A NEW WAR AND A NEW CANDIDATE! IS THERE A CONDON SEQUEL?
_____________________
GOOD MORNING FLINT!
BY Terry Bankert 7/3/08
http://attorneybankert.com/
You are invited to join me at Face Book http://www.facebook.com/people/Terry_Bankert/645845362 ___________________________
Full article at http://goodmorningflint.blogspot.com/
Flint Talk , SHORT VERSIONhttp://flinttalk.com/viewtopic.php?p=31390 __________________________
BLOGGING FOR MICHIGAN http://bloggingformichigan.com/
Great information from caring people in Michigan USA
__________________________
DNC Mothership http://www.democrats.org/blog.html __________________________ Michigan Liberal http://www.michiganliberal.com/frontPage.do
LIBERAL AND LIVE ,6/28/08 ,Discussion of right to bear arms and a weeks review of Good Mornign Flint and was Judge Neithercut Right? http://www.stickam.com/editMediaComment.do?method=load&mId=179754377 trb
_________________________
**** REFLECTIONS: MC CAIN- His POW status does not make him commander and chief. It gets our thank you but not our vote.
****
PSSST DO NOT TALK ABOUT YOU KNOW WHO’S WAR RECORD
Memo to Democrats: McCain's War Service Is Off Limits[u]
In case you missed it: Interviewed by CBS' Bob Schieffer on Sunday's Face the Nation, Clark said that for all the national security experience John McCain claims, he never held a position of command during wartime. "I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war," Clark said. "He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war. [H]
He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility." Clark then continued, "But he hasn't held executive responsibility. [H]
That large squadron in Air -- in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn't a wartime squadron. He hasn't been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn't seen what it's like when diplomats come in and say, 'I don't know whether we're going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it publicly?' He hasn't made those calls, Bob." [h]
AND THEN HE SAID...OH NO...
CLARK: Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.[H]
ATTA BOY TO YOU... ATTA BOY TO YOU... OH ATT......
Some liberal bloggers and columnists have encouraged Clark with a hearty "atta boy" chorus. [u]
TOO LITTLE TIME TO MANY MEMOS
Memo to surrogates and supporters of presumed Democratic nominee Barack Obama, including and especially retired Gen. Wesley Clark: Going after John McCain's military record in any way, shape, or form is a loser.[u]
MCCAIN WALLOWS IN HIS RECORD
It was Senator McCain who wallows on his Military Service Record that got him the Republican choice for President, so why is his Military Record off limit? Is there anything of Senator McClain the voters shouldn't find out?[comment of Young F. At[ u]
Here's how things are supposed to work: It's fine for the McCain campaign to run ads touting his time as a POW, create web videos touting his time as a POW, have him mention his time as a POW in speeches, and have him bring it up in debates (remember "I was tied up at the time"?). In other words, it's fine to have John McCain's entire presidential run be presented through the filter of his POW experience. Should, however, someone even ask the question of whether the fact that McCain was a POW really qualifies him to be president, that would be a deeply offensive affront to all that is right and good, and must not be tolerated. Talk about having it both ways.[H]
MCCAIN IS SELF SERVING
There is, however, one person who wouldn't disagree with Clark's statement that being a POW doesn't qualify you for the presidency. When asked by the National Journal in 2003, "Do you think that military service inherently makes somebody better equipped to be commander-in-chief?" this politician answered, "Absolutely not. History shows that some of our greatest leaders have had little or no military experience. ... I have advised [a presidential candidate] that I'd be very careful about how much you talk about that, because you don't want it to sound self-serving." The person who said that was John McCain, and the presidential candidate he was talking about was John Kerry. [H]
WHY IS IT MCCAIN GETS AS ANGRY AS A PITBULL,WAS HE IN THE DOG POUND TOO LONG
Borrowing from the title of a popular movie of some years ago, many activists who have felt the fangs of this pit bull call him the "Manchurian Candidate." Is that a fair accusation to level at Senator McCain, the war hero and the former POW?[M]
There's a myth out there that the McCain campaign and the media have cooperated to create. It says that John McCain is reluctant to exploit his Vietnam POW story for political advantage, so modest and full of integrity is he. We've seen this repeated again and again, not just by McCain and his supporters but by reporters who ought to know better.[h]
