Posted on 11/14/2004 4:12:10 PM PST by CHARLITE
As a longtime investigative researcher and journalist, I knew that politics could be down and dirty, but I didn't expect (despite premonitions thereof), that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., would betray my son in the same manner that he had betrayed his fellow Swift Boat servicemen, and then all the American servicemen and women who served honorably in Vietnam so long ago. But I was wrong.
I thought that he might have a little decency left in him, a decency that would spare the fighting men and women of Operation Iraqi Freedom from his demeaning smears and lies. Al Qaqaa, the Iraqi ammunition/explosives complex story, proved me wrong. I'm glad I was, for now I could see the "new" John Kerry for what he really was, the "old" John Kerry in election mode, but still as anti-America as could be.
And on Nov. 2, I was joined by tens of millions of Americans who also saw through the slick election propaganda and imagery of John Kerry and John Edwards, and voted to send them down to defeat.
As one of the researchers for the book Unfit for Command, and as a former Vietnam correspondent, I knew that those who contributed to this controversial book about Kerry's Vietnam service, his medals and his anti-Vietnam activities later would suffer an incredible onslaught of hate, smears, malice, vitriol and outright lies. Again, I (and we) were not disappointed. The Kerry propaganda machine went into full action, including using left-wing media types who had never read the book. They hit hard and fast, lied like rugs, and smeared people with the best tactics of a Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
However, the truth provided a good shield against the slings and arrows of the Devines, Meehans, Hurleys, Matthews, O'Donnells and the editors of The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others. The wounds suffered by the Swifties were not life-threatening as were the ones they had suffered in South Vietnam. Their "band of brothers" unity helped to wipe away any pain or injury. They were still made of sterner stuff than their attackers would ever be, and they had millions of other Americans supporting them.
Then came the October Surprise of The New York Times (The Pravda Times of the old Vietnam days), whose slogan "All the News That's Fit to Print" eventually morphed into "All the News That Fits." From the Pentagon Papers to Abu Graib, the Gray Lady began a slide into the dark side of journalism, featuring a hate-America orientation that has been mirrored by the left in Europe and the new extremism in vogue on the world block, Islamofascism. Now it was an open attack on the American soldier in Iraq by the Times, one that had already been planned by CBS, and a knee-jerk reaction by Sen. Kerry that set me off to no end.
One would think that the infamy of 9/11, an event that had awoken so many complacent and oblivious Americans out of their stupor about the real world, would have at least knocked a little common sense and decency into John Kerry, the presidential candidate. It did not, and now he was up to his old tricks against, blaming the American soldiers in Iraq for things they supposedly did not do, as opposed to his "Ghenghis Khan" speech in which he blamed them for things he said they did do, including committing widespread, systematic war crimes as a policy in Vietnam.
Now why was I so personally furious at Sen. John Kerry and his campaign? It was because my son served and fought with his Army Reserve company as part of the 3rd Infantry Division in the final drive to oust Saddam Hussein that occurred on April 3, 2003, at a place on the Euphrates River known as Hindiyala ("Objective Peach"). If, to use a "Ghostbusters" movies analogy, Hindiyala, on the east bank of that river, was the "lock" that would keep the 3rd from crossing over on the four-lane concrete bridge spanning it, SPC 4 Joshua Friedman and the 299th Army Engineers (Reserve), MRB (Multi-Role Bridge) out of Fort Belvoir were the "keymaster" to opening that bridge up to American armor for the final drive onto Baghdad.
Now, how does this fit into the Al Qaqaa story about allegedly missing explosives? Easy. The 299th and the 54th Ordnance Battalion had conducted a joint amphibious assault to seize the eastern bank of the Euphrates and its bridge before the Iraqi Republican Guards' Medina Division could destroy it. And they did so quite successfully, suffering no casualties and losing only one small craft. Then the Ordnancemen of the 54th defused the remaining explosives on the bridge, after one side had already been partially damaged, thus saving it for the heavy armor of the M-1 Abrams tanks to cross the Euphrates quickly and safely.
