Obama nominating Kerry for secretary of state

[northgagator]

Originally Posted by rivergator

North,
There's no evidence he put US soldiers at risk and the Newsmax quote from McCain is a phony. No matter how many times rightwingers keep repeating, McCain didn't say it.

You are in total denial. Many POW's reported that actions of Kerry and the anti-war movement did come back to the Hanoi Hilton or the other prisons. In some cases the beatings increase due to the propaganda that the prison guards were fed. Some of the propaganda came from the actions of Kerry and the anti war movement.

Kerry's own admission of war crimes and those is his fellow soldiers was cannon fodder for the North Vietnamese propaganda machine.

Here is the end of a good read. I suggest that you read the entire link. It will give you good incite how the Hanoi regime used Kerry's and the rest of the anti war movement to their advantage. These guys toke programs a and exploitation to a very high art form.

This anti-war propaganda developed by the Military Proselytizing cadre was considered crucial to the communist war effort. Subsequent to his defection, former PAVN Sr. Col. Bui Tin, the editor of the Army newspaper Nhan Dan, underscored the importance of the overall proselytizing effort in demoralizing the American war effort: "It was essential to our strategy. Support for the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to the world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American anti-war movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red dress, said she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us."59

http://www.pownetwork.org/docs/part1.htm

Now after read that item (that had not a word on Kerry) please take in the following info

One morning–Warner thinks it was a Saturday–he was subjected to an unusually long three-hour interrogation, during which they made him read the typewritten transcript of a statement by a U.S. Navy officer, who was Vietnam veteran, speaking in the United States. The speech included a litany of American war atrocities against the Vietnamese and advocated an immediate and unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam.

“All I could think of was that this must be a really contemptible human being,” Warner told HUMAN EVENTS.

‘Genghis Khan’

Warner said he remembers well that the statement was by a Lt. (j.g.) John Kerry, who is today a United States senator from Massachusetts and the Democrats’ presidential nominee. Kerry, who in 1971 accused Americans of regularly committing war crimes in Vietnam, has now made his own Vietnam service the centerpiece of his campaign.

Although it was not identified as such, Warner believes the transcript he saw in Vietnam was probably from Kerry’s April 22, 1971, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (read the full text here), in which Kerry listed dozens of gruesome atrocities he said Americans were committing in Vietnam “on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.”

“I was taken out to an interrogation and presented with Kerry’s testimony,” Warner told HUMAN EVENTS. “The interrogator kept pointing at Kerry’s words, saying, ‘See? This officer from your Navy says you deserve to be punished.’”

“We can’t expect the rest of the country to share our disgust at Kerry for turning on us,” said Warner. “A lot of people are too young to remember that.”

Paul Galanti served as Virginia co-chairman for fellow former POW Sen. John McCain’s 2000 presidential bid. He also supported Democratic Gov. Mark Warner’s (Va.) campaign in 2001. As a POW in the Hanoi Hilton prison camp, he, like Warner, was tormented with words Kerry had spoken back home in the United States.

Galanti says Kerry’s 1971 Senate testimony was one of the many English-language radio broadcasts his captors played for him and other POWs to demoralize them and encourage them to admit to war crimes.

“They made a big deal about this guy who was a naval officer, talking about all these atrocities and war crimes,” said Galanti. “They’d been for years saying, ‘You’re not prisoners of war, you’re war criminals. You’re never going home, we’re going to try you after the war and you’ll all be found guilty of war crimes.’”

Galanti realized only recently that it was Kerry’s voice the Communists had used to torment him, when he saw a documentary on the anti-war movement and heard Kerry’s unmistakable pronunciation of the words “Genghis Khan.” Kerry pronounced it “Jenjis” in his testimony when, among other atrocities, he reported tales that U.S. troops had “razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.”

“Right away, I said, hey, wait a minute, that’s the guy I heard in Hanoi,” said Galanti.

“I couldn’t believe a naval officer would do that–you’re supposed to get court-martialed for stuff like that,” he went on. “I really violently object to him suddenly turning into Rambo and spending almost his entire acceptance speech at the Democratic convention with this huge war-hero routine.”
Galanti, Warner and others have joined forces with the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to run television ads on Kerry’s Vietnam service (which many of Kerry’s fellow Swiftees say Kerry has lied about) and on Kerry’s anti-war activities upon his return to the United States. A new round of television ads by the group features Galanti and former POW Ken Cordier.

