"Live" with TAE: John O'Neill (in-depth interview with a leader of Swift Boat Vets)

One of the most dramatic stories of Election 2004 was the coalescence of a large group of Vietnam veterans dedicated to the idea that John Kerry was not fit to become America's Commander in Chief. Many of those who joined Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had served with Kerry in Vietnam. And his behavior there--and, even more, upon his return--convinced them that Kerry could not be trusted to lead our nation in wartime.

To their great surprise, the testimony of the Swift Boat veterans was simply ignored by a hostile media establishment. The veterans were tenacious, however, and eventually captured the attention of the alternate media, then finally the nation as a whole. That's when the media elites attacked them with icy ferocity.

In the end, the Swift Boat vets raised more than $26 million and took their message directly to the public with a grassroots advertising and personal testimony campaign. Their first ads appeared in early August when Kerry was leading the Presidential race. They were widely credited with reversing that lead, which Kerry never won back.

John O'Neill first became aware of John Kerry's accusations that American soldiers in Vietnam acted in a "fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan" back in 1971. He felt compelled to speak out, and debated Kerry on "The Dick Cavett Show."

O'Neill then disappeared into private life, only appearing again in 2004 to debunk John Kerry's revisions of his Vietnam record during his pursuit of the White House. O'Neill became a spokesman for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

TAE: How and when did the idea for the Swift Boat veterans group come into being?

O'NEILL: The one who conceived of this was Admiral Roy Hoffmann. He began contacting many Swift Boat people in January and February last year. At that time, I was in the hospital. I had given my wife a kidney for a transplant.

I became a part of it in early to mid March. I was motivated by several things, the first and most important being a genuine fear of what would happen to our country, our national security, and our armed forces if John Kerry became Commander in Chief.

The reason we had our press conference on May 4 was that we thought if we could come forward quickly, we might be able to prevent John Kerry from becoming the Democratic nominee and allow the Democratic Party to pick someone else, in which case we could all go home.

TAE: At the Swift Boat veterans' May 4 press conference you had an open letter calling Kerry unfit to be Commander in Chief. It was signed by virtually all of John Kerry's commanders in Vietnam. Yet the story fell flat. The media ignored it. How did your group react to the media blackout?

O'NEILL: We were shocked. We couldn't believe it. I haven't been involved in politics or media relations, and I thought the job of the media was primarily to report the facts. It was obvious to me that many hundreds of his former comrades coming forward to say that he lied about his record in Vietnam and that he was unfit to be President would be important information for Americans. I only then became aware of the bias of the media.

O'NEILL: The establishment media was very pro-Kerry. They were opposed to any story that was critical of Kerry, and I believe that they were captured by their own bias. We met with one reporter around that time. We told a story to him relating to Kerry's service. He acknowledged it was true and terribly important. And he told us he would not print it because it would help George Bush. That's when we began to realize we had a real problem on our hands.

TAE: Is there anything other than pro-Kerry bias to account for the establishment media's attitude to the story?

O'NEILL: Perhaps a second factor is that there are very few veterans in the established media. It makes it very difficult for them to understand the story or to care about it. That's very different from the situation 40 or 50 years ago when most people had served in some fashion in the armed forces or had uncles or brothers who had.

O'NEILL: We couldn't give up because in the end our objective was to get our facts out. We had to be able to look at ourselves the day after the election and know we had done everything we could. If we were simply shouting in the desert, we would still have to shout.

Our analysis after the press conference was that the three major networks, the New York Times, and the Washington Post would under no circumstances carry a story like ours, no matter how well documented. The strategy we devised first involved use of a fifteenth-century method of communication; that is, writing a book, which may sound strange in the telecommunications age. But that book, Unfit for Command, sold over 850,000 copies. I've often mused how funny it is that the New York Times had to list it as No. 1 on its bestseller list. The second thing we did was run, with the small amount of money we had, our ad, which featured 15 of us.

O'NEILL: Yes, the content had to come from us. There's not an advertising firm in the world that's ever been on a Swift Boat. And none of them were there on the day of March 14 when Kerry fled on the Bay Hop.

The same thing is true of the second ad. None of us will ever forget the day Kerry testi-fied before Congress. It was like the Kennedy assassination. And so we just couldn't live in the United States if we didn't make a statement about his testimony in 1971.

