Super Tuesday
Here in Georgia, and in nine other states, voters go to the polls today. Looks like JFKerry could all but lock up the nomination (think I've said that before) with a clean sweep today. Just a reminder of what people are supporting when they vote for Kerry, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, February 17, 2004 (registration required)...
Once discharged from the Navy in 1970, he moved home to Newton, Mass., to make an unsuccessful run for Congress. Months later, Kerry became a leading voice in the nation's antiwar protest. He attended numerous rallies, including the Winter Soldier Investigation of 1971 in which 150 Vietnam veterans met at a Detroit hotel to trade stories of what they termed wartime atrocities by U.S. servicemen.
It was not the first time that Americans heard of war crimes. That same year, Army Lt. William Calley and 15 others were charged in connection with the 1968 attack on the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai in which 347 villagers were slain.
On April 22, 1971, the day before he threw away [someone else's, claiming they were his] combat ribbons, Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivering a powerful message that... convinced many Americans their country was waging an immoral war.
Kerry's testimony was the lead news story on all three networks that evening, making him one of the faces Americans attached to the antiwar movement. Dressed in his combat fatigues and ribbons, he told Congress that U.S. soldiers had "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads … randomly shot at civilians … in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan." He later acknowledged that he did not witness the crimes himself but had heard about them from others.
The speech prompted the Nixon administration to open a file on Kerry, who was placed under FBI surveillance. It also brought him lasting enmity among some Vietnam veterans who say Kerry broad-brushed them as a group of maladjusted, dysfunctional losers.
Paul Galanti learned of Kerry's speech while held captive inside North Vietnam's infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison. The Navy pilot had been shot down in June 1966 and spent nearly seven years as a prisoner of war.
"The Viet Cong didn't think they had to win the war on the battlefield," Galanti said, "because thanks to these protesters they were going to win it on the streets of San Francisco and Washington."
He says Kerry broke a covenant among servicemen never to make public criticisms that might jeopardize those still in battle or in the hands of the enemy. Because he did, Galanti said, "John Kerry was a traitor to the men he served with."
Now retired and living in Richmond, Va., Galanti, 64, refuses to cool his ire toward Kerry.
"I don't plan to set it aside. I don't know anyone who does," he said. "The Vietnam memorial has thousands of additional names due to John Kerry and others like him."
This nation is engaged in a worldwide war on terrorism, requiring the young men and women in our armed forces to risk their lives to protect this great land. They have a commander-in-chief that they honor and trust. They currently have a president who supports their work, cares about their needs and admires their patriotism and dedication.
With so very much at stake, how could we in good conscience but their lives in the hands of someone whose own words were used by the enemy to torture American soldiers of war?
I hope you will vote today. I hope when you do, if you choose to vote on the Democratic side, you will keep in mind the image of American soldiers and pilots being held captive, beaten and abused by Viet Cong troops. Remember American POWs being forced to hear John F. Kerry proclaiming over and over that our troops and his comrades were war criminals, rapists and murderers. Please keep that in mind.
