Posted on 01/08/2005 7:41:50 PM PST by CHARLITE
The last battle of the Vietnam War was fought on November 2nd, 2004, as John Kerry was defeated in his bid to become President of the United States by John O'Neill and the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth.
What was the battle about? It was a battle to recapture the honor of the Vietnam veterans who served gallantly and heroically in that war.
And who were the adversaries in this battle? It was the dishonest old media culture -- CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York Times, and the LA Times, who backed John Kerry’s version of how Vietnam veterans were the enemy of humanity in the Vietnam War. The old media was quick to endorse John Kerry's claim to have been a real Audie Murphy in Vietnam, as described by his recent biographer, Douglas Brinkley.
On the other side of this battle stood John O'Neill and his Swift Boat Veterans, the POWs, and a large contingent of informed Vietnam veterans who weren't going to lie down and let the media kick them in the face again. They weren't buying John Kerry's version of the Vietnam War and they weren't going to let America forget Kerry’s traitorous activities after the war when he became a shill for the Vietnamese communists.
Reminiscent of their actions over 30 years ago when covering the war in Vietnam, the big media portrayed O'Neill and his fellow Vietnam veterans as bunch of liars. None of the network news outlets was fit to interview O'Neill or review his book "UNFIT FOR COMMAND" even though it was on the NY Times bestseller list for a month.
Not once did a major media outlet call on Kerry to address any of the charges leveled against him by his fellow veterans. Nor did they call on him to sign his SF-l80 to release his military records, though there is good evidence that he received a less than honorable discharge for his meeting with the enemy in Paris during time of war.
The reason they didn't pursue Kerry's Vietnam record and his traitorous actions after the war was quite simply that they preferred Kerry’s version of the Vietnam War to the reality of it. The mainstream media was only interested in attacking the integrity of the Swift Vets and accusing 250 of Kerry’s fellow veterans of lying for political purposes.
Not once did they suggest that their chosen Vietnam hero, the one who threw his medals away, might be lying. They simply couldn't pursue Kerry on this. It would have been an admission that they, too, had marched in lockstep with Kerry on the Vietnam War, and in the defaming of Vietnam veterans.
The dominant media culture that claimed the so-called moral high ground in their effort to destroy America's support for the war doesn’t want to be reminded that the communists who had promised a heaven on earth in Vietnam if they won, turned Southeast Asia into a Holocaust once they came to power.
The fact that almost 4 million of our former South Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian allies were murdered after the fall of Saigon, is brutal evidence that the anti-war crowd and their media cohorts were conned by the totalitarians in Hanoi. Several North Vietnamese Generals have now written in their memoirs that the antiwar movement in the streets of America was instrumental in helping them win the war.
The antiwar Left, with the help of the media, managed not only to help the North Vietnamese win the war, but shifted the focus of rage against the war onto the Vietnam veterans. Our troops, America’s finest who had gone halfway around the world to fight for a democracy against the totalitarian forces of Communism, were treated with unjust contempt when they returned home.
That's one reason the old media couldn't question Kerry about his actions in support of the enemy in Vietnam -- they had done the same dishonest thing over 30 years ago. It fit their purpose to portray the Vietnam veterans as losers. Never mind that the other side had a policy of assassination and torture, murdering more than 61,000 South Vietnamese public officials during the war, and that they created concentration camps and committed genocide after "peace" was declared.
That’s why there is an unbridgeable gap between those who went and those who consciously avoided the war. The only Vietnam Veteran the old media can endorse is a veteran like Kerry who betrayed his comrades with phony charges of war crimes, who refused to allow the Vietnam Human Rights Bill to be called to the Senate floor, who abandoned the POWs in his chairmanship of the POW Senate Hearings, who lied about being in Cambodia to dramatize his testimony against aid to the Contras in Nicaragua, and filled staff positions with the likes of Gareth Porter, a scholar who sang the praises of the Khmer Rouge and denied the Cambodian holocaust...
The media of the 60's and the early 70's had a powerful effect on how the Vietnam War was perceived by the public, as there was no alternative media as there is today. As the war progressed, they chose to smear Vietnam vets as degenerates and losers -- an image that found its way into our movies and culture.
Herman Melville knew something about human nature when he wrote, when a person who has power over you finds that you are the better man, he will do everything in his power to belittle and destroy you. This is at the heart of the media's portrayal of the Vietnam Veteran.
