Kerry Postures as a War Hero

As a presidential hopeful, Senator John Kerry touts his military experience. But 30 years ago he led anti-war protests and marched alongside revolutionary Communists.

Senator John Kerry wants to be president. His membership in the Council on Foreign Relations guarantees that the world government crowd will accept him. He can tap into his wife’s millions to overcome any fundraising shortfall. And his connection to Yale’s eerily secretive Skull & Bones Society opens doors to many of its movers and shakers — though veteran Bones critic Ron Rosenbaum notes the possibility of a "Bones versus Bones smackdown" should Bonesmen Bush and Kerry face off in 2004.

Kerry does not want the voting public made aware of his CFR and Bones credentials. Nor does he want to be likened to Ted Kennedy and Michael Dukakis, Massachusetts archliberals out of step with the nation at large. So when he presents himself to voters, he or his handlers insist that he is a foreign policy expert who benefits from past military service.

After an appearance at a New Hampshire campaign stop on April 2nd, an exceptional need for Kerry to trot out his military service occurred. He told a small group of future primary voters that "regime change" was needed not just in Iraq but "in the United States." Reacting to Kerry’s statement, Republicans pounced on him like wolves on a wounded lamb, claiming that by using the term "regime" he had likened the Bush administration to Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. So the senator and his aides played their military card. "I don’t need any lessons in patriotism or in caring about America from the likes of the right wing," Kerry told a Georgia audience. And he speedily supplied each of his campaign spokesmen with a statement that said in part: "Unlike many of his Republican critics, Senator Kerry has worn the uniform, served his country, seen combat, so he’d just as soon skip their lectures about supporting our troops."

Kerry did serve as an officer in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. And he did win a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts. So far, so good. But when he returned home, he became a war protester. In America, of course, everybody is free to agree or disagree with a government policy. But Kerry did not just disagree; he became a leader of groups that championed our nation’s foes while our forces were still fighting and dying.

In 1971, the Communist Daily World delightedly published photos of him speaking to demonstrators as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). The April 23, 1971 Daily World boasted that the marchers displayed a banner depicting a portrait of Communist Party leader Angela Davis, who was on record stating: "I am dedicated to the overthrow of your system of government and your society."

By frequently participating in VVAW’s demonstrations, Kerry found himself marching alongside what the Boston Herald Traveler identified as "revolutionary Communists." While noting that known Reds had openly organized these events, the December 12, 1971 Herald Traveler reported the presence of an "abundance of Vietcong flags, clenched fists raised in the air, and placards plainly bearing legends in support of China, Cuba, the USSR, North Korea and the Hanoi government."

Seeking election to the U.S. House in 1972, Kerry found it necessary to suppress reproduction of the cover picture appearing on his own book, The New Soldier. His political opponent pointed out that it depicted several unkempt youths crudely handling an American flag to mock the famous photo of the U.S. Marines at Iwo Jima. Suddenly, copies of the book became unavailable and even disappeared from libraries. But the Lowell (Mass.) Sun said of the type of person shown on its cover: "These people spit on the flag, they burn the flag, they carry the flag upside down, [and] they all but wipe their noses with it in their efforts to show their contempt for everything it still stands for."

During the 1972 "Kerry for Congress" campaign, flyers invited voters to "hear Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General, who has just recently returned from a visit in North Vietnam." While in Hanoi, Clark had distinguished himself by roundly condemning the United States, heaping praise on his Communist hosts, and lecturing American prisoners of war.

In May 1972, the Boston Phoenix reported that Kerry had defiantly given his medals back to the U.S. government during one of his many protests. New York Times columnist Bill Keller wrote in September 2002 that the senator invited him to view 40 minutes of films Kerry made depicting his war exploits. Keller wrote that anti-war doves would still support the man they remembered for "throwing his war ribbons onto the steps of the Capitol." When pressed about what happened to his medals, Kerry now says the medals he threw away were not his and that his are displayed in his Senate office. Retired General George S. Patton III would later angrily charge that Kerry’s actions had "given aid and comfort to the enemy."

Supremely arrogant and demonstrably contemptuous of the voting public, Kerry nevertheless regularly touts his military experience during his presidential run. But he forfeited the right to do that 30 years ago. Come to think of it, if he continues to posture as a war hero, he’ll lose the friendship of Ramsey Clark, Angela Davis, and the Daily World.

Washington Times

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR December 6, 2002

John Kerry's war record As Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, considers a bid for the White House, Americans should know a few things about him that he might prefer go unmentioned - and I don't mean his $75 haircuts.

When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans Day, a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked away. They remembered Mr. Kerry as the anti-war activist who testified before Congress during the war, accusing veterans of being war criminals. The dust jacket of Mr. Kerry's pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features a photograph of his ragged band of radicals mocking the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, with an upside-down American flag.

Retired Gen. George S. Patton III charged that Mr. Kerry's actions as an anti-war activist had "given aid and comfort to the enemy," as had the actions of Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda. Also, Mr. Kerry lied when he threw what he claimed were his war medals over the White House fence; he later admitted they weren't his. Now they are displayed on his office wall. Long after he changed sides in congressional hearings, Mr. Kerry lobbied for renewed trade relations with Hanoi. At the same time, his cousin C. Stewart Forbes, chief executive for Colliers International, assisted in brokering a $905 million deal to develop a deep-sea port at Vung Tau, Vietnam - an odd coincidence.

As noted in the Inside Politics column of Nov. 14 (Nation), historian Douglas Brinkley is writing Mr. Kerry's biography. Hopefully, he'll include the senator's latest ignominious feat: preventing the Vietnam Human Rights Act (HR2833) from coming to a vote in the Senate, claiming human rights would deteriorate as a result. His actions sent a clear signal to Hanoi that Congress cares little about the human rights for which so many Americans fought and died.