The 299th helped to clear remaining resistance on the eastern bank of the river, then went downstream a little ways and put up the first operational combat ribbon bridge of some 22-23 bays across the Euphrates, as well as constructing a medium-girder steel bridge. These were used to allow lighter equipment to cross the river in support of the Abrams tank units. And away they went, wiping out the last of the Medina Division and Saddam's Fedeyeen militia thugs, eventually seizing Baghdad Airport on the outskirts of that city, an event that led to the "Baghdad Tank Run" and the subsequent quick surrender of the last remaining Iraqi units there.
My son and the 299th also went out on patrols to police the area around Hindiyala, capturing Iraqi soldiers, many of whom were surrendering in droves, setting up traffic checkpoints, and most importantly, finding and seizing ammunition caches and sites. It was this last action that began to reveal the extent of the ammunition (including explosives)and weapons hoards that Saddam had built up over a decade since Gulf War I (despite United Nations observers).
He said that there were caches all over the place, buildings filled to the ceiling with boxes of small-arms ammo, equipment, including new chemical-warfare suits, as well as old Gulf War I ammo strewn around the desert areas.
American ordnance experts have stated that there were at least 10,000 such sites that they found (so far), spread across a country the size of California, and no one knows how much material, possibly including weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, nuclear) might still lie beneath the sands there. Some planes were found buried under the sand while one photo my son brought back showed a MIG-25 parked in a cornfield; another in the driveway of someone's house.
The total estimated weight of the Iraqi arms caches so far has been calculated to be two and a half times that of the total arms in the whole United States, some 1 million tons or more.
Now the duplicitous, U.S.-hating United Nations had made a suspiciously timed claim that the U.S. was responsible for losing 270 tons of high explosives, including RDX and HMX, from a site some 20 miles south of Baghdad known as Al Qaqaa, a claim that the Times picked up with and ran like the town drunk on a binge, a binge which CBS had planned to start on their own.
Without any proof of even whether any dangerous high-explosive materials were actually missing, the Times went after President Bush in a blatantly partisan political manner, aided by none other than Sen. Kerry. Kerry made outrageous claims blaming President Bush for mishandling the security of the explosives, letting Iraqi looters and terrorists steal them by the ton, and claiming that this was just another example of the failure of the U.S. policy in Iraq. Kerry kept claiming that he "could have done it better."
Now that a major from the 3rd has come forward and explained that his small unit had hauled away about 210 tons (quite possibly including some of the claimed 270 tons) for destruction at a designed ordnance handling site, Sen. Kerry began to slink away like a coward in the night, never apologizing to the brave American soldiers of the 3rd and the 101st/82nd Airborne who had fought and then guarded those sites during their stays there.
Kerry never said anything about aerial-surveillance photos that showed the Iraqis, and, according to Bill Gertz of The Washington Times, a special Russian Speznatz unit, hauling away munitions before the war started. Nor did he acknowledge earlier press stories about reported heavy truck movements into Syria and possibly Iran before the U.S. entry into Iraq, trucks which may have carried WMDs, the missing explosives and other deadly items.
So what we have here is a desperate little man, Kerry, again insulting the integrity and accomplishments of the American Army, but this time, instead of just insulting my friends, he insulted my son and his unit, and all the other brave men and women who have served in Iraq during the OIF actions and its aftermath.
He also spit on the graves of those who gave their lives not only to protect America, but to bring freedom to 25 millions Iraqis and millions more in Afghanistan. His outrageous and totally wrong denigration of the Tora Bora operations even brought a rebuke from Gen. Tommy Franks, the overall Centcom commander of the Afghan operations, a rebuke that set Kerry straight on that event. However, Kerry kept claiming that we "let" Osama Bin Laden "get away" thought there was never any proof that he was there in the first place. The man never learned when to shut up. The American people finally did it on Nov. 2.
