quote:Originally posted by wallymac: So you're saying that if 99% of the people of California voted to secede the US military would attack California. Or would California need to attack Arizona or another stae on it's border first.
No, your imagining things. I was saying, like Georgia(the country), the USA would want to keep the territorial integrity of it's borders. Why is that so hard for you to comprehend? It's pretty straight forward.
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by CashCowMoo: I know Obama doesnt want to ban guns all together. I just see higher taxes on guns, ammunition, etc
He also supports banning semi-auto guns. Just things like that...he is about restriction.
Nothing wrong with that... after all if we didn't have restrictions there would be no drinking/smoking age, speed limits, minimum wage , minimum age for entering strip clubs etc. oh ok so we shouldn't have a minimum for the strip clubs...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
posted
yeah but to blame guns and make them more restrictive because of another problem is wrong. Not Remmingtons fault that their products were used irresponsibly in inner cities, or Rugers fault that one of their products was used in a violent manner against an innocent.
The problem is deeper than that. Crime is just a big and EASY scapegoat for people who dont like guns to push an agenda.
I am not saying let machine guns be available to children, but cmon...taxing the hell out of ammunition when you claim people are hurting financially? Many poor and rural people enjoy hunting and sport shooting. How is that helping America?
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.
IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by CashCowMoo: yeah but to blame guns and make them more restrictive because of another problem is wrong. Not Remmingtons fault that their products were used irresponsibly in inner cities, or Rugers fault that one of their products was used in a violent manner against an innocent.
The problem is deeper than that. Crime is just a big and EASY scapegoat for people who dont like guns to push an agenda.
I am not saying let machine guns be available to children, but cmon...taxing the hell out of ammunition when you claim people are hurting financially? Many poor and rural people enjoy hunting and sport shooting. How is that helping America?
I'm not saying guns cause crime... that is my personal view.. but guns do make it easier to commit crimes or to kill... and fully automatic guns have no contribution to society other then to blow things up or people up... for me they should be for military or police use.... besides there is no sport or challenge in hunting with a automatic weapon... just means your a bad shot and need help... it's the viagara of guns... they can't get it "up" per say so they need help in doing so...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
posted
I own several guns and have NO fear that any of them will be taken away from me or that I will loose the right to use and enjoy them, whoever wins the election, and I am sick and tired of the crap the gun nuts and right-wing fanatics keep putting out on the topic.
There is a Constitution and a Court that would take years to reach any decision on any law passed by any faction on the question of ownership of guns in the US. Then, if they did, the chances that they would rule against the 2nd Amendment being exactly as it is worded and as it stands today is about about as big as the chances of Mayall's Object turning out to be the geometric center of the universe.
Claims that ANYONE can or will "take away my guns" are absolute trash and anyone publicly or semipublicly making such statement should be assessed for mental incompetence or tried for terrorism. NO ONE CAN. A constitutional amendment would be required AND no person can do that alone, in spit of the efforts of the republicans over the last few years to destroy that document's standing and install the presidency as as dictatorship, supported by gerrymandered permanent republican majority.
(However, should the efforts of the republicans to remain in office and continue their assault on the Constitution not be stymied, we soon will reach a point of no return, loose the protection of the Constitution, and freedom, in general, not only with respect to guns, probably will be gone forever.)
IP: Logged |
posted
I'm not an advocate of hunting with automatic weapons, but the statement "there is no sport or challenge in hunting with a automatic weapon... just means your a bad shot and need help" sounds to me like someone who has never tried to down a skittish windblown jack snipe while wading in waist deep marsh waters. It's a challenge whatever you are pointing at the beast!
I don't advocate the ownership of automaic weapons of cannons or bombs or any such thing and I don't accept that any "definition" of any such things has ever been uttered that adequately determines what is or or is not such thing.
These arguments are a devise of the far right wing to scare the people and avoid consideration of the actual questions of elections and are both insulting and in-patriotic. Moreover, they are based on lies.