The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least tolerant of religious freedom. Recently, 354 churches of the Montagnards, a Christian ethnic minority, were forcibly disbanded, and by mid-October, more than 50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province alone. On Oct. 29, the secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection simply for protesting religious repression. The communists are conducting a pogrom against the Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture of goat's blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity. Thousands have been killed or imprisoned or have just "disappeared." The Montagnards lost one-half of their adult male population fighting for the United States, and without them, there might be thousands more American names on that somber black granite wall at the Vietnam memorial.

As Mr. Kerry contemplates a run for the presidency, people must remember that he has fought harder for Hanoi as an anti-war activist and a senator than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in Vietnam.

MICHAEL BENGE Foreign Service officer and former Vietnam POW (1968 to 1973) Washington

Mr. war hero

http://peacecouncil.net/Kerrey'sGhosts.htm

'The New Soldier'

by John F. Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against The War New York: Collier Books.

http://peacecouncil.net/images/New%20Soldier%20Cover.JPG

http://peacecouncil.net/images/NewSoldierCover.JPG

A Gold Star mother returns the U.S. flag

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Barracks/3853/this_way.jpg

He (John F Kerry) went to work organizing opposition in America against the efforts of his former buddies still ducking communist bullets back in Vietnam. Kerry gained national attention in April 1971, when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then chaired by Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-AR), who led opposition in the Congress against U.S. participation in the war. During the course of his testimony, Kerry stated that the United States had a definite obligation to make extensive economic reparations to the people of Vietnam.

Kerry's testimony, it should be noted, occurred while some of his fellow Vietnam veterans were known by the world to be enduring terrible suffering as prisoners of war in North Vietnamese prisons. Kerry was a supporter of the "People's Peace Treaty," a supposed "people's" declaration to end the war, reportedly drawn up in communist East Germany. It included nine points, all of which were taken from Viet Cong peace proposals at the Paris peace talks as conditions for ending the war.

One of the provisions stated: "The Vietnamese pledge that as soon as the U.S. government publicly sets a date for total withdrawal [from Vietnam], they will enter discussion to secure the release of all American prisoners, including pilots captured while bombing North Vietnam." In other words, Kerry and his VVAW advocated the communist line to withdraw all U.S. troops from Vietnam first and then negotiate with Hanoi over the release of prisoners. Had the nine points of the "People's Peace Treaty" favored by Kerry been accepted by American negotiators, the United States would have totally lost all leverage to get the communists to release any POWs captured during the war years.

Kerry was fundamental in organizing antiwar activists to demonstrate in Washington, including the splattering of red paint, representing blood, on the Capitol steps. Several hundred of Kerry's VVAW demonstrators and supporters were allowed by Fulbright to jam into a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 1972 and to chant "Right on, brother!" as Sen. George McGovern (D-SD), then the only declared Democratic presidential candidate, accused U.S. troops of committing barbarisms in Vietnam.

Kerry became even more of a press celebrity during a highly publicized "anti-war" protest when he threw medals the press reported were his over a barricade and onto the steps of the Capitol. Kerry never mentioned that the medals he so gloriously tossed were not his own. The 1988 issue of Current Biography Yearbook explained: " . . . the ones he had discarded were not his own but had belonged to another veteran who asked him to make the gesture for him. When a 'Washington Post' reporter asked Kerry about the incident, he said: 'They're my medals. I'll do what I want with them. And there shouldn't be any expectations about them.'" Kerry's medals have reappeared, today hanging in his Senate office, now that it is "politically correct" for a U.S. Senator to be portrayed as a Vietnam War hero. Alas, so much for integrity.

Photo below
Former attorney general Ramsey Clark speaks

Former attorney general Ramsey Clark speaks John Kerry is on the extreme right.

Attorney General Ramsey Clark, photo by George Butler.

Another perspective:

JOHN "Fn" KERRY
ain't NO VIETNAM WAR "HERO"

Some freepers say they can remember seeing photos and or a video of Kerry throwing his medals/ribbons/bridle over the White House fence.We need to find those pictures and get them front and center.

They may be thinking of this. You have to scroll down a little more than half-way to get to this interesting section:

Kerry Turned War Protester And Politician
After Kerry was awarded the Silver Star, he found it advantageous to quit the Navy, and become a leader organizing opposition in America against the Vietnam War.
He was fundamental in organizing antiwar activists to demonstrate in Washington, including the splattering of red paint, representing blood, on the Capitol steps.
Kerry became even more of a press celebrity during a highly publicized "antiwar" protest when he threw medals the press reported were his over a barricade and onto the steps of the Capitol.
Kerry never mentioned that the medals he so gloriously tossed were not his own.
The 1988 issue of Current Biography Yearbook explained:
" . . . the ones he had discarded were not his own but had belonged to another veteran who asked him to make the gesture for him. When a `Washington Post' reporter asked Kerry about the incident, he said: `They're my medals. I'll do what I want with them. And there shouldn't be any expectations about them.'"
Kerry's medals have reappeared, today hanging in his Senate office, now that it is "politically correct" for an U.S. Senator to be portrayed as a Vietnam War hero.
In 1991, the United States Senate created the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs to examine the possibility that U.S. POW/MIAs might still be held by the Vietnamese.

Caption: Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), left, gestures under a bust of Ho Chi Minh, during a Nov. 1994 meeting in Hanoi with Do Muoi, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. In 1955, as a leader in the communist land reform movement, Muoi helped annihilate Vietnam's middle-class landowners. Over 50,000 Vietnamese landowners were murdered that year, making it one of the bloodiest periods in Vietnam's history.
[story continues]

-PJ

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