Nothing could be further from the truth.[h]
From the first time he ran for Congress in 1982 up to the present day, McCain has made his POW story the centerpiece of his entire political career. The key moment of that 1982 campaign was when he responded to his opponent's (absolutely true) accusation that McCain was a carpetbagger by saying, "As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi." At every point since, it has been the deft use of this tool that has brought McCain renewed attention or won him a key victory.[h]
McCain has every right to talk about Vietnam all he wants -- it's his story, and no serious person has ever disputed the details. But don't tell us he's reluctant to use it, because he isn't. He talks about it to voters, he talks about it to contributors, he talks about it to reporters, he talks about it with seriousness, he jokes about it, and his campaign makes every attempt it can to remind people of what happened to him in Vietnam. [h]
VETERAN THINKS MCCAIN IS..RABID
Those following the proceedings during the past year of the Senate Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs have been mystified by the rabid actions of the one man on the committee who should be grateful that for the nearly three decades there have been activists in America who have refused to let die the issue of the fate of Americans lost and missing in Southeast Asia from the Vietnam War.[m]
Former Kerry advisor: McCain’s POW captivity left him "sadly limited" in foreign policy experience[a]
...a top Democratic voice on foreign policy argued at the political arm of a liberal think tank that the former POW’s isolation during the Vietnam war has hobbled the Arizona senator’s capacity as a war-time leader.[a]
The comments were made by Rand Beers, Sen. John Kerry’s, D-Mass., top national security adviser during his 2004 presidential run…[a]
His voice rising, [a] questioner wanted to know if McCain understood that the public would not go along with a protracted US troop commitment to military conflicts that were not premised strictly on self-defense but rather on the expansion of freedom or democracy.[a]
Beers said that because McCain was in an unfortunate state of "isolation" during much of the Vietnam War, his national security experience is "sadly limited." McCain spent five years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam.[a]
Beers said the McCain limitations are reflected in "some of the ways he thinks about the ways in which US forces might be committed to conflicts around the world."[a]
IS HE MANCHURIAN?
"A future war hero and presidential candidate is captured during the /wiki/Korean_WarVietnam war..Was he brainwashed into believing he knows something about the economy./wiki/Medal_of_Honor After the war is over he continues to live this dream."[see generally M]
Did the Communists intend to use the hero as a sleeper agent and, using the queen of diamonds in a deck of playing cards as a subconscious trigger, compel him to follow their orders for the economic decimation of the United States, which he does not remember afterwards. Is the hero controlled by none other than his own domineering ...(?)..., who is working with the Communists in a plot to overthrow the government."[see generally M]
There has been some debate in the committee as to the extent of Soviet KGB and GRU (Soviet military intelligence) involvement in attempts to "turn" American POWs, with attempts by the Pentagon, supported always by McCain, to deny that the Soviets were involved in any such activity. Nevertheless, there was extensive testimony that POWs were interrogated and possibly recruited before the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973 ending U.S. military involvement in the war--and afterwards, possibly as late as 1978.[M]
"While we all assume the very best about our servicemen who were held it captivity," one POW/MIA activist wrote to Sen. Kerry, "there is a historical precedence of Soviet, Chinese and North Korean exploitation of American prisoners of war. The success of the communist program in Korea may well have been duplicated to a degree in Vietnam."[M]
THE BAD GUYS WOULD GAIN INFORMATION ON OUR CAPTIVE MILITARY THEN USE IT TO BLACK MAIL THEM LATER.
No a shred of proof, but it is a fair game topic to question?[trb]
NO SACRED COWS,JUST WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR THOUGH PROCESS AFTER INJURY TORTURE AND SO LONG IN CAPTIVITY?...HOW DID THIS AFFECT HIS DECISION TO PLAY BALL WITH KEATING?
