Posted on 08/21/2004 1:18:05 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Presidential candidate John Kerry can count on the support of at least one group of Vietnam Veterans – and they're still in Vietnam.
Following Kerry's denunciation of the ad by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, criticizing him for exaggerating his war record, a group of former U.S. soldiers gathered in Hanoi to express their support for Kerry and to call President Bush a "draft dodger" for his service in the Texas Air National Guard during the war. And they were selling T-shirts to tourists to raise money for Kerry's campaign.
The $5 shirts sport a picture of President Bush with a line crossed through it and have "Americans Overseas for Kerry" emblazoned across the front. The proceeds are earmarked for donation to the Kerry campaign.
"The first day they came in, we had a stack at a cafe and were examining them, and four Japanese tourists asked if they could buy them," said Chuck Searcy, an Athens, Georgia, veteran who served in Vietnam for one year.
Searcy, who has lived and worked in Vietnam for nine years, is a representative of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.
"It's an effort on the part of a few of us to bring some attention to Kerry's war record to counter some of the allegations and some of the lies being made of his service in Vietnam," he told Reuters.
Searcy said arrangements for printing the shirts were made by Larry Holzman, a Hanoi-based American who runs DTK International, a non-profit organization that markets condoms and contraceptives in Vietnam.
"We had very serious disagreements among ourselves about the war," Searcy told Associated Press in criticism of the ads, "but the creed was that we never spoke ill of another veteran. That ethic has been violated in this election, and it's pretty shameful."
The Swift Boat Veterans would probably agree. In their second ad, a young John Kerry appears on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971, testifying that his fellow troops in Vietnam "had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."
According to the May 19, 1997, Viet Nam News, Searcy was part of a contingent of former members of VVAW, who came to Hanoi to honor Ho Chi Minh and to mark the 30th anniversary of VVAW's founding which fell on the North Vietnamese communist leader's birthday.
The new blockbuster, Unfit for Service, notes that Kerry also praised Ho Chi Minh in 1971, comparing him to George Washington.
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U.S. veterans of the Vietnam war, John Lancater (L), Andre Sauvageeot (2nd L), Phil Karber (2nd R) and Chuck Searcy (R), wear T-shirts in support of the U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry , in Hanoi August 21, 2004. With the U.S. presidential race taking a decidedly bitter turn over John Kerry's Vietnam war record, U.S. veterans in Hanoi are selling T-shirts supporting his run for the White House. REUTERS/Kham
Doesn't that violate the prohibition on foreign donations in any Presidential Election Campaign?
You''l hurl PING!
...in Hanoi, no less.
Class. Pure class. </sarcasm>
TRAITORS ONE AND ALL....
"Doesn't that violate the prohibition on foreign donations in any Presidential Election Campaign?"
Carl, looks like you could get a good story about this.
Jon, do you know much about FEC law? How would one file a complaint with the FEC?
Can someone tell me exactly how to post a picture? I have one I received in an email I would like to post.
Thank you.
"American's Overseas"!They are not real American's and i refuse to accept them as such.Also,the communists to protest at the GOP convention,SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO!
Kerry's World: Father Knows Best***As early as prep school, John Kerry showed signs that he shared his father's suspicions about America's cold war foreign policy. In a debate at St. Paul's in the late '50s, he argued that the United States should establish relations with Red China. During his junior year at Yale, he won a speech prize for an oration warning, "It is the specter of Western Imperialism that causes more fear among Africans and Asians than communism, and thus it is self-defeating." And, when he was tapped to deliver a graduation speech in 1966, he used the occasion to condemn U.S. involvement in Vietnam, intoning, "What was an excess of isolationism has become an excess of interventionism." ***
The easiest way to do it is just put the link in a post and I'll add the stuff to make it show. I've tried to explain it but without much luck.
I wonder how much his comrade in communism Jane Fonda has given him.
Acknowledging the young Kerry's ambitions the New Left (now Rat party leaders) took Kerry to be their Ho.
In both instances he has spit on many men and women who fought honorably.
How do we know these guys were really in Vietnam? (Even so, who the hell cares? There are plenty of lying freaks who served in Vietnam--Kerry is just one of them).
Democrat plants call in to radio talk shows and say they are a republican but "are voting for Kerry because ..."
Democrats infiltrate many Republican organizations. Watch the freak show during the Republican Convention. There will be thousands of sign carrying "Republcians for Kerry" and "Veterans for Kerry", and 99% of them (or all of them) are nonveteran socialist Democrats.
The picture is in an email and I don't know how to link it.
If I can link it, how do I make sure the email addresses don't get linked at the same time?
Put your mouse on the picture and LEFT click then come to a post and RIGHT click.
It should only pick up the picture address. When you preview your post it should show you if the email address is in there and then you could just not post it. But I don't think that will happen.
Americans overseas can donate to political campaigns. The fact that they made that money overseas is not a barrier. They probably are just selling them to themselves anyway, but the media loves this kind of story.
Communist traitors for Kerry, that's the ticket!
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