Tom Collins, a decorated Air Force captain whose plane was shot down in 1965, says he was also made to listen to an audiotape of Kerry’s testimony by his North Vietnamese captors. He explained that the North Vietnamese were constantly trying to elicit confessions of war crimes from Americans.

“What they wanted to do was get us to make statements that they could use for propaganda, no matter what it took to get it” he said. “They would torture us, some were even killed for it. . . . For over seven years, their goal was to get propaganda out of me. And then I see somebody like John Kerry and the Vietnam Veterans [Against the War] giving them the same propaganda they want me to give them, free of charge, on American television.”

“I wasn’t necessarily disappointed in Jane Fonda,” said Collins. “I didn’t know her background, but I figured she’s just some airhead Hollywood actress–so what? But then along comes this military officer. My first reaction was, this is a fake. But it wasn’t a fake. This guy is a traitor. I’m very disappointed in that. . . . I expected more out of a Navy lieutenant. That’s why I was so demoralized. It was far worse for him to do it.”

Collins said he was also shown other VVAW propaganda, including a picture of a famous April 1971 event in Washington, in which the group’s members threw what they said were their military medals over the fence. (Kerry participated in that event, and claimed in an interview at the time that he had thrown away his own medals, although it was revealed later that he had thrown someone else’s medals.)

“He knew he was putting us at risk,” said Warner. “And he was demanding unilateral withdrawal, which means our value as bargaining chips would be gone. And what do you think would have happened to us then?”

Galanti agreed. “I have no doubt if we had done what Kerry was advocating, we’d still be over there,” he said. But for the presence of American forces in Vietnam, he said, “there was absolutely no reason to turn us back. . . . The only reason they let us go was because they got the living daylights bombed out of them by B-52s over the Christmas bombings in ’72. . . . We were home 60 days later,” he said.

.
http://www.humanevents.com/2004/08/2...s-for-torment/

Now are you calling Jim Warner a liar?

[rivergator]

Originally Posted by northgagator

You are in total denial. Many POW's reported that actions of Kerry and the anti-war movement did come back to the Hanoi Hilton or the other prisons. In some cases the beatings increase due to the propaganda that the prison guards were fed. Some of the propaganda came from the actions of Kerry and the anti war movement.

Kerry's own admission of war crimes and those is his fellow soldiers was cannon fodder for the North Vietnamese propaganda machine.

Here is the end of a good read. I suggest that you read the entire link. It will give you good incite how the Hanoi regime used Kerry's and the rest of the anti war movement to their advantage. These guys toke programs a and exploitation to a very high art form.


http://www.pownetwork.org/docs/part1.htm

Now after read that item (that had not a word on Kerry) please take in the following info

.
http://www.humanevents.com/2004/08/2...s-for-torment/

Now are you calling Jim Warner a liar?

Not sure I'm following. You're abandoning the McCain quote and switching to someone else?

[dougreese]

"You are in total denial. Many POW's reported that actions of Kerry and the anti-war movement did come back to the Hanoi Hilton or the other prisons. In some cases the beatings increase due to the propaganda that the prison guards were fed. Some of the propaganda came from the actions of Kerry and the anti war movement. "

Really? Since the beatings pretty much stopped in the fall of 1969, and Kerry's testifying before congress was in April, 1971 . . . . . I think your claim is false.

In fact, none of the POWs said the were tortured/beat because of what Kerry said.

Being forced to listen to Kerry might be considered torture for some, but that doesn't count

Doug Reese

[northgagator]

Originally Posted by rivergator

Not sure I'm following. You're abandoning the McCain quote and switching to someone else?

Part of the debat is that the anit war demonstrations (some by Kerry and some by others) from the mid 1960's to the early 1970's did put our soliders in at risk.

The first link was about how the North Vietnamese used politics, the antiwar movement, and psycholigical warfare to their advantage. Thier game plan also included using the POWS as pawns.

The second link is information that demonstrates how the North Vietnamese used the anti war demonstrations to torment and to demoralize the POWS. This was done to break the mind and spirit of the POW's. Hoperfully to the point where they would renounce the USA and thus become a propogands tool.

