Is Kerry A Proud War Hero Or Angry Antiwar Protestor?

 

There's more to the Kerry war/anti-war record than Mac Owens covers in his article:

 

1. He used Navy regulation loopholes to leave his boat crew behind, leaving VN before completion of his tour.

 

2. While they & other guys were still in-country, he became active VVAW leader.

 

3. Backed a communist-crafted Paris peace talk proposal, one of whose 9 points left POWs behind as bargaining chips.

 

4. As chaiman of the Senate Select Committee, while pretending to work hard for POW/MIA issue resolution, Kerry did his best to bury it because it deferred the normalization he sought avidly. He propogandized for the Hanoi position every chance he got. (see Schanberg Newsday columns on this)

 

5. In 1992 after US gov approved increased cooperation with Vietnam, Hanoi announced it was granting a multi-billion $$ contract to Colliers International, whose CEO happened to be Kerry's cousin C. Stewart Forbes.

 

6. Consistently voted against or blocked funding for military programs: Abrams tank, Stealth bomber, etc. Voted over 30 times to reduce size of military. Just keeping his word here, since his early political platform was "I'll vote for anything to reduce the defense budget."

7. Recently managed to block passage of the VN Human Rights Act in the senate.

 

8. See VN Vets Against Kerry website.

 

9. Questions linger about circumstances of Silver Star award. Did finishing off a machine-gunned, unarmed VC who was running away really merit one?

 

10. See article "The Chameleon Senator" by Ted Sampley.

 

Barry Dwyer