SwiftVets.com

[JK]

Kerry's Anti-American Rhetoric Used in Torture of POWs


Posted August 26, 2004
by David Freddoso

Former POW Jim Warner today told HUMAN EVENTS that he first learned about Lt. John Kerry in a North Vietnamese prison camp. When his captors brought him out of solitary confinement in the infamous Skid Row punishment camp for an interrogation, they made him read the typewritten transcript of a statement by Kerry, speaking in the United States. His interrogator kept pointing at Kerry's words, saying, 'See? This officer from your Navy says you deserve to be punished.'"

"All I could think of was that this must be a really contemptible human being," said Warner, although We can't expect the rest of the country to share our disgust at Kerry for turning on us. A lot of people are too young to remember that."

But the Kerry campaign has worked tirelessly to remind all voters of Vietnam, focusing almost entirely on his experience as a Vietnam veteran.

Since then, when speaking in nearly every forum and on nearly every issue, Kerry has emphasized the fact that he is fit to be president because he knows what war was like--he was there. At the Democratic convention, he even began his acceptance speech with a salute, telling the crowd of loyal Democrats that he was "reporting for duty."

"It wasn't a very good salute," remarked Warner, his voice strained with a decades-old bitterness. "If you're going to run as a war hero, somebody at least ought to teach you to salute."

Warner said his first experienced Kerry's anti-American rhetoric in 1971 when he was a Marine first lieutenant suffering in solitary confinement in the Skid Row punishment camp. His F-4 fighter had been shot down three and a half years earlier, and since that time he had been tortured and interrogated regularly. He was in a special punishment camp at the time with 35 other POWs who had been uncooperative when their captors tried to prohibit religious observances in their cells.

One morning--Warner thinks it was a Saturday--his captors brought him out for an unusually long three-hour interrogation, during which they made him read the transcript of a statement by a U.S. Navy officer and Vietnam Veteran speaking in the United States. The speech included a litany of war crimes American soldiers were committing in Vietnam.

However, Warner acknowledges that the statement could have come from of a number of speeches Kerry gave during his career as an anti-war protester.

Tom Collins, another Vietnam POW whose plane was shot down in 1965, was made to listen to Kerry's testimony on tape during his captivity. He explained that the North Vietnamese were constantly trying to elicit confessions of war crimes from Americans, promising them better treatment.

"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."

"He knew he was putting us at risk," Warner went on. "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?"

"We can forgive and forget," said Collins. "But then when he decides to bring it up and run for the highest office in the land based upon outright lies, we're not going to stand for that."

These charges by POWs and more questions about John Kerry's "war hero" status have been generated by the release of the blockbuster new book Unfit for Command (Regnery, a HUMAN EVENTS sister company) and two TV ads produced by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The book and the ads deal not only with the dubious claims of heroics surrounding the various medals Kerry received during his four-month tour in Vietnam, but also with his virulent anti-war and anti-American actions upon his return from the war.

Human Events Online was the first to post the full transcript from Kerry's April 22, 1971, testimony and the Q&A before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the war in Vietnam online. The full document can still be read, in its original format, here.

[Hueygunner]

Our military training always stressed don't leave anything the enemy might use against you. Expensive military hardware and supplies were dismantled or blown up in order to deny the enemy use of these materials or munitions.

John Kerry gave the Communist Vietnamese the most useful weapon they could use in the fight against the United States -- propaganda. What a b*st*rd!

Everyone knows P.R. costs millions of dollars and a business' good name can be ruined in an instant. For John Kerry to throw away the good name of the American soldier like it was trash was criminal.

Why he wasn't prosecuted for giving aid to the enemy is incredible!

[deedee]

I have been going nuts looking for the article I read in Feb about Kerry meeting with the NVA in Paris. This article was about him being livid that the NVA was ready to release some POW's after talks with Kissinger. He told them not to, they were the best bargaining tool they had. At the time, I was anger but never thought he would be the nominee.

Where ever I saw it, I bet it is gone!

What is known about his meetings in Paris? That hasn't gotten much attention and if that isn't treason, then I guess I don't know what it is.
_________________
Scout Pilot wife

[LewWaters]

Deedee, is what you're looking for?

http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=\SpecialReports\archive\200406\SPE20040604a.html
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Clark County Conservative

[deedee]

That's close! The first time Cspan ran the Cavett show and Kerry"s testimony, I did a lot of research on the VVAW. Alot of what I read was the VVAW's own archives and some of their stuff via university sites.

I was too young at the time to pay attention and didn't realize how deep this "cut" my husband, returning home wounded and classmates asking him how many babies he killed.

So , when I wanted to watch these re-broadcasts, he understood me wanting to know but had to stay out in the garage. He said he had no need to hear it again, it was still fresh in his mind.

I am afraid my husband and many vets will think the public has kicked them in the butt again if Kerry is elected. I almost vomit when I hear Kerry say he will unite the country. Maybe he has what he did for north and south Vietnam in mind - God help us!
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Scout Pilot wife

[kmudd]

[producehawk]

Kery can not get out of his past actions as easy as getting out of a past marrage.

[RocketFett]

Damn skippy! johnny boy isn't going to inull his traitorous cowardly attacks on the U.S. military and the POWs 32 years after the fact. Not going to happen.

And this whole POW item brings up something I've been thinking about the past few days. This will be really damning to kerry I think, and being totally seperate from SBVT something even harder for kerry to dismiss. After putting together pieces from here, a couple other tiny tid bits from places, in addition to my Mom's cousin near Dallas who called me and told me she has a very good friend that is now working with a couple Vietnam Vets who are POWs, Naval Aviators, and many other POWs that apparently are getting together a new group of vets that are going to totally hammer kerry on the fact that while they were captured and being brutally tortured, the Vietnamese read all of kerry's anti-military spew to them, while being tortured, using that to convince them they really were war criminals. Whenever this breaks the next couple of weeks or next month, how can kerry possibly recover from that? There's no way he'll gain anything by destorying yet another group of vets speaking out against him. These guys aren't Swift Vets. And attacking several year long POWs will gain him nothing, and I would imagine it will strike a cord with more than a few rational voters in swing states when they see and hear POWS up there passionately saying how their torture increased and was made worse by the words spoken against them by john kerry. Keep an eye out for this. That along with the SBVT ongoing movements, I now believe will finish kerry and make him too damaged to win in November. I hate saying something like that, but POWs are not someone you go public in attacking. They paid the ultimate price for this country second only to death. In some ways, WORSE than death. If this comes out like I'm imaginging, this all becomes kerry being yet again the only one telling the truth, and many Vets with no reason to lie, being the ones lying. It just doesn't pass any smell test with reasonable open minded people. Any thoughts?