Posted on 08/07/2004 3:16:39 PM PDT by Kaslin
Has used account as evidence of war crimes, to attack U.S. policy
Over the the past three decades, John Kerry has used a story of being ordered to illegally enter Cambodia during his Vietnam service as proof of war crimes and to argue against U.S. foreign policy, but a new book by Naval colleagues of the Massachusetts senator charges the account is false.
On the floor of the U.S. Senate, March 27, 1986, for example, Kerry attacked President Reagan's actions in Central America, charging they were leading the United States into another Vietnam. He claimed he could recognize the adminstration's errors because he had firsthand knowledge that the Nixon administration lied about American incursions into Cambodia.
In a Boston Herald story, Kerry is quoted as saying, "I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."
But in "Unfit for Command," scheduled for release Aug. 15, John O'Neill, who took over Kerry's swift-boat command, and co-author Jerome Corsi say there are two problems with Kerry's claim.
One is simply that Nixon had not taken office yet.
The second, they say, is that during Christmas 1968, "he was more than fifty miles away from Cambodia. Kerry was never ordered into Cambodia by anyone and would have been court-martialed had he gone there."
At the time, Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo, which had a patrol areas extending to Sa Dec, about 55 miles from the Cambodian border.
All of the surviving officers in Kerry's chain of command deny he was ever ordered to Cambodia: Joe Streuhli, commander of Costal Division 13; George Elliott, commander of Coastal Division 11; Adrian Lonsdale, captain USCG and commander Coastal Surveillance Center at An Thoi; Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, commander of Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam, CTF 115; and Rear Adm. Art Price, commander of River Patrol Force, CTF 116.
Also at least three of the five crewmen on Kerry’s PCF 44 boat -- Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch, and Steve Gardner -- deny that they or their boat were ever in Cambodia. The remaining two crewmen declined to be interviewed for the book.
The authors say the Cambodia incursion story is not included in Douglas Brinkley's "Tour of Duty." Instead, Kerry told of a mortar attack on Christmas Eve 1968 "near the Cambodia border" in Sa Dec.
Let's see if we can come up with the media's response. Total silence. Or guestRATs spinning like mad so viewers can't hear anything. Or the line: Who cares anyway. That was then. This is now, and besides, it's all Bush's fault.
Probably all the above
Perfectly normal thing for Buddhists to do.
There are (or were) Christians in the country, but this sounds really odd, particularly considering the source.
Well, if we are lucky we'll have paid biographers who cling to their "reporter" title claiming that none of the men actually claim they weren't in Vietnam at that time.
In a related story by our friends in the objective media, we'll learn that members of the Nixon administration now DENY that Nixon was not President in Christmas 68.
His life endeavors are based on Vietnam.
His politics are based on Vietnam.
His children understand Vietnam.
He acquired many friends because of Vietnam.
He acquired many enemies because of Vietnam.
He is decorated because of Vietnam.
His medical records are in demand because of Vietnam.
A former prisoner of Hanoi Hilton, now a Senator now brings up Vietnam because of Kerry.
Kerry protested our endeavors in Vietnam and discarded his medals because of our Vietnam endeavors.
I, because of Kerry, have heard more about Vietnam than I heard about Vietnam back in '69.
Do you 'spose he is diverting attention from a present day war that is going well just for political reasons?
If by the source you mean Kerry, then you are correct. However if you mean the Boston Herald, which is a conservative paper then you you mistake it with the liberal rag, the Boston Globe
Kerry lied, again!
I'm shocked....
Kerry lied, while real men died.
Kerry gave aid and comfort to the communists killing Americans in Vietnam, and gave the enemy hope to carry on until Kerry and his communist allies in the world wore down the American public via a media controlled by the "Most Trusted Man in America" ... that lying leftist bastard Cronkite..
I REMEMBER, I KNOW what happened, and I vote..
Semper Fi
My brother, US Army MP, and I, US Navy Riverboats, both went into Cambodia in 1970 - 1971.
Rice boats a'comin' Mr. Kerry .. Look out! ;-)
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., waves as he departs his campaign train in Lamar, Colo. on Saturday, Aug. 7, 2004. (AP Photo/Laura Rauch)
VAN SUSTEREN: Michael, did he cooperate at all with this or participate or sit down for interviews?
MICHAEL KRANISH, KERRY BIOGRAPHER: Well, sure. We did a series last year. It was a seven part series that ran 14 pages in the newspaper and he sat down for about ten hours of interviews for this series.
The book was written during the time when he was still running for the nomination right at the height of the Super Tuesday primaries and so forth, so our material for interviews was from the series.
To go back to your question you asked Nina, you know, he's also a skeptic of government. So, you ask why does he go, some people say flip- flop, other people would say why does he question things the way that he does?
A very short anecdote, he was in Vietnam and he was in Cambodia as part of a mission. I don't know if he intended to go but that's where he was but the government that was running the war knew that troops were in Cambodia but Nixon, President Nixon at the time was telling the American public, "We're not in Cambodia."
So, from a very early time, John Kerry is skeptical of government and he came back to protest the war that he participated in, so this is where some of this inner belief comes from. He does -- he did serve but he also questioned.
O'Neill's book shoots this out the water. Besides the fact that Nixon wasn't President at the time (Dec 1968), which is an obvious misstatement, O'Neill points out that:
"During Christmas 1968, Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo. Coastal Division 13’s patrol areas extended to Sa Dec, about fifty-five miles from the Cambodian border. Areas closer than fifty-five miles to the Cambodian border in the area of the Mekong River were patrolled by PBRs, a small river patrol craft, and not by Swift Boats. Preventing border crossings was considered so important at the time that an LCU (a large, mechanized landing craft) and several PBRs were stationed to ensure that no one could cross the border. A large sign at the border prohibited entry. Tom Anderson, Commander of River Division 531, who was in charge of the PBRs, confirmed that there were no Swifts anywhere in the area and that they would have been stopped had they appeared.
Bless you and your brother for your service.
Why are you telling me this?
I appreciate your post and service to our country and it is very interesting, however my feeble mind has lost connection with the purpose your reply.
VBR, please elaborate, my interest is fiery now. : )
Could be, but Kerry was talking about XMAS Eve, 1968. I gather you were on a PBR.
Hey! He coulda been ....a contender.
source=kerry
Do you 'spose he is diverting attention from a present day war that is going well just for political reasons?Yes I do. And the fact he spent 19 years in the Senate and accomplished virtually nothing.
Look at his life... the only significant thing is the Viet Nam war and it's aftermath.
It is amazing to me that we have someone running for POTUS basing most of his campaign on something that happened over 30 years ago.
It's even more amazing that, if the polls are to be believed, almost 50% of the fine folks in this country think what he did way back then is significant.
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