IP: Logged |
posted
Claims that ANYONE can or will "take away my guns" are absolute trash and anyone publicly or semipublicly making such statement should be assessed for mental incompetence or tried for terrorism. NO ONE CAN
you are sortof correct budgee..
i've lived in 7 or 8 different states...
there are some very different laws depending on which state you are in...
the recent (DC) Supreme Court decision pretty much settled alot of the issues, but not all of them...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
IP: Logged |
posted
McCain's speech....man I remember Bush saying a lot of the same thing. Now im not saying McCain is "Mcsame" because he WOULD do some things differently im sure. I just wish they could get the economy back on track.
I dont believe in higher taxes, and a huge government hand like Obama does, but we got to figure something out.
This speech I could have done better myself.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.
IP: Logged |
It cracks me up how hypocritical them party liners are. The republicans was all hating on McCain this time last year, now they are all lovy dovy. Man, they are so nice... What happened to rush's and hannity's boy MITT?
IP: Logged |
posted
I wish Mitt was the VP...I bet he gets a good appointment once McCain wins.
Obama wont win. He doesnt have the trust of enough people. He hasnt been around long enough. This is a good learning experience for him. He can bow out gracefully and get back into the Senate and pass some legislation that backs up what he talks about since the Senate will be majority dems anyway.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.
IP: Logged |
posted
I liked McCain speech. It reminded me of the John McCain of 2000, who I supported until he lost to Bush. The speech was very effective. I think it will play will with centrist both Independant and Dem's.
The problem will be convincing myself and those centrist that this is the real McCain and not the one that Supported Bush. I think if Palin keeps up her rhetoric it will fly in the face of what he said tonight.
It will be tricky but I think we have ourselves a horse race.
IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by CashCowMoo: McCain's speech....man I remember Bush saying a lot of the same thing. Now im not saying McCain is "Mcsame" because he WOULD do some things differently im sure. I just wish they could get the economy back on track.
I dont believe in higher taxes, and a huge government hand like Obama does, but we got to figure something out.
This speech I could have done better myself.
McSame lol i like that... wonder if anyone else calls him that or you are the first... as for higher taxes... what you need to understand is we are in a deficit that is astronomical... not even the richest man on earth could pay it off with his wealth... you cut taxes... fine... but where will the money come for the deficit? that is something no one seems to care about... or mention much...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Obama wont win. He doesnt have the trust of enough people. He hasnt been around long enough. This is a good learning experience for him. He can bow out gracefully and get back into the Senate and pass some legislation that backs up what he talks about since the Senate will be majority dems anyway.
Gee, those are some of the same things that were said when Clinton first ran... you really underestimate people... but I do agree that Romney perhaps should of been his VP choice...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
quote:He folded as a P.O.W. and accussed the U.S. of war crimes don't tell me about the going getting tough
EVERYONE would "fold" after being tortured for literally years. Give me a break. The key point for me is that he didn't take the chance to come home EVEN AFTER BEING TORTURED. That's the kind of character that very few people have! Some people are just talk - like Osama Obama. Others are the real thing - like McCain.
IP: Logged |
quote:He folded as a P.O.W. and accussed the U.S. of war crimes don't tell me about the going getting tough
EVERYONE would "fold" after being tortured for literally years. Give me a break. The key point for me is that he didn't take the chance to come home EVEN AFTER BEING TORTURED. That's the kind of character that very few people have! Some people are just talk - like Osama Obama. Others are the real thing - like McCain.
Actually, we don't have solid reliable evidence of that, just the word of some severely tortured guys and along with that, we have some others that claim he was working with the enemy and refused to come home because he feared h had been exposed.
The character question on McCain might be better viewed in light of his affair with his current wife (and others) while still married to the first and, then, having divorce papers served on his 1st wife, in the hospital just after he and she had learned she had cancer.
Now, "That's the kind of character that very few people have!" "Some people are just talk. Others are the real thing - like McCain.