O'NEILL: The only people willing to publicizing the story very early were Sean Hannity, the Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, several Web sources, and finally C-SPAN (which aired the press conference). Other people who contributed to the story later in a significant way were the Drudge Report and Rush Limbaugh. Another very important person was Laura Ingraham, who went through the allegations point by point and permitted rebuttal, and there was none. That made it apparent that there was a large-scale media cover up in progress.

TAE: Between the press conference and when you released your first ad, May 5 to August 5, what was the group doing?

O'NEILL: The biggest single thing we were doing was composing, checking, and putting out the book. More than 60 people reviewed it, the people who were physically involved in the incidents. We did filming for the first and second ads during that period of time. We raised money from a variety of sources. We established our Web site. It was crude and immediately hijacked by the Kerry people. It was hacked and destroyed repeatedly. We were eventually able to get a Web site that functioned, that could take communications, where the ads could be downloaded and the like.

TAE: Were you surprised when Senator Kerry focused so much on his Vietnam record at the Democratic Convention in late July? How do you account for this when he clearly knew you were out there?

O'NEILL: I think he thought that he had good control over the mainline media, that they were sympathetic, that they would kill the story. And I think he was very confident that was the case with the New York Times and the three major networks and CNN, and that he could intimidate the portions of the media not already friendly to him. And so he thought the story would never come out. That had been his experience over and over again in Massachusetts.

O'NEILL: All of a sudden, Kerry and the media were faced with an ad that was actually showing. There was a time when they controlled the entire world of communications. That day is over. The Kerry campaign, fortunately for us, threatened the stations carrying the ad. They had two Washington law firms write legal letters demanding that the ads not be run.

There were 20 stations. We provided a factual package to each of them containing 15 affidavits supporting each of the items. After receiving that, 19 of the 20 stations immediately ran the ad. The twentieth station couldn't do it until the following Monday because they couldn't process the legal stuff quick enough. And they did bring up subsequent ads and they invited us to put additional ads on.

TAE: Did the attempts of Kerry's people to stop your message only help publicize it more?

O'NEILL: They helped us tremendously. The threats against the station managers led to extensive publicity, particularly on the "Hannity & Colmes" show and then on other FOX News shows. Then it spread to CNN and to MSNBC. More than 1,400,000 people downloaded that first ad, and it swept through the Internet. It also allowed thousands and thousands of people to start donating money to us at our Web site.

Three weeks after it was put up, half of all the people in the United States had heard about that ad and about us and yet there had never been a story about us on ABC, NBC, or CBS or in the New York Times. At that point, people began laughing, I believe, at the mainline media. It became obvious they were suppressing the story.

The critical factor was that it was the truth. I think anyone of good faith would believe Kerry's post-Vietnam activities were clearly a campaign issue. So once the facts about those came out, the story was almost impossible to suppress. The media was like the dutch boy, keeping its fingers in the dike to stop the story from flowing out. It just got to a point where it got beyond them. There weren't enough fingers.

TAE: Leading journalist David Broder reported that Kerry told him his Vietnam background would give him double benefit--he would get the votes of veterans because he served, and of anti-war activists because he had opposed the war. If you hadn't come along, do you think he would have succeeded?

O'NEILL: If word hadn't gotten out, if they'd allowed him to get by portraying himself as a war hero with no genuine revelation from the veteran community that this was the same guy from 1971 that they all remember, perhaps he could have gotten by.

TAE: On August 20, your second ad was released featuring a 27-year-old Kerry testifying in 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about American war crimes. Later that month, you came out with ads featuring Kerry's gunner and Kerry throwing away his medals. Can you assess the impact of the various ads? Did any one of them clearly have the biggest effect?

O'NEILL: I thought that the first and second ads each had profound impacts, but in different ways. I thought that the first one, which dealt directly with Kerry's service in Vietnam, was like a pinprick in a balloon. Kerry had blown himself up and presented himself as something that he wasn't. So simply seeing the people who had been with him telling the plain truth had an impact.

The second ad was one that went to the heart of the American soul. To have accused our guys in Vietnam of committing war crimes on a day-to-day basis, repetitive and planned, I think was something that all Americans knew was not the truth. I have always believed that if the average American knew what he did, it would be impossible for John Kerry ever to hold high elected office.

TAE: The media establishment finally took notice when Senator Kerry attacked you publicly on August 19. Then they seemed to see their role as proving your charges false.