When it comes to matters of national security and the welfare of every man, woman and child in the United States, there should be no sacred cows, and it must not be forgotten that Sen. McCain was being considered for higher office, prior to his numerous appearances on national television defending his involvement in the Savings and Loan scandal.[M]
OUTRAGE OR SPIN FROM MCCAIN
In November of 1991, when Tracy Usry, the former chief investigator of the Minority Staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, testified before the Select Committee, he revealed that the Soviets interrogated U.S. prisoners of war in Vietnam. Sen. McCain became outraged interrupting Usry several times, arguing that "none of the returned U.S. prisoners of war released by Vietnam were ever interrogated by the Soviets." However, this was simply not true and Sen. McCain knows that from firsthand experience.[M]
IS JOHN MCCAIN JUST A NUTJOB ...TOO MUCH TIME IN A TIGER CAGE?
Each man’s hawkishness has to be explained away as some sort of indifference to troop sacrifice, which in Bush’s case means calling him a draft dodger who was safely cloistered away from the front lines in the Texas air national guard and in McCain’s case means calling him a nutjob who was safely cloistered away from the front lines in a North Vietnamese tiger cage. That’s the only way the Democrats can somehow spin his experience as a liability vis-a-vis Obama’s. (Actually,there’s another way, but only nutroots halfwits are stupid enough to touch it.) Is that what Beers was trying to insinuate here, or was he making the more Harkin-esque point that the McCain family doesn’t understand anything except fighting, or was it more of a standard "McCain’s torture left him a dangerous lunatic" smear?[A]
MCCAIN IS PURE MILITARY,GREAT AT KILLING POOR AT SOCIAL WORK
John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone on August 29, 1936. His father was Admiral John McCain II, who became commander-in-chief of the Pacific forces in 1968. Admiral McCain later ordered the bombing of Hanoi while his son was in prison. His grandfather was Admiral John S. McCain, Sr., the famous commander of aircraft carriers in the Pacific under Admiral William F. Halsey in World War II . . .[m]
THANK YOU FOR THE SERVICE TO YOUR COUNTRY
On his 23rd mission in Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1967, he was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. [m]
MCCAIN ON BEING CAPTURED
To relate the event, McCain later recalled that he was "flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a dive at about 4,500 feet, when a Russian missile the size of a telephone pole came up--the sky was full of them--and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk dive bomber. It went into an inverted, almost straight-down spin.[m]
"I pulled the ejection handle, and was knocked unconscious by the force of of the ejection--the air speed was about 500 knots. I didn't realize it at the moment, but I had broken my right leg around the knee, my right arm in three places and my left arm. I regained consciousness just before I landed by parachute in a lake right in the center of Hanoi, one they called the Western Lake. My helmet and my oxygen mask had been blown off. "I hit the water and sank to the bottom . . . I did not feel any pain at the time, and I was able to rise to the surface. I took a breath of air and started sinking again."After bobbing up and down, he was eventually pulled from the water by Vietnamese who had swam out to get him.[m]
A mob gathered on shore and McCain was bayoneted in the foot and his shoulder was smashed with a rifle butt. He was put on a truck and taken to Hanoi's main prison.[m]
After being periodically slapped around for "three or four days" by his captors who wanted military information from him, which McCain claims he refused to give, providing only his name, rank and serial number, he realized he was in critical shape and called for an officer.[M]
IS THIS FOR REAL..HE GAVE IT UP?