IP: Logged |
Arizona Senator John McCain has been making big hay with the media lately regarding the anti-Kerry "Swift Boat" ads (search)calling for the White House to denounce them. McCain, never one to shy away from the camera, carries his own baggage from Viet Nam. This two part series was originally published in my old newsletter, The Power Educator, with permission from Ted Sampley of the U.S. Veteran Dispatch, July 1995. McCain has always had his own problems with Viet Nam veterans. The government's media apparatus has basically given him a free pass.
Part I
John McCain the second-term Republican senator from Arizona and former Navy pilot captured and held prisoner during the Vietnam War, is a fraud, collaborator, and danger to the security of the United States because he is being black-mailed by the communist Vietnamese. He is a phony--a "rhinestone hero."
While a prisoner of war, McCain was treated as a "special prisoner," with privileges including being given his own private and affectionate nurse.
McCain's treatment as a "special prisoner" is a contradiction to his much publicized image of a great war hero who was severely tortured and kept in solitary confinement for long periods of time because he refused to break during interrogation.
Ted Guy, a former Air Force Colonel held 5 1/2 years by the Vietnamese and McCain's senior ranking officer (SRO) in the POW camp, told the U.S. Veteran Dispatch he cannot remember the communists ever laying a hand on McCain.
Other sources have told the U.S. Veteran Dispatch that the Vietnamese are holding as much as fifty hours of film footage secretly taken of McCain during the time his KGB-trained handlers had him isolated from other U.S. prisoners of war.
Some of the film, according to the sources, is of McCain receiving special privileges during the time he claims he was being tortured and held in long-term solitary confinement.
The sources say interrogators have candid camera footage of McCain with the nurse, who allegedly supplied him with more than just medical attention during those lonely days and nights in so-called solitary confinement.
In June 1992, Trung Hieu, a film director from the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture and former North Vietnamese Army photographer, told the U.S. Veteran Dispatch that Hanoi does have considerable film of POW McCain and some of it involves a Vietnamese woman.
Trung, who worked during the war as an official photographer in North Vietnam's POW camps, was in the United States seeking political asylum when he told the U.S. Veterans Dispatch about the film.
Trung also said that during the war he photographed a nearly intact B-52 bomber, which was shot down at the edge of an air field near Hanoi in December 1972. He said the North Vietnamese traded the B-52 and some of its surviving crew members to the Soviets for three MIG-23 jet interceptors. Trung said the Soviets wanted to interrogate the crew about U.S. electronic warfare.
Trung said he took movie film of an American F-111 fighter bomber also shot down in 1972. He said the F-111 capsule, along with the surviving crew, was sent to China. The crew, according to Trung, was later returned to Hanoi.
McCain, who was a member of the 1992 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, argued emotionally during the hearings that "none of the returned U.S. prisoners of war released by Vietnam were ever interrogated by the Soviets."
Trung has said Hanoi has a large, secret vault containing shelves loaded with POW/MIA related film, which it has never allowed the U.S. government to view.
Gene Brown, who was employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for a period of time in 1992 and 1993, told the U.S. Veteran Dispatch that, while in Hanoi, he had been inside a vault which contained wall-to-wall film and that there appeared to be approximately 50 hours of film about McCain.
Brown, who was in Hanoi secretly working for the DIA under the code name "Druid Smoke" succeeded in smuggling nearly 4,500 photographs out of Hanoi by buying them from Communist officials with money supplied by the DIA. The photos, most of which had never been seen by the U.S. government, were taken during the Vietnam War and depicted, Americans killed in the war and the wreckage of many U.S. aircraft.
To avoid embarrassing the communists, USG officials declared the release of Brown's black market photographs "important progress" and "unprecedented cooperation" toward resolving the POW/MIA issue and publicly thanked the Vietnamese for their cooperation.
Garnett Bell, a 30 year employee of DOD and former chief of the U.S. office for POW/MIA Affairs in Hanoi, told the U.S. Veteran Dispatch that he had actually seen some film footage of McCain taken by the Vietnamese when McCain did not know he was being filmed.