Thus the actions of Kerry (Calling our soldiers murders, throwing his medals over the fence, and contacting the North Vietnamese in Paris) resulted in harm to our soldiers. As far as I am concerned he crapped all over his commission, the officiers he fought with, and the men he led.

I am surprised how you and many of your lib buddies slam the US for water boarding and other forms of torture but you seem to have a so so attitude what our guys went through. Putting Kerry into the Secretary of State position is a slap in the face to many people who were and are in the US military (and their families too). By the way when I was a kid a family friend of ours had a son who flew missions in the war. His son was a big hero to me. He was shot down over North Vietnam in 1970. There was confirmation that he was on the ground and captured alive. Unfortunately he was never heard from again.

[candymanfromgc]

Originally Posted by gatordowneast

This entire administration both in term 1 and term 2 is one gigantic clusterf__k and the joke is on us.

I'm not laughing. We have basically two men determing our fiscal path. Why the hell we need a senator or congressman to represent us is beyond me. We have narcisstic Obama and pathetic Baner to do it all while the other elected representatives eat christmas dinner.

We have a coward nominated for SS who hatesthe military, a AG who is a racist, a free press whose freedom is used to manipulate an undereducated government school system grads who aren't smart enough to think for them selves. Yea-jokes on all of us, even those who voted for this crap we have as a so called representative government.

[rivergator]

Originally Posted by northgagator

Part of the debat is that the anit war demonstrations (some by Kerry and some by others) from the mid 1960's to the early 1970's did put our soliders in at risk.

The first link was about how the North Vietnamese used politics, the antiwar movement, and psycholigical warfare to their advantage. Thier game plan also included using the POWS as pawns.

The second link is information that demonstrates how the North Vietnamese used the anti war demonstrations to torment and to demoralize the POWS. This was done to break the mind and spirit of the POW's. Hoperfully to the point where they would renounce the USA and thus become a propogands tool.

Thus the actions of Kerry (Calling our soldiers murders, throwing his medals over the fence, and contacting the North Vietnamese in Paris) resulted in harm to our soldiers. As far as I am concerned he crapped all over his commission, the officiers he fought with, and the men he led.

I am surprised how you and many of your lib buddies slam the US for water boarding and other forms of torture but you seem to have a so so attitude what our guys went through. Putting Kerry into the Secretary of State position is a slap in the face to many people who were and are in the US military (and their families too). By the way when I was a kid a family friend of ours had a son who flew missions in the war. His son was a big hero to me. He was shot down over North Vietnam in 1970. There was confirmation that he was on the ground and captured alive. Unfortunately he was never heard from again.

You started off with a phony quote, something McCain never said. That doesn't tend to make for a strong argument.
You presented no evidence that what Kerry did caused our soldiers harm.
We did a lot of bad things in Vietnam. Sure, Kerry did a bit too much grandstanding over it. But let's not pretend it didn't happen.

[northgagator]

Originally Posted by dougreese

"You are in total denial. Many POW's reported that actions of Kerry and the anti-war movement did come back to the Hanoi Hilton or the other prisons. In some cases the beatings increase due to the propaganda that the prison guards were fed. Some of the propaganda came from the actions of Kerry and the anti war movement. "

Really? Since the beatings pretty much stopped in the fall of 1969, and Kerry's testifying before congress was in April, 1971 . . . . . I think your claim is false.

In fact, none of the POWs said the were tortured/beat because of what Kerry said.

Being forced to listen to Kerry might be considered torture for some, but that doesn't count

Doug Reese

I admit that I mispoke on the beatings continuing. However the pyshcolodical war fare did continue after 1969. Please note that the beatings did become less frequent or more tolerable after 1969 at the Hanoi Hilton but there are serious concerns about what wen on in the other POW camps in North Vietnam that held American POW's. Many of these camps cannot account for what happened to all of their American POW's.

As for the torture not counting. Being shown a video of an American officer denouncing his country and his fellow soliders is torture to the POW's how spent three to five years in confinment with no contact from or to home. Many of these guys were already past the point of breaking (from the torture and isolation). The last thing they needed to see was Kerry showing his ass.

[candymanfromgc]

Geeze-just admit the guy is an embarrassement. There has to be someone better than Kerry.

[Row6]

Kerry was right on Viet Nam and opposing it was as much a service to the US as was his time there.

