Since we canot post articles from the AZ Republic here is the first line and the link that follows:
Arizona Senator John McCain should be the next president of the United States of America.
Here is all you need to know about McCain and why he is UNFIT to be President, and quite frankly, unfit to be a U.S. Senator:
http://www.usvetdsp.com/mccainpg.htm
even Hackworth knows this about McCain:
snipped
"McCain was shot down on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam and spent the next five years as a prisoner of war -- during which, by his own admission, he violated the soldier's sacred Code Of Conduct by providing military information to the enemy (U.S. News and World Report, May 14, 1973).
Both Albright and McCain might find therapy more helpful than playing out earlier traumas at the world's expense. For that matter, maybe the whole country should shut off the tube and get shrunk"
Col. David Hackworth
From his column "Defending America" in worldnet.daily, April 30, 1999
http://www.diaspora-net.org/food4thought/hackworth.htm
McCain's Ties to Vietnam
John McCain, the Re pub lican senator from Arizona and former Navy pilot,
has emerged as the leading advocate for normalizing relations with the same
government that has repeatedly lied about torturing and killing U.S.
soldiers who were captured during the Vietnam War.
By Ted Sampley
ANOTHER In a Series
Sen. John McCain’s high-profile and unrelenting support for a government
that brutally tortured and murdered his fellow POWs is causing POW/MIA
family members and fellow Vietnam veterans to question the senator and his
motivations.
They ask what drives McCain, who owes his public life to the tag “former
POW,” to work so hard for Hanoi and so diligently to discredit any
possibility, in fact the probability, that Hanoi held back live U.S.
prisoners of war after the 1973 prisoner release.
The POW/MIA families point out that they worked hard during the Vietnam War
to secure McCain’s freedom when he was held by the Communists. The families
want to know why he is betraying them in their efforts to get answers about
their missing loved ones.
None of the senators who served on the 1991-92 Senate Select Committee on
POW/MIA Affairs were as vicious in their attacks on POW/MIA family members,
veterans and activists as McCain. During the POW/MIA hearings, Fran ces
Zwenig, the $118,000-a-year staff director of the Senate Select Committee,
reported to McCain that she was told by the Vietnamese, during a July 1992
meeting with the Vietnamese, that something had to be done about the POW/MIA
activists who were opposing lifting the U.S. imposed trade embargo against
Vietnam.
Not long after, McCain started de manding that the Select Committee
investigate the activists, prompting one observer to ask: “Are the
Vietnamese now directing the affairs of the Senate Select Committee?”
McCain accused the POW/MIA families and activists who openly challenged the
U.S. government’s POW/MIA policy of fraud. In his attacks he said: “The
people who have done these things are not zealots in a good cause. They are
criminals and some of the most craven, most cynical and most despicable
human beings to ever run a scam.”
McCain took the lead in the Senate and demanded a Justice Department
investigation of the activists. The Justice Department investigated and
found no reason to charge any of the POW/MIA activists.
When Col. Bui Tin, one of McCain’s former interrogators, testified before
the Senate Select Committee, McCain did not display that same “pit bull”
inclination to attack as he did for the POW/MIA families and activists. Tin,
a former senior colonel in the North Vietnamese Army, told the committee
that because of his high position in the Communist Party during the war, he
had the right to “read all the documents and secret telegrams from the
Politburo” pertaining to American prisoners of war. He said not only did the
Soviets interrogate some American prisoners of war, but they treated them
very badly.
During a break in the hearing, McCain warmly embraced Tin as if he were a
long lost brother. McCain fought a hard and successful campaign to get the
U.S.-imposed trade embargo against Vietnam lifted, despite the opposition of
all major veterans organizations, the two POW/MIA family groups and the
majority of the Vietnamese Americans in this country. The veterans want to
know why McCain, the “conservative” politician, takes such a strong stand
for the Vietnamese Communists and against such patriotic groups.
McCain was born in the Panama Ca nal Zone on Aug. 29, 1936. His father, Adm.
John McCain II, became commander-in-chief of the Pacific forces in 1968 and
later ordered the bombing of Hanoi while his son was held there as a
prisoner of war.
McCain’s grandfather, Adm. John S. McCain Sr., was the commander of aircraft
carriers in the Pacific under Adm. William F. Halsey in World War II.
McCain’s early years were spent in var ious places on the east and west
coasts. He attended Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va., and is a 1958
graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
At the Naval Academy, McCain’s grades in electrical engineering were
satisfactory, although he had numerous demerits for breaking curfews and
infractions. He graduated fifth from the bottom of his class.
Despite his low class standing, Mc Cain’s request for training as a Navy
pilot was granted. His father’s rank of admiral and family history
apparently played a part in the decision.
After qualifying as a Navy pilot, McCain was shipped to Vietnam.
On his 23rd mission over North Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1967, McCain was shot
down by a surface-to-air missile.
McCain later recalled that he was flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a
dive at about 4,500 feet when a Russian missile the size of a telephone pole
came up—the sky was full of them—and “blew the right wing off my Skyhawk
dive bomber. It went into an inverted, almost straight-down spin.”