The old media carries a guilt complex over the Vietnam War, and it's too painful for them to reexamine their actions. Doing so might show that they were wrong and were complicit in aiding an enemy in perpetrating a Holocaust in Southeast Asia. It might mean an admitting that the better men were those who went off to fight the war, rather than the "let's-give-peace-a-chance" agitators who marched under the Viet Cong flag in the streets of America.
I attended a conference in Boston this July on "The Myths of the Vietnam War" which examined the shallowness and the one-sidedness of the news coverage of that war. On the same Thursday night that Kerry made his grand entrance at the Democratic Convention, I joined 200 anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans, former American and South Vietnamese POWs, and surviving Vietnamese Boat People, in a march of protest to the front of the Convention Hall.
Not one major news outlet cared to interview us, and there were thousands of media people there. We marched to Kerry's condo on the Hill, and had a ceremonial reenactment of his throwing his medals back. POW Mike Benge and another South Vietnamese POW who had spent 20 years in a prison camp in North Vietnam marched at my sides. John Kerry's actions had betrayed everyone involved in our protest. We chanted, "Good men died while John Kerry lied!"
Old-fashioned though it may be the notion still resonates with a large segment of Americans that in time of war, a military officer shouldn't betray his comrades by meeting with officials of the enemy and attempting to force his own government to yield to their demands. John Kerry did exactly that when he met Madame Binh and the North Vietnamese in Paris in 1970 and l97l.
That's why the Swiftees helped to defeat John Kerry with their simple, powerful message that he was unfit for command. The Swift Vet / POW ads galvanized the 25 million Veterans in America, and were enough to tilt the election in George Bush's favor.
Some suggest that Kerry should have done more to rebut the Swift Vet ads, but how could he? In the book, "Unfit for Command," the Swift Vets had nailed Kerry to the wall. He had no rebuttal, except to threaten to sue the publishers of the book, and later to sue the movie theaters that dared to show "Stolen Honor." And in this, too, the old media covered for him.
In September, I attended a rally on Capitol Hill of some 7,000 Vietnam veterans against John Kerry that was organized by former Navy SEAL Larry Bailey. Major news outlets were on hand for the event, but most chose to ignore the protest. The Washington Times ran a short article, and USA Today ran a photo of the lone opposition Vietnam veteran, Bobby Mueller, who showed up to oppose our rally. One guy against 7,000, and that was the picture a national newspaper chose to describe the event, without any commentary, or even any mention of why we were there.
I have no doubt that if 7,000 Vietnam veterans had assembled in front of the White House to support John Kerry, all three major networks would have featured the event on their nightly news shows, and the Washington Post would have run a large feature on it.
John O'Neill was a speaker at the rally, along with Stolen Valor author B. G. Burkett. Another speaker, Vietnam Nurse Captain Donna Rowe told the story of how a group of US infantry soldiers had brought in a wounded Vietnamese baby girl with shrapnel in her chest. The child's entire village had been murdered by the Viet Cong for being too friendly to the American soldiers.
"We saved that baby’s life," she said. "We did not kill babies over there like John Kerry said. We went out of our way to save them."
The old media disrespected the Vietnam veterans during the 2004 campaign just as they had done over three decades ago, but this time the vets fought back, taking their battle to the Internet, talk radio, and the cable news networks. It was a wonderful example of diversity of opinion and freedom of speech, but hardly the kind of speech and opinion the old media prefers. They want their own version of the history of the Vietnam War, and ignore or attack anyone who disagrees with it.
The Vietnam veterans who opposed Kerry were fighting for their honor, stolen from them long ago by the media and the antiwar movement. John Kerry had been front and center in dishonoring those he served with in the Vietnam War.
Senator Zell Miller recognizes the valor of America's veterans, "Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for freedom of liberty of total strangers than the American soldier." Don't those words describe the Vietnam veterans?
Had John Kerry been capable of uttering such noble words, and if he could have been honest about his fellow Vietnam veterans, he would have had their support, and in all probability would have been elected President of the United States. Instead, by once again defiling the honor of Vietnam veterans with slanderous lies, Kerry and his media supporters lost the last battle of the Vietnam War.