[rivergator]

Originally Posted by northgagator

I admit that I mispoke on the beatings continuing. However the pyshcolodical war fare did continue after 1969. Please note that the beatings did become less frequent or more tolerable after 1969 at the Hanoi Hilton but there are serious concerns about what wen on in the other POW camps in North Vietnam that held American POW's. Many of these camps cannot account for what happened to all of their American POW's.

As for the torture not counting. Being shown a video of an American officer denouncing his country and his fellow soliders is torture to the POW's how spent three to five years in confinment with no contact from or to home. Many of these guys were already past the point of breaking (from the torture and isolation). The last thing they needed to see was Kerry showing his ass.

Rigntwingers throw around a phony quote from McCain about his captors using Kerry's words against McCain and the other POWs. Not only did McCain not say that, he's said he never heard of John Kerry when he was a POW.

[northgagator]

Originally Posted by rivergator

Rigntwingers throw around a phony quote from McCain about his captors using Kerry's words against McCain and the other POWs. Not only did McCain not say that, he's said he never heard of John Kerry when he was a POW.

McCain was quouted in May 14, 1973, issue of U.S. News & World Report:

But after he was released from the Hanoi Hilton in 1973, McCain publicly complained that testimony by Kerry and others before J. William Fulbright's Senate Foreign Relations Committee was "the most effective propaganda [my North Vietnamese captors] had to use against us."

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/...7/124410.shtml

This was in 1973. Fast forward 31 years (2004) and McCain is now saying that he was misquoted. Why didn't McCain say this back in 1973. Maybe some people are right in saying that McCain did not want to win in 2004.

[rivergator]

Originally Posted by northgagator

McCain was quouted in May 14, 1973, issue of U.S. News & World Report:

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/...7/124410.shtml

This was in 1973. Fast forward 31 years (2004) and McCain is now saying that he was misquoted. Why didn't McCain say this back in 1973. Maybe some people are right in saying that McCain did not want to win in 2004.

That's what Newsmax says about the story. What I would suggest you do is read the the 1973 piece and see if Kerry is really mentioned.

[wargunfan]

The Democrats use a seniority system for nominations except in election years when the Clintons have to be rewarded for their support. It's Kerry's turn for a cabinet seat. There is no evidence of a meritocracy in the Obama Administration. It's all about quid pro quos. Obama paid off the Hildabeast by nominating her for SS. Obama told Holder "You cover my a$$ and I'll cover yours and you can be AG." He told Kagin "Agree to cover me on Obamacare and I'll nominate you for justice of the SCOTUS." Political reliability is what these nominations are all about. These types of Quid pro quo deals are SOP for Obama. If Obama gets the chance expect to see Kerry and/or Joe Biden nominated for the SCOTUS.

[rivergator]

North, I'm curious if you ever got around to reading that US News article, or did you just settle for taking Newsmax's word for it that McCain complained about Kerry?

[northgagator]

Originally Posted by rivergator

North, I'm curious if you ever got around to reading that US News article, or did you just settle for taking Newsmax's word for it that McCain complained about Kerry?

There are a lot of publications stating that McCain did admit of hearing. Kerry's statements at the Fulbright hearing. I did read the arrival and it appears that McCain does not mentioned Kerry by name. But he does mentioned the names of other leading anti war protestors: Fulbright, Kenndy, and Fonda.
Please note that McCain is not the only POW that heard the Kerry statements being aired in the Hanoi Hilton. Paul Galanti made the same claim and has not retracted or claimed being misquoted. Is Galanti a liar?

Paul Galanti, captured in 1966 after ejecting from his fighter jet about 100 miles south of Hanoi, said on the Sean Hannity radio show yesterday he first heard Kerry’s testimony in late 1971 when it was broadcast by his Vietnamese captors over the public address system in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison.

The broadcast on Radio Vietnam by “Hanoi Hannah” was used to reinforce the message of his captors during torture sessions, said Galanti, 64, now retired in Richmond, Va.

“We were not prisoners of war, we were ‘war criminals,’ they would say. ‘You are going to be tried, you will never go home.’”

Then came Hanoi Hannah introducing a clip from Kerry’s testimony.

“I couldn’t believe it, a Navy officer saying we were all war criminals, that we raped and pillaged the countryside like Genghis Khan,” said Galanti.

http://mobile.wnd.com/2004/08/26227/
Is Jim Warner a liar?

