I just finished reading an entire transcript of John Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 22, 1971. ..
As shocking as the excerpts of his opening statement are that have been previously published, in which he demonized and vilified all US troops for lurid and unspeakable atrocities, based on the now discredited "investigation" he was a part of as Executive Committee member of the VVAW, which ran that "investigation," which was paid for by Jane Fonda's fund raising efforts (this according to the VVAW itself) . . . this new and complete version of his testimony is really beyond belief. But here it is, in his own words in the Congressional Record.
Jane Fonda may have gone to North Vietnam and become a willing propaganda toy for our enemies, but Kerry (8th & 10th pages in the full PDF document, page numbered "186" and "188" in the record) discusses his trip to the Paris Peace Talks, and his talks with the representatives of "both delegations" - which in his mind does not include the USA and South Vietnam, but means both the "Democratic Republic of Vietnam" (Hanoi) and "the Provisional Revolutionary Government" (the Viet Cong's political wing). He specifically refers to his support for "Madam Binh's" "eights points." Madam Win Thi Binh was at that time the Foreign Minister for the PRG (the Vietcong). He specifically endorses her "peace plan" when asked by Senator Fulbright if he had any recommendations as to what the U.S Senate should legislate about the war, and the Vietnamese Communists' plan includes setting a firm commitment for US withdrawal immediately, with no provision for release of POWs beforehand, and that the VC/NVA would give "safe conduct" to all US troops out of Vietnam once the withdrawal date was set. The value of these kinds of "guarantees" was fully shown by events of exactly four years later.
At this same time, the North Vietnamese were torturing American POWs, including young Navy officers like Kerry had been, trying to extort them to utter the very same kinds of statements for propaganda purposes which Kerry was making of his own free will - although it does not appear to have been entirely his own plan he was speaking up for.
Kerry also praised mutiny, encouraged it, and threatened the government with it (p.208); and tarred almost all of us (60 to 80%) with the drug addict label (p. 205) in addition to the war criminal label he now tries to back away from, although in this testimony and elsewhere of record he repeatedly and vigorously applied that label.
He vastly underestimated the consequences of our withdrawal of support for Saigon – unless he had a more realistic and accurate idea but said otherwise. He said maybe 3,000 of our South Vietnamese loyalists would have to be relocated for their own security (p. 190). Sen. Aiken, to his credit, scoffed and said 800,000 had become refugees from the North after 1954, and I would like to say that everyone knows what actually did happen when the Kerrys of that day had their way with Indochina... the boat people, the re-education camps, the Cambodian genocide, the Stalinist gulag that descended on those people. But then who knows what the young are being indoctrinated with in place of American history today?
There is a lot more here that would open the eyes of many people today who are being totally blindsided by this individual.
John Boyle
19th Combat Engineers
RVN 11/66 - 2/68 |