As the father of an American soldier, I have a message for John Kerry regarding his despicable behavior and mouthing off about Al Qaqaa and OIF: "Not with my son, you don't."
Never again will I let you dishonor our servicemen and women. Never again will I let you trash their service for your outrageously destructive, partisan and personal political gain. And I was joined by millions of Vietnam veterans on Nov. 2 who also said "never again."
In the famous words of Army counsel Joseph Welch directed to Sen. Joseph McCarthy during a particularly nasty Senate hearing in 1954, "Have you no decency? Have you no shame?"
Max Friedman resides in Arlington.
The views expressed by op-ed writers do not necessarily reflect those of management of The Augusta Free Press.
What do you think? Share your thoughts on this story at letters@augustafreepress.com
I don't know why we decided during the Korean War that the word "win" was bad.
bump
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I thought Mr. Carville sneezed very hard. Ewwww. The egg's bad enough.
He and Mary have at least two offspring. Since it's a done deal....we'd better hope they look like her and not him. ;0)
I'm one of those vets who was tarred with the same brush Kerry smeared Vietnam Vets with back in 1971. We stood tall on Nov. 2nd so that he couldn't do it again. Any vet that voted for him was an idiot. Kerry is a traitor and loser. With any luck we'll never see him again. Perhaps we should have him made ambasador to France.
ELECTION 2004: Kerry used vets for political gain
Sen. John Kerry smeared 2.5 million Vietnam veterans when he spoke to the Senate Foreign Relations committee in 1971.
He said that we had "committed war crimes on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command" and "razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan." Kerry's words were calculated to embarrass and manipulate the Nixon administration by spreading vicious lies about brave men who served honorably.
His words caused wounds much more painful than any the enemy could inflict. They cast doubt and shame on an entire generation of patriots who served with honor and dignity and further divided our nation, solely to gain political power. The veterans he smeared were just tools he used for his purposes then discarded, like trash.
Thirty-three years later, Kerry is a candidate for president and commander of the armed forces, and again he is smearing the reputation of our brave soldiers, this time in Iraq. He falsely claims they didn't guard 380 tons of high explosive munitions, allowing them to be looted. The basis for this attack: an October surprise hit piece in The New York Times. Within hours of the newspaper hitting the rack, Kerry was on the campaign stump smearing these soldiers, with no proof or research whatsoever!
His words cast doubt and shame on these brave and honorable warriors, but Kerry saw an opportunity to gain politically and he jumped right on it. He snatched a headline from the newspaper that has been his willing accomplice throughout his campaign, and used it to smear the 101st Airborne Division. The same day, NBC news debunked the story, as they had a reporter embedded with the 101st when it entered the Al Qaqa weapons facility in April 2003, who said there were no such munitions. Even after the Times' story was debunked, Kerry was still smearing those soldiers.
A leopard doesn't change his spots, even after 33 years. He smeared veterans for political gain in 1971 and now he has done the same thing in 2004.
This is the guy who declared he was "reporting for duty," who would command the same armed forces he just smeared. I hope the American voters will make the correct choice on their ballots Tuesday and ensure he never has that opportunity.
The whole Carville family was on Russert's Christmas edition of Meet the Press last year. The older daughter looks like her Dad; the younger like her Mom.
Fantastic article. Makes me want to spit in disgust about Kerry and the media.
Prairie
YW LOL any time, I can't stand the whole slimey ilk
Is Howie Carr a talk show host in Boston? Isn't he conservative? If so, he could help to push a candidate, huh?
You will also need to get some national talk show hosts, like Laura Ingraham, behind him/her. I know she went up to South Dakota for a rally for Thune. I really think the national interest in the Thune/Daschle race helped Thune.
Just keep an eyes and ears open for someone, and we the pjhadeen and talk radio may just help rid your state of some stale hot air.
Thanks for the ping!
ANY help would be appreciated. The Herold might run some advertising, and massnews.com does if they get wind of it!
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