No Secret Christmas Mission for Kerry

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
No Secret Christmas Mission for Kerry
3
Tue, 08-10-2004 - 12:13am

Watching Kerry the contortionist try to wriggle out of this should be quite amusing:


http://nooilforpacifists.blogspot.com/2004/08/kerry-tales-part-xliii-holidays-in.html

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Thu, 08-12-2004 - 9:06pm

The performance has begun:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/12/wus12.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/08/12/ixnewstop.html




For the first time, Sen John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, has been left floundering by allegations that he invented a key episode of his decorated wartime service in Vietnam - a central plank of his election platform. . . . the Kerry campaign was left in verbal knots after a new book accused the senator of inventing stories about being sent, illegally, over the border into neutral Cambodia. . . .


In newspaper articles, interviews and at least one Senate speech, Mr Kerry has claimed that he spent Christmas 1968 inside Cambodia, at a time when even the US president was publicly denying that American forces were inside that country.


He has cited the missions as a psychological turning point, when he realised that American leaders were not telling the truth to the world about the war in south-east Asia.


The Kerry campaign responded, initially, that Mr Kerry had always said he was "near" Cambodia. Then a campaign aide said Mr Kerry had been in the Mekong Delta "between" Vietnam and next-door Cambodia - a geographical zone not found on maps, which show the Mekong river running from Cambodia to Vietnam.


http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/vm.html




'The new "spin" seems to be that the Mekong Delta runs into Cambodia and, as a result, Kerry could have been near Cambodia or accidentially gone over the border. However, that "explanation" is non-responsive to the fundamental basis for the criticism of Kerry. He alleged, again and again, that the US knowingly, intentionally, secretly and duplicitously sent him into Cambodia as part of US policy, while denying the same publicly to the world. . . .


If, now, he is forced to admit that his recollection is untrue, it makes a mockery of over 30 years of his use of his war record. What does this say about his ability to lead? Moreover, how can he criticize George Bush for relying on faulty war intelligence when he has been willing to base policy on his own faulty recollection?' http://instapundit.com/archives/017139.php

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 08-12-2004 - 9:53pm
Regardless of any other facts or non-facts in this article this is an absolute lie.

"American armed forces didn't enter Cambodia until Spring 1970, which prompted widespread protests and "four dead" at Kent State University--on May 4, 1970."

I have personal knowledge that this is not true. I, personally, with my own two eyes, read a transcript of a divorce proceeding in which the husband claimed that he was entitled to a larger share of martial property than his wife, because he had earned it while serving in the Army as a "special advisor" to the Cambodians and the Laoians in 1968-1970. His claim was that because of the hardships involved in earning the wages, he should be allowed a larger share of the marital property.

I also saw in the transcript the testimony of an "advisor" to the CIA, who came to invoke the "Secracy Act" to have the words "Cambodia" and "Laos" blacked out of the transcript. I talked to the attorney who tried the case, and asked him, specifically, if the words blacked out were "Cambodia" and "Laos." He told me they were.

I read this transcript because I wrote the appeal for the wife.

Whether the rest is true or not, I cannot say. But this much I can say for a fact. There were troops in Cambodia prior to Christmas, 1968. I saw the sworn testimony.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Thu, 08-12-2004 - 10:23pm
Well, Kerry taking leaf from the book 1984, plans to re-write history... as the facts aren't going his way... Christmas will now become January... here's the latest from Drudge ...

TOUR OF DUTY author and John Kerry historian Doug Brinkley is rushing a piece for the NEW YORKER: to set-the-record-straight on Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia tale, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Kerry has turned to author Brinkley for a "modification" after it was exposed that Kerry was not in Cambodia during Christmas of 1968, as he once claimed from the Senate floor.

The Brinkley piece for the NEW YORKER will now say that Kerry was not in Cambodia during Christmas, but rather in January, publishing sources tell DRUDGE.

MORE

Since the early 1970s, Kerry has spoken and written of how he was illegally ordered to enter Cambodia. Kerry mentioned it in the floor of the Senate in 1986 when he charged that President Reagan’s actions in Central America were leading the U.S. in another Vietnam. Here’s what he said as excerpted from the new book, UNFIT FOR COMMAND:

"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared--seared--in me."

John O’Neil’s, author of UNFIT FOR COMMAND, comments on the “clarification:”

“John Kerry describes Christmas Eve in Cambodia as a critical turning point in his life. We now know that his story is completely false. My question is how many people do you know have invented a turning point, one that is seared in his memory? While it makes sense for John Kerry to come clean about the Cambodia story, it is one of several tales that the Kerry campaign will have to face and clarify.”

“By claiming we were engaged in a war crime and crossing international borders, John Kerry damaged the credibility of all the commanding officers above him and insulted the sailors who served with him,” said John O’Neill, member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.”