jfreas
02-12-04, 11:23 AM
As Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, considers a bid for the White
House, Americans should know a few things about him that he might prefer go
unmentioned ? and I don't mean his $75 haircuts.
When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans
Day, a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked away. They
remembered Mr. Kerry as the anti-war activist who testified before Congress
during the war, accusing veterans of being war criminals.
The dust jacket of Mr. Kerry's pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features a
photograph of his ragged band of radicals mocking the U.S. Marine Corps
Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, with an upside-down
American flag.
Retired Gen. George S. Patton III charged that Mr. Kerry's actions as an
anti-war activist had "given aid and comfort to the enemy," as had the
actions of Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda. Also, Mr. Kerry lied when he threw
what he claimed were his war medals over the White House fence; he later
admitted they weren't his.
Now they are displayed on his office wall. Long after he changed sides in
congressional hearings, Mr. Kerry lobbied for renewed trade relations with
Hanoi.
At the same time, his cousin C.Stewart Forbes, chief executive for Colliers
International, assisted in brokering a $905 million deal to develop a
deep-sea port at Vung Tau, Vietnam ?
An odd coincidence.
As noted in the Inside Politics column of Nov. 14 (Nation), historian
Douglas Brinkley is writing Mr. Kerry's biography. Hopefully, he'll include
the senator's latest ignominious feat: preventing the Vietnam Human Rights
Act (HR2833) from coming to a vote in the Senate, claiming human rights
would deteriorate as a result. His actions sent a clear signal to Hanoi that
Congress cares little about the human rights for which so many Americans
fought and died.
The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least
tolerant of religious freedom. Recently, 354 churches of the Montagnards, a
Christian ethnic minority, were forcibly disbanded, and by mid-October, more
than 50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province
alone.
On Oct. 29, the secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection
simply for protesting religious repression. The communists are conducting a
pogrom against the Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture of
goat's blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity.
Thousands have been killed or imprisoned or have just "disappeared." The
Montagnards lost one-half of their adult male population fighting for the
United States, and without them, there might be thousands more American
names on that somber black granite wall at the Vietnam memorial.
As Mr. Kerry contemplates a run for the presidency, people must remember
that he has fought harder for Hanoi as an anti-war activist and a senator
than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in
Vietnam.
MICHAEL BENGE Foreign Service officer and former Vietnam POW (1968 to 1973)
House, Americans should know a few things about him that he might prefer go
unmentioned ? and I don't mean his $75 haircuts.
When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans
Day, a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked away. They
remembered Mr. Kerry as the anti-war activist who testified before Congress
during the war, accusing veterans of being war criminals.
The dust jacket of Mr. Kerry's pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features a
photograph of his ragged band of radicals mocking the U.S. Marine Corps
Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, with an upside-down
American flag.
Retired Gen. George S. Patton III charged that Mr. Kerry's actions as an
anti-war activist had "given aid and comfort to the enemy," as had the
actions of Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda. Also, Mr. Kerry lied when he threw
what he claimed were his war medals over the White House fence; he later
admitted they weren't his.
Now they are displayed on his office wall. Long after he changed sides in
congressional hearings, Mr. Kerry lobbied for renewed trade relations with
Hanoi.
At the same time, his cousin C.Stewart Forbes, chief executive for Colliers
International, assisted in brokering a $905 million deal to develop a
deep-sea port at Vung Tau, Vietnam ?
An odd coincidence.
As noted in the Inside Politics column of Nov. 14 (Nation), historian
Douglas Brinkley is writing Mr. Kerry's biography. Hopefully, he'll include
the senator's latest ignominious feat: preventing the Vietnam Human Rights
Act (HR2833) from coming to a vote in the Senate, claiming human rights
would deteriorate as a result. His actions sent a clear signal to Hanoi that
Congress cares little about the human rights for which so many Americans
fought and died.
The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least
tolerant of religious freedom. Recently, 354 churches of the Montagnards, a
Christian ethnic minority, were forcibly disbanded, and by mid-October, more
than 50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province
alone.
On Oct. 29, the secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection
simply for protesting religious repression. The communists are conducting a
pogrom against the Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture of
goat's blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity.
Thousands have been killed or imprisoned or have just "disappeared." The
Montagnards lost one-half of their adult male population fighting for the
United States, and without them, there might be thousands more American
names on that somber black granite wall at the Vietnam memorial.
As Mr. Kerry contemplates a run for the presidency, people must remember
that he has fought harder for Hanoi as an anti-war activist and a senator
than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in
Vietnam.
MICHAEL BENGE Foreign Service officer and former Vietnam POW (1968 to 1973)