O'NEILL: Yes, that's exactly what occurred. The New York Times functioned as a newsletter for the Kerry campaign. The Times purported to show that I was a Republican. I would have been happy to be a Republican if I really was. The article was ridiculous. It had me married to the wrong person. It was really a sad article to see from a great newspaper. It should win the Jayson Blair award. There's never been a piece in the New York Times examining the factual basis of the Swift Boat vets' charges.

O'NEILL: In terms of attacks by the Kerry campaign, I resented deeply the picketing at my own house during my daughter's wedding.

I also resented the attacks on Larry Thurlow, who was the greatest hero we ever had in Vietnam. Only in the New York Times could Kerry be a hero and Thurlow, who saved everyone's life, who stayed and rescued the people in the boat, end up a goat.

They also leaked to the New York Daily News the suicide attempt of one of the peripheral signers of our letter, and a story appeared in the New York Times related to a suicide attempt 15 years before.

The very first ad we filed began with a man named Al French, a very highly decorated Vietnam veteran, who served as a prosecutor in Clackamas County, Oregon. Immediately, 23 different complaints were filed with the state bar of Oregon against Mr. French. In addition, he was fired from his job in Oregon as an assistant prosecutor supposedly on the basis of a ten-year-old complaint that had never been processed by his boss before that time.

Bullets were fired over the phone. My wife was monitoring our phone, and she picks up: "Mr. O'Neill we know where you are." They'd start shooting a gun. "How many babies did you kill?" And then begin firing a gun. "We're going to come and hunt you down." The roaches showed up all right. It was a very hard process for all of us.

TAE: The New York Times didn't get around to reviewing your book until October although it had been at the top of the Times bestseller list since August?

O'NEILL: They began the review by saying if Kerry loses the election it will be because of this book. You would expect that declaration would be followed by an in-depth review of the book that would indicate whether it was true or not true. But the review is very short. No fact is refuted other than the outcome of my debate with John Kerry in 1971. I said I thought I'd beat him. I quoted from the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the San Antonio Express & News, all of which concluded that he lost. The Times review claimed that debate was the launching point for Kerry's entire career. The fact is, before the debate John Kerry was a major national figure. After the debate, his career declined. He was defeated for Congress and he disappeared from public view. Only in the New York Times would that debate be the launching point for Kerry's career. When you have a guy who's very famous in 1971 and then no one hears about him again until 1984, how could this be a launch?

O'NEILL: I was shouted down the worst by James Carville. The entire "Crossfire" TV show consisted of James Carville screaming. He demonstrated a wonderful set of lungs but shed very little light on the issues.

TAE: On the "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" you were matched with Thomas Oliphant of the Boston Globe who lectured you. He said that your allegations didn't meet the basic criteria for a real story.

O'NEILL: It was interesting. He said in order to carry a story you had to have conclusive evidence. Within a few days of that story, the Boston Globe, his newspaper, was pushing the Dan Rather story, based on phony documents, that President Bush skirted his National Guard duty. Oliphant was involved with the story. He should be ashamed of himself, as I think the entire journalistic establishment should be.

O'NEILL: About being lectured on journalistic ethics by a journalist from a newspaper now famous for a lack of ethics? It was truly a remarkable experience, particularly from someone who was trying to suppress a story that he knew was the truth. Oliphant, after all, was a friend of Kerry's. As a matter of fact, the Kerry campaign was asked to send a debate representative, and I gather Oliphant was their representative. How could a supposedly independent journalist appear as a debater for the Kerry campaign? How could James Carville be an independent commentator if he was retained by the Kerry campaign? I realized they were simply doing openly what the New York Times was doing secretly.

TAE: There was a discussion at the New York Public Library on October 2 between the top anchors of the three broadcast networks at which Peter Jennings said of the Swift Boat ads, "We were not quick enough to say they were demonstrably false."

O'NEILL: Yes, I appeared on "Nightline" hosted by Ted Koppel. He went to Vietnam to prove that our account of the Silver Star incident involving Kerry was false. He interviewed five or six former Vietcong, who indicated that when Kerry beached his boat in the Silver Star incident, there was not one Vietcong, but as many as 20.

Everyone on Kerry's crew said there was a single Vietcong. Everyone on our crew, our guys, said there was a single Vietcong. In Tour of Duty, Kerry himself says, "I thought to myself, 'Thank God there was only one. If there were five or ten we would have all died.'"