Rich Webster
Lt. with the Regional Forces / Popular Forces, Vietnam 1968 - 1969
Pray for W and Our Troops
Funny.
Okay, now that the American people have slammed the door on the Viet Nam War, it's time to slam the door on the '60's Hippy-Tantrum.
Thanks for the ping. This is a fine article, well written. The election was a major defeat of the enemy media, as you well know and I thank you for your part in it. Our honor has been restored in the minds of many people.
I can't speak for others, but it still galls and scares me that over 48% of the people of this country STILL voted for that traitorous asshole JEffinK!
I can't speak for others, but it still galls and scares me that over 48% of the people of this country STILL voted for that traitorous asshole JEffinK!
Hey, any time.
<< The Last Battle of the Vietnam War >>
Do not bet on it.
Like every major Vietnam battle fought by Americans and our allies in that conflict, this latest was rewarded with a decisive victory, it is true -- but Kerry has once again escaped prosecution for his treasons and with his freedom and his life -- and is off and running toward 2008.
And thus will have to soon once again be traced and faced and erased from contention.
And as for you. Lieutenant Rich Webster?
May God for ever bless you and all of those you love.
Every Real American, I am sure, joins me in saluting you!
I have always said the soldiers won the battles of Vietnam and the media lost the war as Dan Rather was so proud to mention shortly after the Tet Offensive in 1968. The SwiftVets to me were men (strike that) the hero’s who came foreword to set truth free from the oppression of the anti-American MSM who I have know doubt that if it wasn't for the 2004 election and everything that was inspired by it like the SwiftVets would have done everything in their power to portray our soldier today as the same baby killers committing an illegal act against sovereign nations we had know business attacking. Their headlines although still leaning heavily in this direction due to the liberal arrogance of the MSM was left out of kilter because of the attack of September 11 which inspired a popular support of the military to avenge and protect us from a now front page aggressor who had said and shown their will to destroy us. John Kerry is not a war hero but a mere opportunist who had no intention of fighting on the front lines of Vietnam. His only intentions were to build a resume (film footage included) for a run at the office of president of the United States he so much despised. This to me is no different that if it was Osama’s plan himself. The MSM response to the SwiftVets was to spit in their faces after no longer able to deny their existence and possible influence on the 2004 elections. The American public picked up on their heroic efforts to bring the truth to light and embraced them with the love of a mother holding her son after a violent tour of duty in a far away land she was never sure he would return from alive. I have so much respect for these men and the honor they have restored to our veterans of Vietnam or any other war fought in the name of U.S freedom and the liberties we take for granted more often than we should. One day we will see John Kerry’s SF180 and the facts that will tell a story of a man who betrayed his country and found himself confronted with a less than honorable discharge he claims every veteran who didn’t support him deserved. Many innocents died because of the likes of John Kerry and the MSM by the domino effect of their actions and lies. These men in Vietnam had served or died in vain to the euphoria of the MSM until the SwiftVets came like knights on white horses screaming we will not be silent anymore because we speak for all those who had not been heard, for all those who were spit on returning from battle by the faction in this country that hate people like us and what we stand for. The SwiftVets were to kind in writing a book titled "Unfit for Command" it should have been titled “Unfit to be an American”. I also thank Fox News and papers like the N.Y. Post for letting their story be heard and forcing the MSM and John Kerry to respond. I also thank Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingram, Sean Hannity, and all the other conservative broadcasters along with the religious congregations who teach the value of life and its meaning for ushering in a new dawn in America. The fall of the MSM is on the rise and the rise of liberal ideas that have torn into the fabric of this society is in decline. It is okay, speak your mind and don’t let anyone put their foot on your throat and call you a bigot or racist or homophobe to shut you up, we all have the right to speak our minds without being oppressed. I have never been ashamed to fly the American flag in my front yard and I dare any liberal to take it down.
Maybe people just knew not to say anything bad about veterans around me.
Excellent article!
The Swiftboat vets and POW's deserve the gratitude of this nation. Their actions did more than anyone else's to save our country during this election. Not only did they win this most important of battles, but they drove a stake through the heart of the Serpent they call John F. Kerry! He is dead in the water politically and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart!
The Swiftboat vets and POW's put it all on the line for us not once, but twice and they have paid a heavy price in doing so. God Bless them!