He told the officer, "O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital."[m]
Regardless of the reasons, the offer to give "military information" in exchange for better treatment was a violation of the military Code of Conduct and Collaboration No. l.[m]
The doctor, according to McCain, said about taking him to the hospital, "It's too late."[m]
At that point, McCain knew he was in big trouble. According to information obtained by the U.S. VETERAN, the flier in desperation invoked the name of his famous father, Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., the soon-to-be commander of all U.S. Forces in the Pacific.[m]
And that was a violation of the Code of Conduct and Collaboration No. 2.[m]
HOSPITAL TREATMENT SAVED HIM,THE CROWN PRINCE OF POWS
McCain admits that because of the Vietnamese having the knowledge of who his father was, he thus survived because they rushed him to the hospital. The Vietnamese figured that because POW McCain's father was of such high military rank that he was of royalty or the governing circle. Thereafter the communist bragged that they had captured "the crown prince."[m]
JOHN GOT HIS FIRST STATUTE
Later, the Vietnamese would erect a monument in Hanoi near the site of his landing in the lake, stone figure of a pilot raising his arms skyward in surrender and referring to their catch McCain, by name, as an "air pirate."[m]
MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS EVEN THEN?
At the hospital his wounds were treated. He readily admits that other U.S. prisoners with similar wounds were left to die, pointing out "There were hardly any amputees among the prisoners who came back because the North Vietnamese just would not give medical treatment to someone who was badly injured. They weren't going to waste their time. [m]
SPECIAL DOCTOR JUST FOR HIM?
"McCain has failed to mention in public what he has confided to another U.S. prisoner privately, that since the Vietnamese felt they had in their hands such a "special prisoner", a propaganda bonanza, a Soviet surgeon was called in to treat him.[m]
HOW MUCH MORE INFORMATION DID HE GIVE? [m]
McCain has admitted that the Vietnamese repeatedly threatened to withhold much needed operations unless he would give them more information. Did he provide it?[m]
After six weeks of this type of threats and medical treatment, he was delivered to Room No. 11 of "The Plantation" and into the hands of two other POWs, who helped further nurse him along until he was eventually able to walk by himself.[m]
SPECIAL PRISONER... SPECIAL INDOCTRINATION... WHERE DID IT END?
For the next 22 months, McCain was kept isolated from the other American prisoners. Because the Vietnamese considered him a "special prisoner" he was the target of intense indoctrination programs. His communist interrogators believed that because McCain came from a "royal family," he would, when finally released, return to the United States to some important military or government job. [m]
IT MUST HAVE BEEN HELL
The communist were very much aware that POW McCain would be under great psychological pressure not to do or say anything that would tarnish his famous military family and they considered that to be the key to eventually breaking and then "turning" him.[m]
THE [M] ARTICLE DOES NOT PROVIDE PROOF.... BUT IF TRUE WHY SO MANY VISITERS?
During that period of time McCain was visited by several foreign delegations (including Cubans) and interviewed by many high ranking North Vietnamese leaders including Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam's Minster of Defense and national hero . . .[m]
On Dec. 7, 1969, McCain was moved out of "The Plantation" and into the "Hanoi Hilton" with other prisoners of war.[m]
McCain was released as a prisoner of war on March 15, 1973.[m]
Following various medical and surgical procedures, he attended the National War College in Washington, D.C. and was later posted as commanding officer of Replacement Training Squadron 174 in Jacksonville, Fla.[m]
In 1977, McCain was ordered to the Office of Legislative Affairs and was assigned as the Director of the Navy Senate Liaison Office, where he remained until disability retirement in April 1981.[m]
A year earlier, in 1980, his marriage and personal life soured. His marriage to Carol, who had been seriously injured and crippled in a motor vehicle accident during his confinement in Vietnam, ended in divorce.[m]
NEW WIFE, NEW LIFE, ENTER McCAIN THE POLITICIAN[M]
Later that year, McCain married Cindy Hensley, whose father, Jim, was an Arizona "beer baron," owning Hensley and Co., the Anheauser-Busch distributor for Phoenix and Tempe, where McCain settled with his new wife after his retirement from the Navy in the spring of 1981.[m]