Last month the United Press International (UPI) quoted the Cambodian Khmer Rouge accusing McCain of being a "Vietnamese Agent."
"Who is John McCain?" the rebel group asked rhetorically in a radio broad-case monitored in Bangkok. "He is Vietnamese. He has a Vietnamese wife and Vietnamese children. He is an American by nationality, but he is a Vietnamese agent..."
McCain the collaborator
From the first days of McCain's captivity, he seriously violated the Military Code of Conduct, which outlines the basic responsibilities and obligations of members of the Armed Forces of the United States who have been captured by the enemy.
According to documentation obtained by the U.S. Veteran Dispatch, not only did POW McCain promise to give the communists "military information" in exchange for special hospital care not ordinarily available to U.S. prisoners, but he also made numerous anti-war radio broadcasts.
Article V of the Code of Conduct is very specific in declaring that U.S. military personnel are required to avoid answering questions to the utmost of their ability and to make no oral or written statements disloyal to the United States and its allies or harmful to their cause. Any violation of this code is considered collaborating with the enemy.
The following is McCain's own admission of collaboration in an article he wrote, printed May 14, 1973 in U.S. News and World Report:
"I think it was on the fourth day [after being shot down] that two guards came in, instead of one. One of them pulled back the blanket to show the other guard my injury. I looked at my knee. It was about the size, shape and color of a football. I remembered that when I was a flying instructor a fellow had ejected from his plane and broken his thigh. He had gone into shock, the blood had pooled in his leg, and he died, which came as quite a surprise to us - a man dying of a broken leg. Then I realized that a very similar thing was happening to me.
"When I saw it, I said to the guard, `O.K., get the officer.'"
"An officer came in after a few minutes. It was the man that we came to know very well as "The Bug." He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends that we had to deal with. I said, `O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.'"
The Admiral's son gets "special treatment"
McCain claims it was only a coincidence that, about the same time he was begging to be taken to a hospital, the Vietnamese learned his father was Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., commander of all U.S. forces in Europe and soon-to-be commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific, including Vietnam.
McCain does concede he survived because the Vietnamese learned who his father was, rushing him to a hospital where his wounds were eagerly treated.
The former POW admitted in the U.S. News and World Report article that the Vietnamese usually left other U.S. prisoners with similar wounds to die, not wishing to waste medication on them. McCain pointed 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."
McCain has failed to mention what he has confided to another U.S. prisoner that since the Vietnamese felt they had in their hands such a "special prisoner" and propaganda bonanza, a Soviet surgeon was called in to treat him.
The communists figured that because POW McCain's father was of such high military rank, McCain was of royalty or the governing circle. They bragged that they had captured "the crown prince."
His communist handlers believed McCain, because he came from a "royal-family", would, when finally released, return to the United States to some important U.S. military or government job. Communist Interrogators and psychological warfare experts drooled at the thought.
McCain's handlers were very much aware that he would be under great psychological pressure not to do or say anything that would tarnish the name of his famous military family.
In fact, the communists considered that to be the key to eventually breaking and then "turning" their "special" prisoner, using blackmail if necessary.
According to U.S. government documents, within a week of POW McCain being transferred to the Gai Lam military hospital, the Hanoi press began quoting him giving specific military information.
One report dated Nov. 9, 1967 read, "The question of the correspondent, McCain answered: "My assignment in to the Oriskany, I told myself, was due to serious losses of pilots, which were sustained by this aircraft carrier (due to raids on the North Vietnamese Territory (VNA), and which necessitated replacements. From 10 to 12 pilots were transferred like me from the forest to the Oriskany. Before I was shot down, we had made several sorties. All together, I made about 23 flights over North Vietnam."
In that article, McCain was further quoted describing the number of aircraft in his flight, information about rescue ships, and the order of which his attack was supposed to take place.
Six weeks after McCain was shot down, he was taken from the hospital and 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.