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NEVER FORGET
JOHN KERRY who returned from Vietnam to call us American Soldiers fighting for the Freedom of Others there long ago...
...rapists and Terrorists who cut off heads and ears.
Whereas...
MEL GIBSON came back from filming our real Vietnam War Story titled...
.."WE WERE SOLDIERS"..
http://www.WeWereSoldiers.com
...committed to finally making his long planned ultimate story of Love and Sacrifice titled...
..'The PASSION of the Christ'
http://www.ThePassionoftheChrist.com
I wonder who got our Story right..?
NEVER FORGET
.
You've got my vote too!
Thanks for the ping!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks again to the swiftboatvets.
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NEVER FORGET
The Enemy Within JOHN KERRY keeps running because he will always have the backing of his Billionaire Wife TERRY.
TERRY KERRY also funds the TIDES Foundation.
The TIDES Fountation funds the Communist National Lawyers Guild.
National Lawyers Guild Attorneys defended:
-CLINTON during his Impeachment
-SHEIK OMAR RAHMAN, the Blind Muslim Cleric who was the Mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing
-KEVIN COOPER, the 1983 Death Row Chino Hills Slasher...
...who keeps escaping the final Justice of his own long planned Execution...
...thanks to JOHN & TERRY KERRY.
The Enemy is now Within...
and always has been.
NEVER FORGET
.
Thank you for the post, and thank you for the ping.
Thank you to the Swift Boat Vets, and the men they defend, who fought for us in Vietnam.
Thanks also to Lt. Rich Webster for reminding us once more, why were are here.
You and I are here in no small measure to make sure the left cannot spin without a creshendo of sound flying back in their faces. That sound will be the refutation of the non-stop lies that spew forth from them.
The lessons of the Vietnam war are lost on many people these days. Our schools do their best to difuse the issues, slandering the desire to stop communism's advance through Asia. The media does it's best to further that effort. The millions of deaths following the departure of the United States, the fall of Vietnam, the enslavement of people, tt didn't matter. The U.S. was defeated, and that was the goal all along. The people of Asia? Screw them. Peace now, peace now... How can the left hold it's head up? It baffles rational thought.
Once again today, the Swift Boat Vet's message is the same as it has been from the Vietnam War. It remains that, because there are immutable truths that do not change.
We fight again today to stop the advancement of a power that seeks to enslave the world. We seek to stop it in it's tracks, and are opposed by the same ilk that lost us Vietnam. The U.N., France, the worldwide socialist movement, seeks once again to facilitate our loss.
In so doing the left will accept another million, or two, or four or twenty million deaths. Yes, to them, world peace IS that important.
Great strides have been made in Iraq. The man on the street wants us to fight off the terrorists. They desire to vote for their own destiny on the 29th of this month. How unsettling this is for the left. When the vote is taken, the process running smoother than anyone thought, it will be trashed. Jimmy Carter will pronounce it invalid. The U.N. will continue to damn us. Kerry will still damn Bush for ever getting us into a winning situation. Osama Bin Laden will agree.
This is not a fight for Iraq. This is a fight for the future of us. Will we have one? If we withdraw from the middle-east, all those who stood beside us will die. Forces unleashed by the vacuum won't be taking out third world peasants this time. They will be marching on Europe. And when Europe is a vast wasteland, even before, they will be marching on our homeland.
Ten people here, twenty people there, five people in still another area will be plotting and taking out targets in our homeland, and the homeland of our allies.
The left can spin. They can give this war over to the enemy. They can facilitate this nation's demise. Well, they can if good folks don't take a stand and prevent them.
We allowed the left to desimate the will of this nation in the 60s and 70s. Today, in the smaller more global world scene, we cannot allow them to do it again.
The Swift Boat Vets meant much more to this nation, than just exposing the fraud of John Kerry. They exposed the fraud that is the left in the United States today.
Good for them. Most excellent for us, and the nation.
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GARRY OWEN, Sir (7th Cav Salute)
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To get back in the White House...
our Enemies Within have to go...
thru us on Freerepublic.com first,
and we're getting ready for it...
...states Founder Jim Robinson in:
..'HILLARY's Secret War: The CLINTONS Conspiracy to Muzzle Internet Journalists' (2004)
...by RICHARD POE.
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Good evening Aloha Ronnie. Have I told you today that I appreciate your service to the nation? Take care bud.
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