Kerry: 'It was easier' in Cold War

Washington (AFP) - Secretary of State John Kerry attested Tuesday to the massively complex challenges Washington faces in Ukraine, Russia, Iran and the Middle East, declaring "it was easier" during the Cold War.

In a candid moment during a State Department speech, the top US diplomat said changing global power dynamics made a quaint memory of the early East-West stalemate, when American children would "crouch under our desks at school and practice" safety steps for a possible nuclear attack.

"During the Cold War... it was easier than it is today -- simpler is maybe a way to put it," Kerry told aid and development experts.

"The choices were less varied, less complicated, more stark, more clear: Communism, democracy, West, East, the Iron Curtain."

He said "multiple emerging powers," unleashed forces like radical Islam, and "too many failed states" have dramatically complicated the landscape, requiring a form of diplomatic precision that was not absolutely necessary decades ago.

In the post-war 1950s and 1960s, Kerry said, "we could make really bad decisions and still win, because we were pretty much the sole dominant economic and military power around.

I wish to set you skeptics straight. You are maligning one very brave guy!

I was a member of that brave band of brothers who swam up the Mekong River into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam at the very hush-hush orders of Richard M. Nixon, whom my CO John Kerry knew was to be taking office soon. NS! This information is no longer classified, so I can report it to my fellow FReepers without having to silence them. At that time, few know that unrepentant NAZI spies and saboteurs were making life hell in war-torn Vietnam, but John Kerry, Yale Man, knew.)

We slipped into the grey greasy green waters of the Mekong late on Christmas Eve, naked except for our Rambo-style head scarves and unarmed except for Kabar knives between our teeth. As the NAZI spies, damn them, celebrated the Winter Solstice with neo-pagan rites, we took them by surprise and made them prisoners, towing them with the Red Cross Life Guard Carry back down the Mekong and into Allied Lines.

This 300-mile mission was so hush-hush that in a secret ceremony, John Kerry awarded his men, myself included, many decorations. I received the Boy Scout Water Safety Merit Badge from his very hand. In his report, Lt. Kerry awarded Lt. Kerry the Congressional Medal of Honor, Le Croix de Guerre avec Palme, ironically The Pour le Merité mit Ritterkreuz und Diamenten, and of course the Silver Star, and several Purple Hearts, not to mention the coveted Cloud Banner with 1,000 Elephants.

As in all of our secret unit's secret operations the secret report absolutely had to be written by Lt. Kerry himself and kept secret because of his modesty and the demands of national security.
BTW,Speaking of modesty, I shall be sitting at the bar of the Livermore Falls VFW this evening and will be happy to share with you more of the astounding exploits of this brave, unassuming Irish-American patriot from Massachusetts. I'll be on the South end of the bar, conspicuously wearing my large top-secret John Kerry Golden Decoder Ring

CC:
Mr. Quentin Tarantino

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