Koppel presented all this as a great exposŽ of us. How on earth could someone believe four Vietcong accompanied by a government handler instead of us, Kerry's own crew, and every other independent witness?

I'm comfortable that some day people will study the journalism of the three networks in the same way that they studied the Pulitzer prize the New York Times got in 1932 for describing Stalin's plan in Russia as a wonderful idea and the reports of starvation as exaggerated.

O'NEILL: I went through exactly what I told you and he had no answer. Koppel kept asking me to put down the biography of Kerry, to not quote Kerry anymore. Instead, Koppel repeatedly indicated that he thought that his Vietcong sources should be the ones to rely on. So it had a quality that was just hard to believe.

TAE: There are parallels between your own experience in 1971 and today. How has the media changed in terms of being "balanced" since you debated John Kerry on "The Dick Cavett Show"?

O'NEILL: I'm Rip Van Winkle when it comes to the media. I happily disappeared from public life for 32 years. The big difference is that, in 1971, while the media would spin facts on occasion and spin them very favorably to Kerry and his group, they wouldn't actually suppress the news.

What's happened now is the mainline media, by which I mean the three major networks, and the New York Times, suppress news stories. It's one thing to provide opinion, even in the news section. It's another to suppress facts that are adverse to your views. That is really a brave new world that did not exist in the 1970s.

TAE: Does your experience suggest the major media have lost their gatekeeper role?

O'NEILL: Yes, without question. Major networks tried to blacklist us and to hide the story from the public. In doing so they seemed to follow the directions of the Kerry campaign. As long as the campaign ignored us, they ignored us. When the Kerry campaign went on the attack, the big media attacked us.

But the message got out anyway. In my opinion they were unsuccessful basically because they didn't have very much to work with. They hadn't anything to sink their teeth into. We were very careful in the ads and in the book. That's why the attacks on us flailed around.

O'NEILL: They really did. It would have been impossible to get our story out if it had been left to the networks and to the New York Times. Nothing came out on any of those until the story was so widespread that they became a laughingstock by ignoring it.

TAE: Has your group played a pioneering role in demonstrating old media's loss of control?

O'NEILL: I'm not enough of an observer to know. I wish we could say we planned this. It was more something that happened to us and we initially expected that the media would definitely cover the story.

O'NEILL: I think reform is occurring right now. You've seen a tremendous drop in the ratings for the networks. There's a tremendous drop going on in readership for newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. Why are people leaving and seeking their news elsewhere? Because they start by simply wanting to get a good, factual account of what occurred. Then they're happy to listen to opinion pieces, but they're not willing to accept people who simply suppress the underlying facts. That's why people have gone to the Internet and to other sources for their news.

O'NEILL: Yes, I think that whatever shreds of credibility the major media had before the election are gone. They operated so clearly as extensions of the Kerry campaign that it's evident everywhere from Leon, Iowa to Oxford, Mississippi and all places in between that these folks simply start off with an opinion and then either gather or manufacture facts to support the opinion.

TAE: You didn't receive criticism from the media alone. Even President Bush criticized your group. Were you disappointed by his reaction?

O'NEILL: I would have felt more comfortable if he would have simply recognized this was an issue between us and Kerry that was not really related to him. This is about criticism of our unit and fellow veterans. I didn't think his comment that 527 ads should cease was unreasonable, although I disagree with it.

TAE: How much do you owe to John McCain's campaign finance reform? Would you have had equal impact without 527s?

O'NEILL: I think we would have come forward and we would have been able to solicit contributions in the way we have. We have 274 Swift Boat people. We're not a shade of any political party. We share a deep experience going back 35 years. And the reasons we determined to set the record straight are not political reasons. They relate to our friends who died there, our service, and our fear of this guy being Commander

I think that what is unfortunate about the 527 reform is that there is apparently no distinction between Moveon.org, really just a part of a political party, and genuine third-party efforts like ours.

TAE: Neither party likes what happened in this election where they lost control of the debate to independent 527s. What do you think will be the effect of the Swift Boat veterans on campaign reform?

O'NEILL: I would think that we would be the worst example for someone who is trying to shut down independent political campaigning efforts. I would think logically it would be impossible to defend a situation in which John Kerry could spend millions, or tens of millions, of dollars presenting his record in Vietnam in a way that was very demeaning to the people he served with, and we who were actually there would not have the right to respond.

I would think that would be a terrible thing to try and defend legally, morally, or ethically and I don't think that Americans would permit that to happen.

