McCain: Hanoi Hilton Guards Taunted POWs With Kerry's Testimony

[Aristotle]

http://<b>http://www.newsmax.com/arc...4410.shtml</b>

These days, former Vietnam War POW Sen. John McCain has nothing but praise for his fellow Vietnam veteran Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' current presidential front-runner.

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."

"They used Senator Fulbright a great deal," McCain wrote in the May 14, 1973, issue of U.S. News & World Report. While he was languishing in a North Vietnamese prison cell, Kerry was telling the Fulbright committee that U.S. soldiers were committing war crimes in Vietnam as a matter of course.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, a key Kerry presidential backer, was "quoted again and again" by jailers at the Hanoi Hilton, McCain said.

"Clark Clifford was another [North Vietnamese] favorite," the ex-POW told U.S. News, "right after he had been Secretary of Defense under President Johnson."

"When Ramsey Clark came over [my jailers] thought that was a great coup for their cause," McCain recalled. Months earlier, Sen. Kerry had appeared with Clark at the April 1971 Washington, D.C., anti-war protest that showcased his testimony before the Fulbright Committee.

"All through this period," wrote McCain, his captors were "bombarding us with anti-war quotes from people in high places back in Washington. This was the most effective propaganda they had to use against us."

McCain biographer Paul Alexander chronicled the Arizona Republican's anger toward Kerry during their early careers in the Senate together.

"For many years McCain held Kerry's actions against him because, while McCain was a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, Kerry was organizing veterans back home in the U.S. to protest the war."

In his 2002 book, "Man of the People: The Life of John McCain," Alexander says that the two Vietnam vets finally reconciled in the early 1990s after having "a long - and at times emotional - conversation about Vietnam" during a mutual trip to Kuwait.

Later, Kerry sought to minimize the rift, telling Alexander: "Our differences occurred when we were kids, or at least close to being kids. It was a long time ago, and we both came back and realized that there were a lot of difficulties in the prosecution of that war."

NewsMax gratefully acknowledges the help of U.S. Veteran Dispatch editor Ted Sampley for supplying McCain's revealing 1973 account in U.S. News.

[Grantref]

I don't see that one can use this against John Kerry any more than simply reiterating the fact that he was opposed to the war in Vietnam. It's not his fault that the Viet Cong used his words out of context to propagandize their prisoners. He wasn't directing his statements at the POWs like Jane Fonda did. (What she did was completely incredible in its stupidity and self-delusion, and it is even more incredible that she never got in trouble for it.)

[Frobozz]

While doing something like this is horrendously evil, because it is one thing to say that the administration or congress is committing crimes... but to claim that your ACTIVE soldiers in an ACTIVE war zone are committing war crimes opens them to a world of backlash, withdrawing public support for people that so dearly need it.

On the other hand Kerry's war background may be moot... We have his entire voting record to point at and laugh.

[Kharum]

Originally posted by Frobozz
While doing something like this is horrendously evil, because it is one thing to say that the administration or congress is committing crimes... but to claim that your ACTIVE soldiers in an ACTIVE war zone are committing war crimes opens them to a world of backlash, withdrawing public support for people that so dearly need it.

Well, that was almost a complete sentence.

Anyone with any common sense, however, would probably point out that as a soldier serving in Vietnam, Kerry was particularly positioned to comment on whether or not troops were engaging in atrocities. Furthermore, one could argue that as a citizen of the world's greatest democracy that perhaps it's not so strange that after his return home Kerry felt that he had at least some moral obligation to comment on these atrocities.

[Grantref]

Originally posted by Frobozz
While doing something like this is horrendously evil, because it is one thing to say that the administration or congress is committing crimes... but to claim that your ACTIVE soldiers in an ACTIVE war zone are committing war crimes opens them to a world of backlash, withdrawing public support for people that so dearly need it.

I would say that it would be a greater evil to witness what you consider to be atrocities during your time of duty and then when you return to the states, to fail to speak out against them.

[Frobozz]

Originally posted by Jabriol
I would say that it would be a greater evil to witness what you consider to be atrocities during your time of duty and then when you return to the states, to fail to speak out against them.

It is one thing to speak out against the administration ordering such acts, then to speak out against the soldiers following orders.

[Lokrian]

This is all such a non-issue to me.

