(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.
http://www.longwayhome.net/index.html
The Long Way Home Project presents “Men versus Myth” the first in a multi-part documentary series on the Vietnam War. Among the startling revelations: the best and the brightest served in Vietnam, the rest stayed home. The soldiers in Vietnam had the highest rate of volunteerism, were the best educated, and served for higher ideals than any fighting force that America had ever fielded. That he returned maligned and unwelcome is a travesty. That they were not “victims” but raised their families and became America’s community and business leaders is the amazing inspirational message of “Men Versus Myth”.
The Long Way Home Project presents the interactive television documentary “How We Won the War.” It was the summer of 1970. In South Vietnam the Communist forces were decimated and the countryside returned to friendly hands. After totally repelling desperate enemy attacks in 1968 and 1969, the American, Vietnamese, Australian and other Southeast Asia Treaty Organization forces had achieved what politicians and the media had said was impossible. Newly available historical information and the personal stories of the some of the major “players” of the period makes “How We Won…” both informative and entertaining.
Four successive administrations shed American blood and vowed to protect democratic South Vietnam from Communist takeover. The Long Way Home Project presents the television documentary “How We Lost the War”. Even with the military war won, the U.S. Congress, their supporters in the media, and activists in the Left had other ideas. The scale of our nation’s betrayal was unprecedented in American history and unworthy of a great nation. And yet the lessons that can be learned from the story are worth learning and will inspire future generations to vigilance and to service.
Long overlooked in the story of the Vietnam war are the South Vietnamese themselves. The Long Way Home Project presents the television documentary “The New Diaspora”, an inspirational look at their long history, their stories of hardship and struggle to reach freedom, and the success they found in their new countries. Both older and younger generations alike seek to find meaning in their new lives and yet rediscover and maintain a link with their heritage and a country that was left behind – a metaphor for a nation built by immigrants and refugees! With over a million Vietnamese-Americans in the U.S. and many thousands in other democratic nations around the world they form a living legacy to the commitment of the allied soldiers that fought for freedom and democracy.