O'NEILL: Yes. I believe that he did that without fully understanding the circumstances. All of us say things we regret, and I hope he regrets that. I really hope he apologizes for it. I think that John McCain, candidly, confused senatorial courtesy with the suppression of free speech.

We were very grateful when his roommate at the Hanoi Hilton, Colonel Bud Day, came forward to strongly endorse our efforts. Colonel Day was the most decorated United States soldier since World War II and the winner of the Medal of Honor. It was good when he and many other POWs came forward to disagree with McCain.

TAE: What general lessons do you think can be taken from the Swift Boat vets' experience?

O'NEILL: One thing is that you cannot simply leave the conduct of national elections to politicians and political parties. It's simply a process that's too important. And they each have their own reasons for not wanting to cope with difficult issues or facts. I believe that the cardinal design of the First Amendment was free political speech. I don't think there would be a better example of it than our group coming forward. It's obvious that the materials we dealt with, the record of Kerry in Vietnam, his false war crimes charges, were very, very important in the selection of a President.

I think a second thing, as naive as this sounds, is that it's possible for a small number of people to influence things. And I think it indicates that the truth itself has a certain power that may at times overpower money and control by the media and the like.

O'NEILL: Of course, if we had known from the inception that the heavyweight media would simply ignore our story--that the three networks and the New York Times were our adversaries--we wouldn't have done the press conference. Instead, we would have gone immediately to the publication of the book, to radio, to the ads.

TAE: Shortly before the election, you thought it was a 50-50 deal. You couldn't predict who would win. Were you surprised by how well Bush did?

O'NEILL: Yes, I was surprised. It's obvious the Democrats were cleaning out every place that they could find voters, but they didn't realize that they incited a tremendous reaction from middle America against them. They, therefore, produced a huge vote on the other side. I think a great deal of it was a reaction to Kerry; I think

O'NEILL: Other political prognosticators could say that better than me. I think that people got a chance to learn how he had actually dealt with a terrorist problem. And the only time in his life that he really confronted it was with the North Vietnamese--who shot people in the back of the head, executed 4 million people. And he thought that we were the criminals, and couldn't seem to tell the difference between us and the North Vietnamese. He thought Ho Chi Minh was George Washington. And of course he met with them and basically supported them. That would not at all be the type of leader you would want to confront the current group of terrorists, al-Qaeda.

TAE: Listening to the pundits explain Bush's victory the day after the election, I didn't hear a single one mention the Swift Boat vets.

O'NEILL: We're happy to fade back into our own jobs and our own places and none of us did it to try to get credit. So if the commentators conclude that we had a small role or no role that's fine with us.

TAE: The story of the Swift Boat vets is a powerful one. Many of you hadn't seen each other in 32 years. You came back together out of a sense of duty to stop a man you knew to be unfit for

O'NEILL: Have you ever heard the poem "Ulysses" by Alfred Lord Tennyson? Ulysses is at the end of his life and gets his old crew together and they sail around for one last great adventure--not too different from Admiral Hoffmann getting all of us together for one last shot that we thought was very much in the national interest of the United States.

The election aside, the attention focused on Vietnam has allowed the people who served there to confront this myth and lie about the Vietnam War and I think it's made a permanent change in the American psyche in terms of the treatment of people who served there. I think that the people on the left are now afraid to repeat the old myths that we were all war criminals. They've lost that battle.

TAE: You believe what you've done has changed the way the public views the Vietnam War?

O'NEILL: I do. I think that the change was coming to some degree without us, but I think that the public now realizes that the Vietnam War was a lost battle in a war that was won, the Cold War. Vietnam lives in darkness because we lost, but it's one lonely outpost of what used to be a vast threat to human freedom. And I think they recognize that our service there, while in a losing battle, was noble service.

TAE: Does this explain some of the anger directed toward your group by the Left? In attacking Kerry's war stance, you undermined part of their mythology?

O'NEILL: I think that is true. They attempted to claim that all Kerry had done was oppose the Vietnam War. That ignores the actual facts of his conduct itself, that is, meeting with the North Vietnamese, and criminalizing the people who disagreed with him. Those are myths so fanciful that no one can defend them. Another problem those on the left have is that history has not been kind to them. Kerry said that you can't stop the march of communism. We did. It is evident to anyone that the North Vietnamese imposed, as a result of our leaving, a cruel and barbaric tyranny that has left Vietnam a dark and depressed place compared to all of its neighbors. On the other hand, it's also clear that communism is now an ideology of the past that is fading from the Earth.

