The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest

Vol: 35 Issue: 5 - Thursday, August 05, 2004

Special Report:  The Kerry War Saga: ''The Plot Sickens''
by Jack Kinsella

John Kerry frequently speaks of courage, brotherhood and responsibility
when he mentions his brief service in Vietnam. He took Super-8 home movies
there in which he staged heroics in full-battle dress, so that later he
might use them for campaign ads.

Kerry has made so much of his Vietnam medals which he once pretended to
throw away that critics have begun to wonder why he has been so cagey
about the dubious circumstances surrounding the Purple Hearts that got him
out of Vietnam after only four months of combat service.

A new book written by John O'Neill, the man who took over John Kerry's
Swift Boat in Vietnam, claims in its advertising to have "uncovered the
bizarre truth behind Kerry's three Purple Hearts, his Bronze and Silver
Stars, and the real reason Kerry served only four months in Vietnam."

At the same time, a group of veterans who served with Kerry have just
released an anti-John Kerry political action ad.  The ad begins with a
sound-byte of Senator John Edwards saying, "If you have any question about
what John Kerry is made of, just spend 3 minutes with the men who served
with him."  The ad does exactly that.

Al French: "I served with John Kerry."

Bob Elder: "I served with John Kerry."

George Elliott: "John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in
Vietnam."

Al French: "He is lying about his record."

Louis Letson: "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart
because I treated him for that injury."

Van O'Dell: "John Kerry lied to get his bronze star ... I know, I was
there, I saw what happened."

Jack Chenoweth: "His account of what happened and what actually happened
are the difference between night and day."

Admiral Hoffman: "John Kerry has not been honest."

Adrian Lonsdale: "And he lacks the capacity to lead."

Larry Thurlow: "When the chips were down, you could not count on John
Kerry."

Bob Elder: "John Kerry is no war hero."

Grant Hibbard: "He betrayed all his shipmates ... he lied before the
Senate."

Shelton White: "John Kerry betrayed the men and women he served with in
Vietnam."

The ad and the new book coincide with new revelations about how John
Kerry's antiwar 'service' played out for the POW's held at the Hanoi
Hilton by the North Vietnamese.

A group of former POW's were tracked down and interviewed by United Press
International, who told the inteviewers that John Kerry's antiwar
activities and statements were regularly used by their North Vietnamese
captors in their efforts to break down the POW's morale and sap their will
to resist.

"They were always talking about that [antiwar demonstrations], and they
picked right up on Kerry's throw-away line, 'Don't be the last man to die
in a lost cause, or die for a lost cause,'" said Kenneth Cordier, an Air
Force pilot who spent 2,284 days as a prisoner.

"They repeated that incessantly. ... They used these photographs and
inputs, voice tapes, whatever, from these peace people to try to convince
us the whole country had turned antiwar and we were showing a very bad
attitude and would never go home."

Jim Warner, a prisoner of the North Vietnamese in the Hoa Lo prison
complex -- known to U.S. servicemen as the Hanoi Hilton -- remembers
Kerry. He became acquainted with him, he said, when a North Vietnamese
guard and interrogator the prisoners nicknamed "Boris" took Warner to the
quiz shack in the complex's punishment camp called "Skid Row" in May 1971.

During a four-hour propaganda and harassment session, Boris pulled papers
from his pocket and gave them to Warner to think about, he said. Some were
clippings from a leftist newspaper in the United States.

The other was a typewritten transcript of Kerry's testimony before a U.S.
Senate panel in which he repeated allegations of U.S. troops routinely
committing atrocities, attacking the war and saying communism was not a
threat in Vietnam.

"The memory of that was still pretty fresh in my mind, and I was extremely
uneasy," Warner recalled. "Every time he mentioned [the papers], this
officer said I committed crimes, that this war was illegal. I just had no
idea. ... All along they told us they would execute us for our 'crimes.'"

Assessment:

Before I go on, allow me a personal disclosure. Like most other veterans
of that era, I'm getting pretty sick of the whole mess, and I grow
increasingly resentful of having it continually shoved in my face.

But my resentment is primarily toward John Kerry -- whose antiwar
activities are one of the primary reasons that the memories of that era
are so painful in the first place.

John Kerry used the war -- and his shipmates --  to build his political
resume -- then betrayed the men he served with and the country to whom he
swore his allegiance.

'Fury' is the best word to describe the way it feels to listen to John
Kerry campaigning now on his 'war' record.  That being said, it is the
kind of cold fury that only hurts when someone applies a little heat to
it.

John Kerry has been applying it with a blowtorch.

That sense of resentment is best expressed by retired Navy Captain George
Elliot, who was Kerry's commander in Vietnam.

"In 1971, '72, for almost 18 months, he stood before the television
audiences and claimed that the 500,000 men and women in Vietnam, and in
combat, were all villains -- there were no heroes. In 2004, one hero from
the Vietnam War has appeared, running for President of the United States
and Commander-in-Chief. It just galls one to think about it."

As Col. Oliver North says at the end of each segment of his TV show, 'War
Stories',  "this is a war story that deserves to be told."

But why is it a war story that deserves to be told in a publication
devoted to Bible prophecy?   Well, John Kerry is running to be president
of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen.  A nation that is
totally absent from the Scriptural record during the Tribulation period.

One can find references to modern Europe, modern Israel, the Arab world,
Islam, Russia, China and even Muslim North Africa as each of these
entities will exist in the last days.  But nothing about America.

America is currently at war with an enemy it can't quite define, can't
locate, and can't destroy.  We aren't sure how big our enemy is -- we only
know that it arose from a pool of almost 2 billion Muslims, with an
unknown percentage of that number in sympathy with the enemy, if not
actually participating or providing the terrorists with material and moral
support.

The man who is Commander in Chief on January 20, 2005 will be the one
prosecuting the most difficult war America has ever been involved in.

As Christians pore over Scripture in vain, seeking some reference to
America, John Forbes Kerry is seeking the Oval Office.

Personally, I don't believe in coincidences.