I agree: That was the concept that was startling for me, too. THAT is a living concept.
(snip)
Kerry’s Select Committee staff, in order to soft pedal thisabandonment, added in the report “We acknowledge that thereis no proof that U.S. POWs survived.”
Kerry’s “no proof” assertion, was an outright lie. It was aneffort by Kerry’s pro-Hanoi staff to bury our POW/MIA’sand further open the doors to trade with Vietnam.
Kerry maintained there was “no proof U.S. POWs survived,”but never produced evidence proving the left behind POWswere dead. Kerry has never answered the questions, who wasresponsible for their deaths or where their remains werelocated.
In fact, Kerry never demanded that Vietnam explain.
Kerry’s latest demonstration of support for the communistVietnamese is his prevention of the Vietnam Human RightsAct (HR2833) from coming to a vote in the Senate. He claimshuman rights in Vietnam would deteriorate if he allows theVietnam Human Rights Act out of committee and into law.
Michael Young, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on In-ternational Religious Freedom (USCIRF), disagrees.
In testimony delivered February 12 before the East Asianand Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Re-lations Committee (Kerry is Ranking Minority Member of thecommittee), Young said: “In its travels to Vietnam, the Commission and staff have found that over the last two years, already poor human rights conditions have deteriorated. Key dissidents were imprisoned or placed under house arrest. Churches have been closed and some destroyed. In addition,the government of Vietnam has intensified its crackdowns onreligious and ethnic minorities in the northwestern provinces and the Central Highlands — including ongoing campaigns offorced renunciation of faith.”
Kerry was instrumental in mustering shepherding the normal-ization of trade and diplomatic relations between the UnitedStates and Vietnam in 1995 and in 2001 helped passed theBilateral Trade Act (BTA) in the hope that expanded eco-nomic ties would improve Vietnam’s human rights situation. But according to Young, “increased trade has not led toprogress in the area of protecting human rights and basic liberties. More dollars have not lead to democratization. Andquiet diplomacy alone has not produced tangible results.
”The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least tolerant of religious freedom.
Within the last two years, 354 churches of the Montagnards(a Christian ethnic minority) were forcibly disbanded and morethan 50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province alone.
Vietnam’s secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection simply for protesting religious repression. Hanoi’s communists are conducting organized outrages againstthe Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture ofgoat’s blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity.
Thousands have been killed or imprisoned or have just “dis-appeared.” The Montagnards lost one-half of their adult malepopulation fighting in Southeast Asia for the United States.Nevertheless, Hanoi John Kerry remains forever loyal to oldcommunist friends in Vietnam.
Click to download: http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com/abt_kerry_pdf.pdf.