TAE: Is there an irony that John Kerry, the man who did more than any other to tarnish the image of the U.S. soldier in Vietnam, may inadvertently have helped a truer picture of that war spread across the nation in 2004 ?

O'NEILL: It haunts all of us that the first Vietnam veteran nominated for President would be John Kerry--the very last person most veterans would pick for high office. But it is ironic that his run for the White House may have finally initiated some less fictionalized thinking about the war.

TAE: Have you noticed a change among your fellow veterans since this started? Has it changed the way they feel about themselves?

O'NEILL: I think they're prouder of their service than they were. I've had many survivors of veterans, wives or children, tell me they felt liberated by what we did. They have endured the loss of a husband, the loss of a father, and had this blemish placed on those they lost by the radical elements of the Left in the late '60s and early '70s. They feel like it's been removed. They feel very liberated.

TAE: Would you describe the theme of this whole debate as moving from stolen honor to honor restored?

O'NEILL: Exactly so. Military people don't serve for pay. The kids who served with us had almost no money. What they had was their lives, their good names, their honor. The ones who died in Vietnam, who ranged in age from about 18 to 23, gave up their lives. They really gave them up, in the words of the Bible, for their neighbor. They had nothing directly to gain. They did it because the country asked. They did it to try and save Vietnam.

On a personal basis, it's had a tremendous impact on me. When I came back, I really forgot about everything related to war after the Kerry debate. I didn't go to any reunions. I was trying to put the whole thing behind me basically, because of the sadness for my friends who were killed.

What I did in the process was to separate myself from a lot of people who were really and truly the best people I ever met. And so the spontaneous coming together of the Swift Boat group has been a great thing for me. Because I've gotten back together with men I'll be close to the rest of my life.

"O'NEILL:...None of us will ever forget the day Kerry testi-fied before Congress. It was like the Kennedy assassination. And so we just couldn't live in the United States if we didn't make a statement about his testimony in 1971...."

"...TAE: You didn't receive criticism from the media alone. Even President Bush criticized your group. Were you disappointed by his reaction?

O'NEILL: I would have felt more comfortable if he would have simply recognized this was an issue between us and Kerry that was not really related to him. This is about criticism of our unit and fellow veterans. I didn't think his comment that 527 ads should cease was unreasonable, although I disagree with it...."

"...TAE: What general lessons do you think can be taken from the Swift Boat vets' experience?

O'NEILL: One thing is that you cannot simply leave the conduct of national elections to politicians and political parties. It's simply a process that's too important. And they each have their own reasons for not wanting to cope with difficult issues or facts. I believe that the cardinal design of the First Amendment was free political speech. I don't think there would be a better example of it than our group coming forward. It's obvious that the materials we dealt with, the record of Kerry in Vietnam, his false war crimes charges, were very, very important in the selection of a President.

I think a second thing, as naive as this sounds, is that it's possible for a small number of people to influence things. And I think it indicates that the truth itself has a certain power that may at times overpower money and control by the media and the like...."

ATTN to the "Move On" FReepers

Do you really want to "Move On" because you are secretly trolls?

Just wondering why you want to "Move On" and give Hanoi Kerry a free pass.

The GOP controlled US Senate has already done that!

Fret not "Move On" folks.

Others will do the work.

Links to Anti Kerry sites
212 LINKS
News reports,
Viper's Vietnam Veterans Page

http://members.aol.com/ga1449ga/links/links.html

Too bad the "Move On" FReepers just don't understand
the real threat that the likes of Hanoi Kerry pose to our country.

I just don't understand their reasoning in saying
"drop it", "your wasting your time", "give it up" etc.

Well I have news for them.

I've been posting threads
on the Viet Nam anti war "crowd"
almost from day one on FR.

Wicked Witch of the West: Hanoi Jane Exposed in New Book
Hanoijane.net ^ | HENRY MARK HOLZER and ERIKA HOLZER,PhilDragoo

Posted on 10/30/2001 10:05:08 PM PST by 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/560260/posts

So why do they think I'll stop now?

Get ready for more attacks on President Bush on April 3

"Her publisher, Random House, will not release the book to reporters or critics in advance,
and Ms. Fonda will not give interviews
before her appearance on "60 Minutes,"
scheduled for April 3."