Three Vietnam veterans who were held captive for years in the prison known as the "Hanoi Hilton" revealed Tuesday that their Communist jailers repeatedly cited John Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony branding them as war criminals to justify threatening them with execution and drive down their morale.
"These statements [by Kerry] ... were proof I deserved to be punished," former POW Air Force pilot Jim Warner told United Press International. During every interrogation session, said Warner, his Vietnamese jailers echoed Kerry's charges that he was a war criminal. "The memory of that was still pretty fresh in my mind, and I was extremely uneasy. ... This officer said I committed crimes, that this war was illegal. ... All along they told us they would execute us for our 'crimes.'"

His captors even waved a four-page transcript of Kerry's Senate speech, Warner said, where the Democratic nominee had accused his brother soldiers of raping, torturing and mutilating innocent Vietnamese civilians.

The ex-POW pilot said also that audio from Kerry's speech was regularly played on Radio Hanoi and piped into the prison camp.

But what particularly incensed him was efforts by Kerry and Jane Fonda to use his parents for propaganda purposes - by persuading them to appear at the Fonda-sponsored Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971.

"His sisters had told him that Fonda and Kerry were involved in getting his parents to appear," UPI said.

How another Rep Sam Johnson of Texas and Tom Collins (both POW's in Hanoi), are the liars too, when they say that they heard Kerry's speech?

[gatorjack]

Let's not ignore two truths: we were wrong to invade Viet Nam, and the anti-war movement saved many American lives by hastening our departure. John Kerry was a fearless hero both in and out of uniform. To say otherwise is to badly distort history.

[northgagator]

Originally Posted by gatorjack

Let's not ignore two truths: we were wrong to invade Viet Nam, and the anti-war movement saved many American lives by hastening our departure. John Kerry was a fearless hero both in and out of uniform. To say otherwise is to badly distort history.

I cannot argue with the first point.

The second point is debatable for a lot reasons. Most of them are listed on this thread.

[Minister_of_Information]

Originally Posted by gatorjack

Let's not ignore two truths: we were wrong to invade Viet Nam, and the anti-war movement saved many American lives by hastening our departure. John Kerry was a fearless hero both in and out of uniform. To say otherwise is to badly distort history.

We did not invade Vietnam. And you are wrong in the other respects as well.

[northgagator]

Originally Posted by Minister_of_Information

We did not invade Vietnam. And you are wrong in the other respects as well.

I don't believe that the poster was stating that the USA barged into Vietnam like Saddam did in Kuwait.

Our entry into South Vietnam was pretty much like the fable of the camel that stuck his nose into the tent.

This saga started out with the 1954 French defeat in colonial Vietnam. Prior to that defeat the USA finance a large portion of the French war effort in Vietnam to prevent it from failing into the control of Ho Chi Minh (a communist). After the French the USA deliberately undermined the 1954 Geneva Accord agreement that the French and Ho Chi Minh governments signed off on. That agreement the temporary formations if two Vietnams (North and South) and free elections in the South Vietnam to determined the reunification of the two countries. The USA use money and the CIA to prop up the South Vietnam gov't and to rig the 1955 elections. The meddling of the USA continued on for another ten years with the introduction of US Advisors, troops, a political coup/assassination, and a phony attack on a US destroyer in the Gulf of Token.

Basically the 1965 introduction if US troops into South Vietnam was a carefully stage invasion.
https://www.boundless.com/history/si...ar-in-vietnam/

http://www.vietvet.org/jeffviet.htm

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State...ferendum,_1955

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=HODxn...%3DHODxnUrFX6k

[rivergator]

North, OK, you didn't read the US News piece from 1973. I did, and there is no mention of Kerry. Here it is.

link

In other words, you continue to rely on flaky rightwing sources like Newsmax and World Net Daily rather than actually look at the source. That's why you keep claiming McCain said something that he hadn't.
I have no doubt that some former POWs joined the Swift Boat attacks against Kerry. But, let's be honest, a lot of that Swift Boat stuff has been shown to be pretty bogus. People who claimed to be with Kerry really weren't.
As far as Galanti, he claims that Kerry said all American soldiers were war criminals. He said that Kerry said he personally witnessed ears being cut off. Did Kerry really say those things? Or was this just politically motivated BS?

By the way, even if Hanoi Hannah read Kerry's statement on air, how would that have put US soldiers in increased danger, as you claimed?