MARRIED THE BOSSES DAUGHTER
His new father-in-law made him vice president in charge of public relations for Hensley and Co., and soon McCain was writing guest editorials for Arizona newspapers and thus paving the way for a career in politics. Most of the articles were of a patriotic nature--"For POWs in Hanoi, Christmas Eve 1971 marked a spiritual turning point," "America--Bastion of liberty, beacon of hope," "Remember MIAs fought for valid cause," etc.[m]
CAREER AS CLONE, FIRST GOLDWATER THEN BUSH
It was not long until McCain caught the attention of Sens. Barry Goldwater and Paul Fannin, both Arizona institutions and devout conservative Republicans, men who could easily be identified with "America--Bastion of liberty, beacon of hope."[m]
Soon, McCain was their choice to succeed veteran Congressman John J. Rhodes, a Republican representing Arizona's 1st Congressional district, which conveniently included the city of Tempe. [m]
When McCain was still with the Navy's congressional liaison office it was no secret that Rhodes, the House minority leader, was getting ready for retirement. The seat to be vacated in the House was a ripe plum waiting to be picked. The would-be Congressman had long envisioned a career in government service.[m]
ONCE A CARPET BAGGER FOREVER A CARPETBAGGER
And thus began John McCain's first run for elective office. From the beginning the cards were in his favor, even though he was accused of being a carpetbagger since he had only recently moved to Arizona . . . [m]
THE COUNTERFEIT HERO[M]
McCain's rising political power in Arizona Republican politics was due in large measure to his friendship with Duke Tully, the publisher of the conservative and powerful ARIZONA REPUBLIC and the PHOENIZ GAZETTE, with a combined daily circulation of about 400,000.[m]
Described as "equal parts cowboy, commando, swashbuckler and elegant tycoon" by the CHICAGO TRIBUNE (Jan. 9, 1986), Tully was, according to the Chicago paper, "a George Patton who drove a Corvette, a Randolph Hearst who flew an F-16, a John Wayne in aviator glasses and Air Force dress blues."[m]
"I tell Arizona what to think," he stated in public more than once, and it was particularly true regarding backing for the efforts of his friend, Congressman McCain.[m]
Tully appeared to have a lot in common with his close friend, former Navy combat pilot and war hero John McCain. He boasted of his 100 missions over Vietnam, retiring from the Air Force as a lieutenant-colonel. His service, according to Tully, also included air combat in Korea, where he once was forced to crash land his P-51 Mustang fighter and spent time in a hospital as a result--so he said. His smashed front teeth were replaced with stainless steel, he also said.[m]
He had, just like his friend John McCain, received the Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry.[m]
However, the day after Christmas 1985, it was revealed, according to the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, that John McCain's close friend had "an imagination as big as his ego."[m]
In fact, the man who even was the godfather to one of McCain's daughters, was a total fake. [m]
Duke Tully, the man who had arranged to have his newspapers endorse and further the chances of McCain's first run for the House and was already touting him as Goldwater's successor, had "never even went to boot camp."[m]
Nevertheless, the genuine American patriot, Barry Goldwater, almost a national icon, decided not to run for re-election in 1986 and McCain quickly moved in to fill his shoes.[m]
According to the NEW YORK TIMES (June 1, 1988), "When John McCain arrived in here [in Washington] as a freshman Republican Congressman in 1983, one of the issues very much on his mind was how the United States should deal with Vietnam . . . He was, he said, dismayed by the Reagan Administration's flat refusal to afford any kind of diplomatic recognition to Hanoi, something he thought could help clear up a number of issues, including the fate of those servicemen still missing in action . . . Mr. McCain, now the junior Senator from Arizona, is leading a legislative effort to force the Administration to open a lower-level American post in Vietnam, which could be preliminary to more formal relations."[m]
SPEAKING OF FRAUD [M]
Otherwise, McCain after his switch to the Senate differed little on any Reagan Administration policy.[m]
KEATING 5 WERE THE SCUM ON THE POND OF BANK FRAUD THAT STOLE MONEY FROM MILLIONS...MCCAIN WAS ONE OF THEM!