When confronted with the problem of why he never reported any such atrocities, Kerry has admitted that he never saw them himself. I've talked to a few people, most notably one of my calculus profs, who were against the war at the time but that, looking back, see how abandoning it was the wrong course, and reactionary. I think looking at Kerry's development from then to now, it is apparent that he still harbors a great deal of that reactionary mindset. He goes to opposite poles with equal zeal. I don't see that as being politically expedient. If all it was about was pandering to his constituents, I would be more forgiving. Unlike what I hear a lot of in the press, I do not judge politicians badly for being politicians. That's their job. But, I see it as being someone who lacks a certain amount of perspective. That is a fundamental problem, and to me it doesn't appear that he has outgrown it. It's not that he had this or that view 30 years ago. It's looking at his views NOW that people should be focusing on. You don't need to go back 30 years and open up Viet Nam ad nauseum to figure that out about him.

I am no huge fan of McCain either. Like Kerry, he is a war hero who takes politics somewhat too personally. How in the world are you supposed to get the "special interests" out of politics? The special interests are why you have politics in the first place. It's really all rather absurd. If someone doesn't have some intrinsic political interest, they stay home and they don't worry much about it all, don't they? The question is, whose special interests benefit the most by changing the system in this or that way? I hear almost no debate about that anywhere. So to me, it ends up being just another wedge issue.

I think the makeup of the electorate is becoming more and more clear as different splinter groups try their hands at becoming third parties. You get a clearer view of who was depending on whom as part of their constituency as these various parties form and try their own hand. The left was underhappy with the direction of the Democratic party, and have been trying to jerk power back, but much like Buchanan from the right, when they field people as candidates it becomes clear that theirs is not the cause that middle America identifies with. Hopefully, this will make it harder and harder to toss some red herring out there to get people off on a tangent about. This years wedge issue is shaping up to be gay marriage. I am sick to death of these sorts of micro-interests taking center stage in national debates.

The major issues are defense and economics. There will be little "Compassionate Conservative" rhetoric this year I imagine. Whatever else you may believe about the deficit, it seems clear that Bush meant to stage a conflict between security interests and domestic interests, and it is no big mystery which of the two he will be leaning on to be cut back when push comes to shove. I don't blame Bush for the economy. That was largely a function of the attack on our nation I think. But to turn around and gut the federal coffers to deal with it and set up a situation where cut backs will need to be made is politically cynical. He was not honest about his compassion. He is a typical "get off your ass and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" conservative, made all the more offensive because he himself is such a typical little spoiled rich kid. If the Dems would focus on this while reassuring the American people that they aren't going to sell us out the minute the Almighty U.N. squawks and ruffles its furious little feathers, they would win hands down.

Still in all, I prefer a spoiled little rich kid who surrounds himself with people who know how to prosecute a war to someone who harbors too much latent guilt to defend this country's interests abroad. I mean seriously... Damn Nixon and Johnson to hell for trying to support our allies and keep valuable resources from being sucked into the vacuum of the communist block, as if there has ever been any doubt which of the two governments was more humane.

Anyway, obviously I have -way- too much time on my hands as this is like the 3rd book-length post I have made in 2 days.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Jabriol
I don't see that one can use this against John Kerry any more than simply reiterating the fact that he was opposed to the war in Vietnam. It's not his fault that the Viet Cong used his words out of context to propagandize their prisoners.

The reason it is a problem is because he MADE UP what he said. He never witnessed any of the things he claimed he "knew" soldiers were doing.

If he had witnessed soldiers committing atrocities than I would consider him a hero for being the whistleblower.

Instead, he was slandering them without basis and then his words were in turn used as a tool of POW torture.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Eorick

Anyone with any common sense, however, would probably point out that as a soldier serving in Vietnam, Kerry was particularly positioned to comment on whether or not troops were engaging in atrocities. Furthermore, one could argue that as a citizen of the world's greatest democracy that perhaps it's not so strange that after his return home Kerry felt that he had at least some moral obligation to comment on these atrocities.

If he had SEEN some, then yes.

He hadn't seen ANY. He just invented his comments for political and personal expediency. What a great way to "move on up" in the Anti-War Political Ranks than to invent particularly titilating details.

Kerry admits that he never witnessed ANY of the things he said were widespread. That is what makes his comments so despicable.

As I already noted, if he had actually witnessed such things, then I would have no problem with him blowing the whistle.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Jabriol
I would say that it would be a greater evil to witness what you consider to be atrocities during your time of duty and then when you return to the states, to fail to speak out against them.

You'd be correct.

Unfortunately for Kerry, by his own admission he did not witness any.