Posted on 08/08/2004 5:09:55 PM PDT by Steven W.
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN AUG 08, 2004 19:04:35 ET XXXXX
SWIFT OFFICERS AND VETS: KERRY LIED ABOUT SPENDING CHRISTMAS IN CAMBODIA
Since the early 1970s, Kerry has spoken and written of how he was illegally ordered to enter Cambodia. Kerry mentioned it in the floor of the Senate in 1986 when he charged that President Reagan’s actions in Central America were leading the U.S. in another Vietnam. Here’s what he said as excerpted from the new book, UNFIT FOR COMMAND:
I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared--seared--in me.
DRUDGE has learned from the accounts of Swift Boat officers and Kerry’s crewmembers that Kerry was never in Cambodia. UNFIT FOR COMMAND authors charge that Kerry made it all up.
“Despite the dramatic memories of his Christmas in Cambodia, Kerry’s statements are complete lies,” according to John O’Neil, co-author and the Swift Boat commander who took over Kerry’s boat. “Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War. . . . he was more than fifty miles away from Cambodia.”
Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo. Coastal Division 13’s patrol areas extended to Sa Dec, about 55 miles from the Cambodian border. . . . Tom Anderson, Commander of River Division 531, who was in charge of PBRs (small river patrol crafts] confirmed that there were no Swifts anywhere in the area and they would have been stopped had they appeared.
All the living commanders in Kerry’s chain of command . . . deny that Kerry was ever ordered to Cambodia. They indicate that Kerry would have been seriously disciplined or court-martialed had he gone there. At least three of the five crewmen on Kerry’s boat, Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch, and Steve Gardner, deny that they or their boat were ever in Cambodia.
O’Neill observed that the Cambodia incursion story is not included in Tour of Duty (Kerry’s recent biography). Instead, Kerry replaced the story with a report about a mortar attack that occurred on Christmas Eve 1968 “near the Cambodian border” in a town called Sa Dec and Christmas day was spent at the base writing entries in his journal.
After conducting interviews and research, authors of Unfit for Command conclude, “The truth is that Kerry made up his secret mission into Cambodia.... the lie about the illegal Cambodian incursion painted his superiors up the chain of command. . . . as villains faced down by John Kerry, a solitary hero in grave and exotic danger and forced illegally against his will into harm’s way.”
Developing...
We shall see. Kerry is lying about his Nam service, it's plain to common sense folks and the media may be dragged into having to honestly cover it and that will not help him.
It is not an either/or scenario.
We can blast his charade of Nam heroism and patriotism AND blast his Senate tenure too.
But do you think the media is going to tote out water any better over his Senate's failings?
Don't count on it.
This election will not be decided by the phantom undecideds what few there are. It will be decided by a motivated base.
There are lots of angry Nam vets out there and the madder they are at lying ass Kerry the better.
BTW...I avoided arguing with you...it's pointless...we are both set in our ways.
Wrong! Swift vets should go after VietName and the Bush team should go after Kerry's 20 years. Boing after both IS a winning combo.
Obviously... "Boing" = "Going"
That is a huge one! Nixon wasn't even Pres yet!
See post #8 for an image of part of a page of 1986 Congressional Record.
109: Right on.
Anything, and I mean anything, that gets in the way of that is anathema to me.
This SwiftVet stuff does not help George W. Bush.
I couldn't have snuck one by you guys a month ago if I'd sacrificed a goat in your honor.
Bravo Sierra!
It is very important, and I doubt many veterans would agree with your opinion.
I can understand a mistatement like that, after 18 years, and in that context. But, Kerry was not in Cambodia. Here he is, in 1986, arguing or discussing the Contra's, and drawing a phony parallel to a fabricated "Christmas in Cambodia" experience.
Kerry is a big phony. I see it plain as day. I bet, by the end of the year, maybe 15% of the American people see Kerry as a phony. P.T. Barnum underestimated the rate of birth of suckers. Einstein had it right, regarding the two most abundent elements in the universe.
You're entitled to your opinion.
We shall see who is vindicated.
Kerry is NOT an odds on favorite to win the election.The race is tight right now,the GOP Convention has not taken place yet,most people,unlike us,don't even begin to pay attention to politics until after Labor Day;even in a presidential election year.
The country is still divided and while most people long ago made up their minds who they'll be voting for/against,the more people get to actually see and hear Kerry,the less they like him.He didn't even get a Convention bounce!
Unseemly?
I suppose you could call the Truth unseemly.
For the record, one more time since the media wishes to create a myth, these SwiftBoat guys are not doing this at the behest of the Republican party or the Bush campaign. They wish them to stay out of the matter because it isn't G.W.'s affair. I agree with them.
This group consists of Republicans AND Democrats that have real concerns about Kerry being President given how he LIED then betrayed them in the war he cites as the reason he should be elected.
I am and will support these men that were betrayed over 30 years ago. This country turned their back on them once and I will not abandon their quest to air the truth.
My support for them has nothing to do with securing the election for G.W. If partisan gain was all I had an interest in I would want these guys silenced.
I want G.W. elected. I am very loyal to him but this is not about him. This is about overdue justice for the Vets of the Vietnam War. They WILL have their story heard.
I hope you're right, but I fear this will somehow bit Bush in the ass more than Kerry considering the line the media is already taking; one of questioning the motives and backers of the SwiftVetsforTruth crowd and asking why Bush hasn't condemned them like McCain instead of doing a little bit of investigation into the actual claims of the SwiftVets that was made relevant by the fact that Kerry's whole campaign and the entire DNC convention basically centered around the idea that, "Vote for Kerry because he's a war hero."
I hope you're right, but I fear this will somehow bit Bush in the ass more than Kerry considering the line the media is already taking; one of questioning the motives and backers of the SwiftVetsforTruth crowd and asking why Bush hasn't condemned them like McCain instead of doing a little bit of investigation into the actual claims of the SwiftVets that were made relevant by the fact that Kerry's whole campaign and the entire DNC convention basically centered around the idea that, "Vote for Kerry because he's a war hero."
Thanks. That clears up one thing: he didn't think Nixon was president in Christmas 1968. At least not from that CR transcript.
People who are saying they will vote Kerry are not voting FOR Kerry, but against Bush. So there is some possibility of convincing them not to vote for Kerry.
Kerry: "I was in Cambodia before I was in Vietnam"
You said: All of this stuff about Mr. Kerry and what he did and didn't do in Vietnam is very unseemly. Mind you, I am no fan of Mr. Kerry. What concerns me is that this sort of advertising(and recantations) is not good for President Bush.
When, as here, Kerry is running exclusively on his record of service in Vietnam, that record should be reviewed, and not simply accepted as true (especially when there are as many apparent discrepancies as there are). Of course, it should not be left to the campaigns to investigate these things. A fair media would have given at least half the attention to this issue that they gave to Bush's alleged AWOL status. Why the double standard here? Where was the outrage at claims of Kerry's surrogates about Bush's service? And, if the Vietnam service of Kerry is not a valid basis for electing him, where is the assessment by the media of his Senate record? I tire of this duplicity.
Yes,so try to get them to vote for Nader. :-)
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