RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events defining the hippie movement

HERE
.

Is John Kerry the New Democrat Golden Boy?
.
Part One
.
by Barbara Stock
Friday, January 23, 2004.
.
The good citizens of Iowa handed Richard Gephardt a shocking loss, and they put the oft-times raging Howard Dean into a nearly hysterical state. Iowa also presented Senator John Kerry with a huge surprise win. Kerry left Iowa for New Hampshire as the odds-on favorite to win the Democrat nomination.
.
Senator Kerry often speaks of his war record and his military service during the Vietnam war. No one doubts that he served and by most accounts, served well. Kerry was also awarded the distinctive honor of a Silver Star. But some questions linger.
.
The Silver Star is awarded to those who have exhibited ''gallantry in action'' while in combat with an enemy of the United States.
.
It's true that Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry was in combat. Indeed, his boat had been fired upon by the enemy. Kerry beached his boat and an enemy soldier broke and ran. Tom Belodeau, one of the boat's gunners, admitted this enemy soldier was wounded in the attack. Lt. Kerry then chased the wounded man behind a ''hootch'' where he ''finished him off.'' It was for this action that he was awarded the prestigious Silver Star.
.
There were some who felt this act was not deserving of such an honor. Dan Carr, a Marine who served 14 months in Vietnam, questioned whether such an honor should have been bestowed on a man who killed a retreating and wounded enemy soldier.
.
When young Kerry returned to the States, he began protesting against the Vietnam War. On April 23, 1971, Kerry testified before Congress about atrocities he had allegedly seen and heard about. He testified that American soldiers ''raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, [had] blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.'' He stated there never was a communist threat in Vietnam.
.
He joined a group called ''Vietnam Vets against the War.'' This group eventually abandoned him because the members realized that he was using their cause as a platform for his own personal gain. He was making it appear as though American soldiers were out-of-control animals, rampaging across Vietnam torturing and killing for sport. This was not their message. They were protesting the war. They weren't accusing their fellow soldiers of being murderers and rapists. They had not seen any of the behavior Kerry stated he witnessed. One member remarked that Kerry seemed to be making it up to give people what they wanted to hear.
.
Recently, Senator Kerry gave a speech at a Vietnam War Memorial, and many of the veterans turned their backs to him and walked away. They saw him as the man who called them war criminals in his testimony before Congress. The man who received the Silver Star for killing a wounded, retreating enemy soldier, had accused them of hideous war crimes.
.
Michael Benge, a Viet Nam POW from 1968 to 1973, wants Americans to know that it was Kerry who blocked ''The Vietnam Human Rights Act.'' (HR-2833) Benge believes that action gave Hanoi the green light to ignore violations of human rights with the blessing of the United States.
.
Senator Kerry can often be heard making the statement that the Bush Administration is controlled solely by ''special interests.'' Of course, he is untouched by this disease that he says permeates the Republican Party.
.
The senator was the head of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs in 1992. He pushed vigorously to normalize relations with Vietnam. He visited Vietnam and praised them for being open and reported he was convinced they were not holding American POWs. Many families didn't believe him then and don't believe him now. But why would he be so anxious to normalize relations with the former enemy?
.
The answer is special interests and money. Collier's International, based in Boston, was immediately awarded the exclusive contract to rebuild Vietnam's infrastructure by the Vietnamese government. They made tens of millions of dollars from the contract. The chief executive officer of Collier's International was a man named C. Stewart Forbes. Interestingly, Senator Kerry's middle name is Forbes. There is a reason for that. C. Stewart Forbes is John Kerry's cousin.
.
The New Yorker Magazine touted Kerry as the senator who defeated the ''mendacious POW lobby.'' Yes, Kerry helped defeat those tenacious family members who wanted to know what happened to their missing loved ones. His strange bedfellow in this battle against POW families was none other than fellow Senator and former POW John McCain.
.
This committee's final report in 1993 was chilling. It determined that American POWs were left alive in Viet Nam after the war but felt none were still alive. It makes no attempt to identify those left behind, how they died, who killed them, and where their remains are located. They were abandoned in life and death.
.
Is Senator Kerry in full support of our intelligence gathering capabilities? His voting record indicates he is not.
.
In 1994/95, Kerry proposed a bill to gut $1.5 billion from intelligence and freeze spending for two major intelligence programs--the National Foreign Intelligence Program and Tactical Intelligence Program. (S. 1826) The bill did not make it to a vote, but the language was retooled, the amount dropped to $1 billion, and it was finally defeated as S. Amendment 1452 to H.R. 3759. (S. 1826, Introduced 2/3/94)
.
He voted to cut 80 million from the FBI budget. (HR-2076)
.
In 1997, Kerry felt there that were no threats to the United States. This prompted him to place this statement in the Congressional Record: ''Now that the [Cold War] struggle is over, why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow even as Government resources for new and essential priorities fall far short of what is necessary?'' (Congressional Record, 5/1/97, p. S3891)
.
Twelve days after 9/11, Senator Kerry had the nerve to make this statement: "And the tragedy is, at the moment, that the single most important weapon for the United States of America is intelligence. We are weakest, frankly, in that particular area. So it's going to take us time to be able to build up here to do this properly." (CBS's Face the Nation, 9/23/01)
.
After spending years trying to lay waste to our intelligence capabilities, succeeding at times, and failing at times, he now preaches about how our intelligence community was negligent.

