More Kerry lies.....
On March 27, 1986, John Kerry rose to the Senate floor to launch one of his many attacks against President Reagan, this time charging that his actions in Central America were leading the U.S into "another Viet Nam," (sound
familiar?) claiming that he could recognize the pattern because he had experienced first hand the duplicity of the Nixon administration in lying about American incursions into Cambodia during the Viet Nam war. He charged that he had been illegally ordered into Cambodia during Christmas, 1968. The whole story is too long to tell, but his "memories that were seared - seared into me" were that he spent Christmas eve, 1968 five miles inside Cambodia, being shot at by the Khmer Rouge (sp?) and Cambodians, and feeling anger that he was there fighting for his country and his own President wouldn't even acknowledge his presence there. He also later told the Boston Herald a slightly different version, that he had "vivid" memories of spending Christmas eve, 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by drunk South Viet Namese soldiers. In that version he says he thought about how absurd it would be to be killed by our allies in Cambodia
when President Nixon was claiming there were no Americans in Cambodia. The
story has been repeated several times, as recently as earlier this year in a biography piece by the Boston Globe. That experience was said to have fostered in him a deep mistrust for US government pronouncements. The only problem is the whole story is a complete fabrication.
First of all, Richard Nixon wasn't President during Christmas of 1968, which creates a slight problem for the memory that was "seared" into him. How he was sitting there being shot at and thinking about the irony of his reality being denied by a President who was not yet in office at that time is hard to understand, especially given his assurances that these memories are "vivid" and "seared" into his brain.
Secondly, according to military records, at that time his unit was stationed 55 miles from the Cambodian border.
Thirdly, waterways closer than that to Cambodia weren't patroled by Swift Boats like the one he was in. The Commander in charge of the area, Tom Anderson, confirmed that there were no Swift Boats in the area and they would have been stopped if they had appeared. All the living commanders in Kerry's chain of command, (3 Commanders and 2 Admirals) deny he was ever ordered to Cambodia, and say he would have been courtmartialed had he attempted to go there. Three of the five crewman on Kerry's boat deny they or their boat was ever in Cambodia, and the other two refused to comment. One of the crewmen was wounded in late December, in Viet Nam, not Cambodia.
So maybe all these people are lying and he's the one telling the truth. Except that Kerry himself has changed his story, in essence admitting the Cambodia story was false. In the book "Tour of Duty," published this year and called the "definitive accout of John Kerry's journey from war to peace" the author relied on many interviews with Kerry, access to his personal papers, and interviews with everyone he served with. In that book, Kerry replaces the Cambodia story with a mortar attack that occurred Christmas eve, 1968 "near the Cambodia border", in a town called Sa Dec, some 55 miles from the Cambodian border, the same place the military records show him stationed at the time. And he spent Christmas day at his base, writing entries in his journal. So the secret, illegal mission in Cambodia, that resulted in his thoughts about a President who was not even in office yet being "seared - seared into" him somehow becomes, in his own memory, a firefight at Sa Dec, South Viet Nam. He apparently forgot about the Senate speech. These things are indisputable. The Senate speech is a matter of
public record, and is on tape. You know, when you tell bald-faced lies on
the Senate floor, to puff yourself up and give credence to your point of view, your not the kind of guy I want to be President, unless maybe the alternative is Kim Il Jung, or Jung Il, or whatever his name is.
I don't know how many of these examples of him being knowingly, deliberately untruthfull because it suits him at the time we have to have to conclude that he would act the same way if, God forbid, he were ever President, but I've certainly seen enough to convince me. |