“I pulled the ejection handle, and was knocked unconscious by the force of
the ejection—the air speed was about 300 knots,” McCain said. “I didn’t
realize it at the moment, but I had broken my right leg around the knee, my
right arm in three places and my left arm. I regained consciousness just
before I landed by parachute in a lake right in the center of Hanoi, one
they called the Western Lake. My helmet and my oxygen mask had been blown off.
“I hit the water and sank to the bottom . . . I did not feel any pain at the
time, and I was able to rise to the surface. I took a breath of air and
started sinking again.”
After bobbing up and down, McCain said he was eventually pulled from the
water by Vietnamese who swam out to get him.
He said a mob gathered on shore. He was bayoneted in the foot and his
shoulder was smashed with a rifle butt. He was put on a truck and taken to
Hanoi’s main prison, McCain said.
THE ‘RHINESTONE HERO’
In Congress, McCain’s peers tout him as a great war hero. On occasion, the
press categorizes McCain as one of the most tortured prisoners of the
Vietnam War.
Neither is true. He was never brutally tortured and, by his own admission,
he collaborated with the communists.
When one totals McCain’s 23 missions over North Vietnam times the number of
minutes he was actually over enemy territory (approximately 20 to 35 minutes
per mission), McCain’s total time over Vietnam before being shot down was
about 10-and-one-half hours.
For those 10-and-one-half hours over Vietnam, McCain was awarded two Silver
Stars, two Legions of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Bronze
Stars, the Vietnamese Legion of Honor and three Purple Hearts averaging over
one hero medal per hour.
Compare McCain’s 10-and-a-half hours of combat and 13 medals to that of a
U.S. infantry private who spent 365 days trudging through South Vietnam’s
jungle and mud, facing death on a daily basis. He was lucky to leave Vietnam
with a simple good conduct ribbon.
Compare McCain’s record as a prisoner of war to that of Army Special Forces
Capt. “Rocky” Versace of Norfolk, Va., who was captured by Vietnamese
Communists (Viet Cong) on Oct. 29, 1963 in South Vietnam. Versace resisted
his captors to the end. Very few, if any, in Congress know about Versace.
Versace spent two years chained in a bamboo cage and endured almost daily
torture by the Vietnamese Communists. He continuously frustrated his Viet
Cong interrogators by refusing to obey demands that he denounce America and
accept the communist philosophy of revolution. He told his captors as they
were dragging him to an interrogation hut, “I am an officer of the United
States Army. You can force me to come here, you can make me sit and listen,
but I don’t have to believe a damn word you say.”
The Viet Cong decided that day to take no more resistance from Versace. A
few days later, on orders of Viet Cong leader Vo Van Kiet, Vietnam’s current
prime minister and McCain’s friend, Versace was dragged from his
filth-ridden, mosquito-infested bamboo cage for the last time and forced to
kneel with his forehead pressed into the jungle mud. Versace was then shot
in the back of the head.
McCain doesn’t talk about MIAs such as Versace, Sgt. Kenneth Roraback of
Fayetteville, N.C., or Army Sgt. Harold Bennett of Perryville, Ark., all of
whom were ordered executed by his friend, Kiet, according to reports.
Compare McCain, the POW hero, to another fellow prisoner of war, Marine
Capt. Donald Cook, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
Cook was awarded our nation’s highest award for valor because, during his
years of captivity, he jeopardized his own health by sharing his meager
supply of food and scarce medicines with other U.S. prisoners who were more
sick than him. He became legendary for his refusal to betray the military
Code of Conduct. On one occasion, Kiet’s Viet Cong cadre put a pistol to
Cook’s head, demanding that he denounce the United States. Cook resisted and
calmly recited the nomenclature of the parts of the pistol, giving the
communists nothing.
The Viet Cong were so infuriated at Cook’s resistance that they isolated him
from other American prisoners. They intentionally denied him much needed
food and medicine. Like Versace, Cook disappeared and was never heard from
again. Hanoi claims Cook died as a result of malaria and that they do not
know where his remains are buried.
McCain discourages any talk about Versace, Roraback, Bennett and Cook.
To talk about such patriots would require the United States to demand the
return of their remains or, at the very least, records of their deaths. If
those MIAs are proven dead and their remains returned, then McCain’s friend,
Kiet, would be forced to explain the holes in the back of their skulls and
why he ordered the POWs murdered.
McCain is no hero. He violated the military Code of Conduct and willfully
collaborated with the Vietnamese, Soviets and Cubans.
It is not yet publicly known just how much McCain collaborated and what kind
of favors he received in return. Those in the U.S. government who do know
are not talking.
Subscribe to THE SPOTLIGHT!
Only $59.00 for 1 year or $99.00 for 2 years. Every week, get the important
stories
that the popular media either miss... or ignore. For around $1.00 per issue,
THE SPOTLIGHT is a steal! Don't wait any longer. Make sure that you never
miss another issue. Subscribe now!
To subscribe online, visit our SECURE server at www.spotlight.org.
You can also mail your subscription to THE SPOTLIGHT, 300 Independence Ave.
S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003. OR CALL 1-800-522-6292
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com">
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg29641.html