.
HERE
.
Is John Kerry the New Democrat Golden Boy?
Part Two: His Military Voting Record
.
by Barbara Stock
Sunday, February 01, 2004
.
John Kerry stated that in his first 100 days in office he would increase the military by 40,000 troops. "In the face of grave challenges, our armed forces are spread too thin." This is pompous talk from a man running for president and running from his voting record.
.
Kerry's desire to deplete the military is a long one. One has to go all the way back to 1972 to find his first plan to take funding from the military and redistribute it to social programs.
In his failed race for the Congress, his speeches centered on a simple theme--he promised to vote against all military appropriations.
.
In an interview with Harvard's Crimson he stated that he would "almost eliminate CIA activity and have U.S. troops dispersed throughout the world only at the directive of the United Nations."
.
Kerry indicated that he felt the war on terror was more a legal problem than a military one. Did convicting some of those who were responsible stop any of the terror attacks leading up to 9/11?
"I think there has been an exaggeration," Mr. Kerry said when asked whether President Bush has overstated the threat of terrorism. "They are misleading all Americans in a profound way." Apparently the vision of those jets crashing into the Twin Towers was not imprinted on Senator's Kerry's mind as it was for most Americans. That attack was not just a crime; it was an act of war.
.
In the 1980's, the Associated Press reported that Kerry sat on the board of the radical liberal group "Jobs with Peace Campaign," whose main objective was to "develop public support for cutting the defense budget."
.
Senator Kerry voted to reduce the defense spending levels for weapon projects by $8.8 billion in fiscal 1993. (Senate Congressional Resolution 106)
.
When questioned on defense funding, he said: "I have voted for almost all weapon systems that we have today with few exceptions. Unfortunately, these are people who've never met a system they didn't like. I have." Kerry voted against the B-1 bomber, B-2 stealth bomber, the Apache helicopter, Patriot missile system, the F-15, F-14A, F-14D jets, the AV-8B Harrier jet, and the Trident missile system. He also said he would make sure there were cutbacks to the M1 Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Tomahawk cruise missile, and the F-16 jet.
If these are the "unimportant" items he voted against, what on earth were the important ones he did vote for?
Even non-military-minded folks easily recognize most of these vital pieces of American technology that helped us to win the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom with swiftness that shocked the world. It's unimaginable that our armed forces wouldn't have these weapons and weapon systems at their disposal. What new weapons would President Kerry block?
.
The senator believes innovative weapons only encourage other countries to come up with their own. Does he believe our enemies will be idle just because we do nothing? It is typical liberal thinking that if we disarm so will the enemy.
.
Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, added an amendment to the Fiscal 1996 Budget Resolution that would freeze defense spending for seven years and transfer the $34.8 billion in savings to education and job training. Kerry Voted Yea (Senate Congressional Resolution 13, CQ Vote #181: Rejected 28-71) If that amendment had passed in 1996, what condition would our military have been in by 2001?
.
The Senator introduced a bill to slash Department of Defense funding by $6.5 billion. Kerry's draconian bill had no co-sponsors and never came to a floor vote. (Senate 1580, Introduced 2/29/96)
.
An amendment introduced by Harkin and supported by Kerry was to Senate Bill 2057: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999.
.
This amendment would have transferred $329 million from the Department of Defense to the Veterans Affairs Department for veteran's health care programs. The transfer would be conducted by the secretary of defense in a manner which ''causes the least significant harm'' to military readiness and to the quality of life of military personnel. While it is imperative to take care of our veterans, making those presently wearing the uniform suffer is not the answer. Many in uniform were already struggling and on food stamps. Taking more from them would have been criminal. The Harkin amendment was defeated.
.
John Kerry ignored the growing threat to this country. We had had several terrorist attacks including the first attack on the WTC in 1993, but with blinders on, Kerry had one vision-weaken the military, cut the CIA, and use the money for his ever-growing social giveaway programs. His total ignorance of what America would need for defense in the new century is shocking. Kerry had twice placed in the Congressional Record that America had no enemies or threats to her security. Did he ignore the threats or was it that he just didn't care?
.
As an interesting sideline, Kerry referred twice to the downing of TWA Flight 800 as a terrorist attack. In light of such statements, one has to wonder why he continued his hack-and-slash policies of the very forces that would be called upon to protect us from such attacks.
.
Kerry wants us to ignore that if he had been successful in his quest, we could very well be in an all out war on American soil. Had we followed his vision, our soldiers would not have the high-tech equipment they have and use so effectively. If bills Senator Kerry supported had passed, our military readiness would be nonexistent. Had John Kerry been in charge, our soldiers would be under U.N. control.
.
Kerry wants us to remember that he served in Viet Nam and won a Silver Star, although he wants us to forget that he came home and called his fellow soldiers war criminals. He later admitted that he never saw any of the atrocities he testified to in front of Congress. The basis of his testimony--the Jane Fonda sponsored ''Detroit Winter Soldier'' event--has long been questioned and some say many of the ''veterans'' who testified at that event, were not veterans at all. Many Viet Nam vets were outraged at being described as vicious animals.
.
Kerry can't say his words were twisted or taken out of context. These votes and comments are well documented and demonstrate that John Kerry's newfound love and support of the military is strictly political, phony, and false. He still doesn't see the terrorist threat to this country. On the basis of that alone, Senator Kerry as President Kerry would be a threat to this country.