Hanoi Jane's imminent autobiography

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1360385/posts

60 Minutes ALERT!

Anybody think Dan Rather will do the interview?

Rather, 73, is returning to full-time reporting for CBS’s “60 Minutes” broadcasts.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7137959/?GT1=6305

TAE: Will this lead to media reform?

O'NEILL: I think reform is occurring right now. You've seen a tremendous drop in the ratings for the networks. There's a tremendous drop going on in readership for newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. Why are people leaving and seeking their news elsewhere? Because they start by simply wanting to get a good, factual account of what occurred. Then they're happy to listen to opinion pieces, but they're not willing to accept people who simply suppress the underlying facts. That's why people have gone to the Internet and to other sources for their news.

I don't know about anybody else, but I quit watching
Main Stream Right Wing Media
and listening to Main Stream Right Wing Radio
shortly after Nov 3.

I couldn't understand how the so called
Main Stream Right Wing Media
could say things like
"Senator Kerry was gracious in his concession speech..."
"Senator Kerry was so honorable..."
Etc

Now can anyone name 1 so called MAIN Stream Right Wing Media
personality

(we know Russert on tv and Imus on radio from the Left have)

that has asked,

in 2005,

these questions?

"Asked Kerry when he will sign Form 180.

(Even though President Bush signed his Form 180)

Or how could Kerry have a top secret clearance,
and access to US intelligence
WITHOUT revealing ALL his military records to the US Senate

Who in the US Senate has seen ALL of Kerry's military records?

Who, in the US Senate, gave him his top secret clearance?

Or why Kerry is still in the US Senate.
This is in violation of
U.S. Constitution Amendment 14 Sec 3
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxiv.html

Or when Kerry will set the record straight
on his false testimony in April 71"

Don't be a CINO (Conservative in Name Only)
Don't listen to CINO's in politics,
the Main Stream CINO media,
and even here on Free Republic.
EXPOSE the traitor for what he really is, The Enemy Within.

Don't listen to CINO's who want to "move on".
And tell you "get over it Kerry lost"
"Kerry is finished."
He's NOT finished!

And remember this.

All it will take is for Clinton to have more problems with her health
to guarantee that Kerry WILL run in '08.

Remember all who told you not to worry about klintoon, hitlery and reno
after the 2000 election?
Remember all who said Ashcroft would prosecute them.
Remember Chinagate, Pardongate, Waco, Vince Foster, the Jewish town in NY etc., etc., etc. ?
Well reno ran against Jeb Bush and hitlery wants to beat Hanoi Kerry in 08

Are YOU willing to listen to the CINO's again?

U.S. Constitution Amendment XIV

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress,
or elector of President and Vice President,
or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,
or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress,
or as an officer of the United States,
or as a member of any state legislature,
or as an executive or judicial officer of any state,
to support the Constitution of the United States,
shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same,
or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Violation of 18 US CODE 2381

TREASON
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States,
levies war against them or adheres to their enemies,
giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere,
is guilty of treason and shall suffer death,
or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined
Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection
under this title but not less than $10,000;
and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Violation of 18 US CODE 953

Private correspondence with foreign governments
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States,
directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse
with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof,
with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government
or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes
or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply,
himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents
thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained
from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

Violation of UCMJ Section 904. ART. 104

AIDING THE ENEMY
Any person who--
(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or
(2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or [protects or gives intelligence to or
communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;
shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.

UCMJ 843. ART. 43. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS
(a) A person charged with absence without leave or missing movement in time of war,

or with any offense punishable by death,

may be tried at any time without limitation.

Congress.Org -- Write to Congress and State Legislators
Locate Legislators for your zip code, gives you links to YOUR local Legislators with phone, e-mail etc info.

Col. Geo. "Bud" Day Medal of Honor Vietnam POW 1967-1973 USMC - USA Attorney 1949-2004-

Dear Joe: The major issue in the Swiftboat stories is, and always has been,
what John Kerry did in 1971 after he returned from Vietnam.

Kerry cast a long dark shadow over all Vietnam Veterans with his outright perjury before the Senate concerning atrocities in Vietnam. His stories to the Senate committee were absolute lies.. fabrications.. perjury.. fantasies, with NO substance. That dark shadow has defamed the entire Vietnam War veteran population, and gave "Aid and Comfort" to our enemies..the Vietnamese Communists. Kerry's stories were outright fabrications, and were intended for political gain with the radical left..McGovern, Teddy and Bobby Kennedy followers, Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, and the radical left who fantasized that George McGovern was going to be elected in 1972. Little wonder that returning soldiers from Vietnam were spit upon and castigated as "baby killers".
A returned war hero said so.