He made few waves until suddenly he found himself on television trying to explain himself as one of the "Keating 5," five U.S. Senators who became enmeshed in the scandal involving the collapsed Lincoln Savings and Loan and the financial machinations of now convicted cheat Charles Keating. The U.S. taxpayers will feel for years the aftershocks of what has become known as the "S & L scandal" and will be paying off the billions that S & L clients found themselves swindled out of by Keating and others involved in the massive fraud.[m]
THE KEATING SCANDAL TOOK DOWN THE SAVINGS AND LOAN INSTITUTIONS AND WAS PROPPED UP BY CORRUPT POLITICIANS
As one of the "Keating 5" Senators, John McCain saw his chances to higher office go down the drain.[m]
Reports from a variety of U.S. publications tell of the involvement of McCain in the ever-widening scandal.[m]
ECONOMIST, Mar. 9, 1991--"Mr. McCain, despite his claims of innocense, was the only one of the five who benefitted personally--family holidays in the Bahamas on Mr. Keating's tab." [m]
NEW REPUBLIC, Dec. 31, 1990--"The only Republican of the bunch [the five Senators], John McCain of Arizona wins credit for finally drawing the line. After the second of the two April meetings [with Federal regulators] he told Mr. [Sen. Dennis] DeConcini [D-Ariz.] and Mr. Keating that he wouldn't lean on the regulators any more. Mr. Keating called him a wimp. But before the rupture, Mr. McCain and his family were regular guests of Mr. Keating's on trips to the Bahamas. Mr. McCain reimbursed the owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan for only a small fraction of the cost of these holidays. Yet, he never reported the vacations on Senate disclosure forms, or his income taxes. He said he thought his wife had paid Mr. Keating back. This is hard to believe."[m]
NEW REPUBLIC, Sept. 9, 1991--Calling McCain part of the "Senatorial Lincoln Brigade," the NEW REPUBLIC reported that Keating, while bankrupting his Savings and Loan, had channeled $1.4 million to the campaigns or causes of the five Senators, who in turn pressured the Savings and Loan regulators to "back off our friend."Ultimately, the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan will cost the U.S. taxpayers $2 billion. It lost $1 million dollars a day from the time Keating bought it in 1984 until its collapse in 1989, and yet he continued to pay off McCain as "one of his assets," REGARDIE'S magazine reported in its April-May 1992 issue.[m]
OH...PSSST DO NOT QUESTION MCCAIN WHEN HE USES HIS POW STATUS TO... JUSTIFY ...MAKING SOME ONE AS... LIMITED AS HE IS ....TO BECOME PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Sorry Democratic leaders, I did not get the memo.[trb]
—end
Posted here by Terry Bankert ... 07/03/08
(If you like this article please forward to your friends, if not just keep it to yourself.)
Family Mediation and Divorce Practice. http://attorneybankert.com/
Join my political party of preference, http://www.michigandems.com/join.html
Join me in creating a new voice in The Michigan Democratic Party, become a Precinct Delegate. You are invited to join me at Face Book http://www.facebook.com/people/Terry_Bankert/645845362 __
***** JOIN THE OBAMA MOVEMENT http://www.barackobama.com/splash/donate/donate.html
***** EQUAL TIME TO THE WORTHY OPPONENT! http://howinsaneisjohnmccain.blogspot.com/
–where did this stuff come from [m]
The US Veterens Dispatch
http://www.usvetdsp.com/manchuan.htm
[u]
US News and World Report
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/07/02/memo-to-democrats-mccains-war-service-is-off-limits.html
[h]
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-waldman/gen-clark-and-that-pow-th_b_110294.html
[TRB]
Comments of Terry Bankert and CAP headlines
http://attorneybankert.com/
[A]
Hot Air
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/30/former-kerry-advisor-mccains-pow-captivity-left-him-sadly-limited-in-foreign-policy-experience/
/15533
Sphere: Related Content
Posts
