-4E Skyhawk from the USS Oriskany to bomb an enemy petroleum depot near Haiphong, Vietnam. As he neared the target, his aircraft was struck by an enemy surface-to-air missile...

June 18, 2008 Investors Seek Asian Options to Costly China By KEITH BRADSHER HANOI — Canon is no longer building or expanding factories in China, but the company is doubling its work force at a printer factory outside Hanoi to 8,000.

OK when do we hold JANE FONDA accountable for shooting her idiot mouth off and causing so many of the worlds biggest problems? Look how many died in Vietnam after we pulled out? She was instrumental in deceiving the US. Her and John Kerry (did you know he was in Vietnam?) who was there for 3 months, got 3 purple hearts, and "committed atrocities" And how about that stupid "China Syndrome" movie that convinced us all how EEEEEEEeeevil nuclear power was? We could have been a lot less dependant on foreign oil, and needed 2 less Gulf Wars (its all...

Haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam, the one-time maverick has transformed himself into just another liberal-bashing fearmonger. Evening, June 3rd, in a muggy, dragonfly-beswarmed place called the Pontchartrain Center, just outside New Orleans. Half a continent away, amid yet another legacy-smashing fusillade of unsolicited invective from Bill Clinton, the excruciating Obama-Hillary mess is finally wrapping up, in a pair of anticlimactic primaries somewhere over the darkened plains of Montana and South Dakota. But here in the Big Easy, John McCain has chosen this moment to mount his first general-election attack against the Great Satanic Liberal Enemy — who, as luck...

Now a senator who is the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee, Mr. McCain often points to his nine months at the War College as the time that crystallized his views toward foreign conflicts like the war in Iraq. He has talked about his studies as a tutorial in the hows-and-whys of America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. But the 40-page final paper he produced was limited to an evaluation of the military code of conduct through the prism of his “narrow, but personal, viewpoint.” ... Mr. McCain’s paper sheds new light on the experience that first brought him national attention and remains...

Many spurious lies have been circulated by the Crypto-Marxists about a fellow prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton. It is up to you men that lived and were tortured alongside McCain to speak up now. It's bad enough we have the CM's with BDS smearing and ashing our present President. The Left is now bringing up lies about McCain. We know all all American POW's broke eventually. It is no sin to say you did. We have heard of all the inhuman torture you all underwent. The key word is "eventually." No one can withstand the pain you have endured. I...

Former Vietnamese Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, an economic reformer who led the Communist nation away from poverty and isolation and backed the normalization of ties with the United States, died Wednesday... Kiet, who was prime minister from 1991 to 1997... Impatient with Communist Party functionaries trying to protect their own turf, Kiet argued that the party could only stay in power if it loosened its tight hold over the government and business.

SEOUL — Kim Chun-su had to join the army, but he didn’t have to go to Vietnam. Almost four decades ago, Kim, then a soldier doing his mandatory three-year service in the South Korean military, opted to fight in what was even in his country an unpopular war. He wanted to get away from the army’s notoriously abusive officers, who he said would wake soldiers up for no reason and beat them. He also wanted to show his gratitude to the United States for helping South Korea during the Korean War. Kim and most of the 97 South Korean veterans...

Hanoi - Vietnam's central bank devalued the country's currency by nearly 2 per cent Wednesday and raised interest rates to fight rising trade deficits and inflation. The bank lowered the official exchange rate of the Vietnamese to 16,461 to the dollar, from the previous peg of 16,139. The black market exchange rate had jumped to over 18,000 over the weekend, before falling back to about 17,300 Wednesday, with the high rates driven by worries over inflation and the trade deficit. The bank also raised the prime interest rate from 11 to 13 per cent, the third increase this year. Prime...

Both the media and Obama supporters closely watched every word uttered by the Clinton campaign and her supporters for a racial connotation. Undoubtedly, such scrutiny will only be doubled as we head into the general election. But equal attention ought to be paid to the line of attack being directed at McCain. And it seems liberals have already begun to push the envelope. John Aravosis, who writes at Americablog, had this headline yesterday: "Why is McCain getting $58,000 a year in disability income?" In his post, Aravosis wonders why the GOP nominee is receiving a military pension for the injuries...

POW, War Hero, President 

On June 12, the traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall will arrive and be assembled in McDonough for our county and surrounding areas to come seek and find the names of loved ones lost during the Vietnam War. Even if you did not lose someone during that war, the memorial still stands as a silent tribute to the 58,256 men and women who gave their lives during the conflict. The actual Wall is located in Washington, D.C. and is made of two reflective black granite walls, each 246 feet, nine inches long. At the highest point, the wall is over ten...

Strained Vietnam economy hit by fresh ratings blow Reuters - 2 hours 12 minutes ago OTHER STORIES > Moody's statement..[ID:nWLA318] > Fitch statement................[ID:nHKG200860] (Additional reporting by Nguyen Nhat Lam; editing by Neil Fullick) - HANOI, June 4 - Moody's downgraded its ratings outlook on Vietnam to negative from positive on Wednesday, the second outlook cut in a week as the economy grapples with 25 percent inflation and rising trade and current account deficits. ADVERTISEMENT v Moody's Investors Service said the swing in ratings outlook reflected its view that Vietnam's economic imbalances were greater than anticipated, but it also noted strengths...

 Of the many personal accounts coming to light about the almost unbelievably cruel treatment accorded American prisoners of war in Vietnam, none is more dramatic than that of Lieut. Commander John S. McCain III — Navy flier, son of the admiral who commanded the war in the Pacific, and a prisoner who came in "for special attention" during 5½ years of captivity in North Vietnam.Now that all acknowledged prisoners are back and a self-imposed seal of silence is off, Commander McCain is free to answer the questions many Americans have asked:What was it really like? How prolonged were the tortures...

The unidentified flying object is NOT believed to be a plane as none have been reported missing in the area. Investigators are working on the theory the explosion happened five miles above the ground. A search of Phu Quoc island off southern Vietnam uncovered shards of grey “metal” up to four feet long. Unexplained explosion ... map showing island Soldiers combed the area for clues yesterday as airlines in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand insisted none of their aircraft were missing in the area. Villagers in the nearby Cambodian province of Kampot said on Tuesday that they had heard a...

WASHINGTON - The number of Army suicides increased again last year, amid the most violent year yet in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Two defense officials said Thursday that 108 troops committed suicide in 2007, six more than the previous year. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the full report on the deaths wasn't being released until later Thursday. About a quarter of the deaths occurred in Iraq. The overall toll was the highest in many years, and it was unclear when, if ever, it was previously that high. Immediately available Army records go back only to...

Like the Buddhist monks in Burma, in Hanoi and other cities of Vietnam bishops, priests, sisters, and faithful are taking to the streets. They want buildings and land confiscated by the state to be given back. Their weapons are crosses and rosaries. The apprehensions of the Vatican by Sandro Magister ROMA, May 28, 2008 – A delegation from the Holy See will soon go to Vietnam on an official visit, for the fifteenth time since 1989. The previous visit took place just over one year ago. In his turn, the prime minister of Vietnam, Nguyên Tân Dung, visited the Vatican...