Kerry cut a dashing figure as a war hero, lots of medals, and returned home because of multiple war wounds..even a silver star. His Senate testimony confirmed what every hippie had been chanting on the streets.."Hey hey LBJ..How many kids did you kill today"?????
He obviously was running for political office in 1971.

Until Lt. John O' Neil, himself a Swifboat commander, spoke out before the 1972 elections against Kerry's outright deceptions, there was no one from the Swiftboat scene that could contradict Kerry's self serving lies.

I was a POW of the Vietnamese in Hanoi in 1971, and I am aware that the testimony of John Kerry, the actions of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, and the radical left; all caused the commies to conclude that if they hung on..they would win. North Vietnamese General Bui Tin commented that every day the Communist leadership listened to world news over the radio to follow the growth of the anti-war movement. Visits to Hanoi by Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark gave them confidence to hold in the face of battlefield reverses.
The guts of it was that propaganda from the anti-war group was part of their combat strategy.

While the Commies were hanging on, innumerable U.S. Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Air Foce members were being killed in combat.

Every battle wound to Americans after Kerry's misdirected testimony is related to Kerry's untruthfulness.

John Kerry contributed to every one of these deaths with his lies about U.S. atrocities in Vietnam.

He likewise defamed the U.S. with our allies and supporters.

His conduct also extended the imprisonment of the Vietnam Prisoners of War, of which I was one.

I am certain of at least one POW death after his testimony,
which might have been prevented with an earlier release of the POWs.

I draw a direct comparison of General Benedict Arnold of the Revolutionary War, to Lieutenant John Kerry. Both went off to war, fought, and then turned against their country. General Arnold crossed over to the British for money and position. John Kerry crossed over to the Vietnamese with his assistance to the anti-war movement, and his direct liason with the Vietnamese diplomats in Paris.
His reward. Political gain. Senator..United States.

“Without question,
we were held captive longer
because of the anti-war people,
the Kerrys, the Fondas and Haydens,
the names we knew over there -
they encouraged the enemy to hang on.”
Excerpt from “Stolen Honor” website
- Leo Thorsness
Former Vietnam POW

Dearest Cableguy, You have NO idea how timely this story is with the happenings in my life today. Nothing really to do with Kerry, but the Vietnam Vets, our military - you name it.

I have to share this story with you all. I am at work now, at the Driving Range my family runs. We have had a guy here for about a week doing some odds and ends - hired by another friend we deal with. He is an older man - so I thought - and a VERY hard worker. He always says 'yes ma'am', and has been so polite to everyone.

Today, he came in for a moment (he very rarely takes a break), and somehow we started talking about 'stuff'. I offered him a cup of coffee (even though it is sitting out and is free for the taking, he will not - unless invited), and the conversation turned to kids these days, how parents don't do their jobs, teens are unsupervised - and I began to tell him about my son Josh, who wants to be an Army Ranger. He smiled and said, "That's what I was."

We began to talk about Freepers, the economy, the war. Hearing the point of view from a Vietnam Veteran is perhaps the most moving thing you can experience.

He talked about his faith in God. He told me he did his first tour, came home - and watched the squad he commanded come off the airplane. First, the 'walking' ones, then the wounded, then the body bags. He did not have anyone meeting him at the airport. He said he caught a taxi, and went straight to the nearest recruiting office, and signed up for his second tour. He wanted to make sure the next plane ride had more 'walking', than the last.

By the time he was finished with his story, we were both in tears. I thanked him - from the bottom of my heart for what he had fought for, and what he had gone through.
As he walked outside he said, the only thing that makes him angry is that he was fighting for the protesters too - those who blamed them and called them names. With tears he said - "that was my job, I was fighting for their freedom too. They just do not understand."

I just wanted to share this story with you all. It is one thing to listen to these guys talk on T.V., or read articles - but when you are face to face and can feel their pain - it sickens me that ANYBODY who claims to be an American - could be as hateful to the military as they are.

But, as he said, they have rights, too, even though we don't like what they have to say. I just pray WE continue to strengthen, and can make a difference in this world. Just like my friend. JK

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