Posted on 03/21/2004 7:47:00 PM PST by Nasty McPhilthy
From the Right: John Kerry vs Oliver North
John Kerry Senator and democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has received some media scrutiny for his claim that when he voted for the war in Iraq, he only approved the threat of force. That waffling has made some question whether he can be trusted to protect the national security interests of the United States. But the media have failed to challenge some of his other foreign policy claims.
One of the ironies in Senator John Kerry's campaign for president is that he's a Vietnam veteran who has made another Vietnam veteran, Oliver North, an issue. On NBC's Meet the Press, he told host Tim Russert: "I've stood up and fought against Richard Nixon's war in Vietnam. I stood up and fought against Ronald Reagan's illegal war in Central America...I blew the whistle on Oliver North and his illegal aid network." On his website, Kerry declares that he worked at "holding Oliver North accountable."
Actually, Kerry fought in the Vietnam War and turned against it later, accusing his fellow soldiers of committing "genocide." Kerry now says that he was "angry" when he said that. The group, Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, accuses Kerry of a "betrayal of American prisoners of war" and "blatant disrespect for Vietnam veterans and the military." The "genocide" occurred when the U.S. was forced to withdraw from Vietnam and the Communists took over Vietnam and Cambodia, resulting in hundreds of thousands of boat people trying to escape and the slaughter of millions who remained behind–all this occurred when the Democratic Congress cut off funds for the war effort.
The best book on this subject is Betrayal in Vietnam by Lewis Fanning, who says, "It was not the Hanoi communists who won the war, but rather the American Congress that lost it." Going through the provisions of various bills, he presents the case that "a Democratic caucus of the Congress of the United States, aided and abetted by a few liberal Republicans, cast the South Vietnamese people into Communist slavery."
Oliver North's awareness of how Congress abandoned the people of Southeast Asia to communism was a factor in the Iran-Contra affair that Senator Kerry is so concerned about. That incident was primarily an effort by North and his colleagues to funnel assistance to Nicaraguan freedom fighters, or Contras, when Congress, once again under the grip of liberal Democrats, tried to cut them off and solidify in power the regime of the Communist Sandinistas. Former National Security advisor Robert McFarlane explained that North's support of the Contras was shaped by his experience watching the people of Vietnam betrayed by the Congress in favor of the communists. He didn't want to see it happen again.
Kerry calls it Oliver North's "illegal aid network." But North, then a staffer on the National Security Council under President Reagan, had received legal advice from the President's Intelligence Oversight Board that congressional restrictions on aid to the Contras didn't cover the NSC staff. Thanks to North, but not Kerry, the Contras survived, the Sandinistas were voted out of office, and Nicaragua has a democratic government today.
January 2004
From Accuracy in Media's Media Monitors, by Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid
Don't bother with Ollie, Kerry. You won't win.
Let's remember what happened and what it means for Kerry to "win" ... Kerry was one of Daniel Ortega's closest confidants in the Congress & Kerry would adoringly refer in meeting Ortega as "Kommandante". Kerry's & his comrades were ultimately successful in passing the Boland amendment which prohibited US Government agencies from helping the poor people of Nicaragua resist the commies and all the bloodshed they brought. Thus why it was necessary for Casey, Poindexter, North, et. al. to open up private financing for support of the Contras & North was ultimately absolved of the charges Kerry & his dopes pressed against him, none of which ever included any purported violation of the Boland amendments. Ultimately the policy was reversed & Ortega was forced to hold elections, which he promptly lost & has, fortunately, been held from power ever since. If John Kerry had his way, the communists would have retained power, the Soviets would have had a Pacific Coast port for nuclear submarines and air craft carriers, along with additional bases to promote the final takeover of Latin America, and the cold war might well have gone another way. Of course, all that time, as Kerry "brags", he was fighting for a nuclear freeze in Europe and doing all he could to sustain the most depostic regimes in Central America. Just another set of reasons why Hanoi John French Kerry should never be allowed to lead US policy,
And oddly enough, it was Johnson who sent Kerry there. But he is viscerally insistent on blaming Nixon. Sounds like a case for the headshrinkers.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
How about John al-Qerry?
There's a huge difference between 'equipment and advisers' and combat troops.
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