Afterwards, his handlers isolated "special prisoner", McCain from other American prisoners and made him the target of intense psychological programs.
Part II - McCain continuously violates the code of conduct
Devvy Kidd authored the booklets, Why A Bankrupt America and Blind Loyalty, which sold close to 2,000,000 copies. Has been a guest more than 1600 times on radio shows, ran for Congress twice and is a highly sought after public speaker. Devvy is a contributing writer for www.NewsWithViews.com Devvy's web site is: www.devvy.com; is sponsored by El Dorado Gold; e-mail is: devvyk*earthlink.net
quote:Part II - McCain continuously violates the code of conduct
THAT IS ABSOLUTE B.S! When I went to survival school, we were taught that you were expected to do your best. If you were broken, you were to regroup and then resist again. Giving silly information like the number of planes on the carrier; the number of sorties he flew; or the number of pilots in the squadron was of absolutely no military value to the enemy.
The author of that article is no doubt just another socialist traitor!!!
IP: Logged |
posted
John McCain : The REAL STORY of The Traitor Luck Of The Admiral's Son Not For "Grunts" By Ted Sampley U.S. Veteran Dispatch
When two U.S. Army enlisted men were captured by the Viet Cong in 1963, they were plunged into an ordeal that would prove to be a relentless trial of body and spirit by torture. Once they were finally freed, however, their trials began all over again, when their statements critical of the U. S. Vietnam policy landed them in a military court facing a capital offense for violating the military Code of Conduct by "aiding the enemy."
But, if your name is John McCain and your father and grandfather were famous admirals, violating the Code of Conduct by "aiding the enemy" translates into fodder for a political career, book deals, and adulation bordering on sainthood.
Even though news reports of McCain collaborating with the enemy continued from the time he was captured in 1967 through 1970, the Navy never considered prosecution as an option.
Instead, Pentagon pencil pushers chose a political spin that lifted McCain, the former POW turned U.S. Senator, up to a glorified pedestal where he sprouted a halo and wings and became America's "POW-hero" and today a presidential candidate.
No such luck for the two lowly "grunts."
After two-years of being held as prisoners of war under the most brutal circumstances in the steamy, mosquito infested jungle of South Vietnam, Army Staff Sgt. George E. Smith and Sp/5 Claude McClure could take the torture no more. They asked for and were granted parole. In November 1965, the two demoralized POWs were led across the Cambodian border and released by their Viet Cong captors.
Following their release, Smith and McClure held a press conference in Phnom Penh and made statements that opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Smith, 27, of Chester, West Virginia told the press: "I have known both sides, and the war in Vietnam is of no interest to the United States."
McClure, 25, a black American from Chattanooga, Tennessee added, "The Saigon government is not the government of the people . . . The Viet Cong are the people."
U.S. government officials were infuriated. Both Smith and McClure were Green Berets and they had clearly violated the military code of conduct which among other things, specifies; "If I am captured . . . I will accept neither parole not special favors from the enemy . . . [and] will make no oral or written statement disloyal to my country and its allies . . ."
After the press conference Smith and McClure were met by representatives of the Australian government who made travel arrangements and flew the two former POW's to Bangkok, Thailand. There, US officials took them into custody and read them their rights under Article 31, which is the military version of the rights against self incrimination.
The two former POWs were then loaded aboard a military aircraft and hustled out of Thailand to Okinawa where they were placed under house arrest and turned over to intelligence agents for "debriefing."
"Tell us everything that happened that's important," the intelligence agents instructed them at the beginning of the debriefings. "It will be helpful for Americans who become prisoners of war."
During the debriefing, which lasted approximately three weeks, Smith and McClure were not allowed to talk to anyone without prior clearance by the intelligence agents and their mail was read and censored.
After the debriefing the Army informed them that they were being charged with violating Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by "preparing, furnishing, and delivering to the Viet Cong certain documents, statements and writings inimical to the interest of the U.S."
Shocked and demoralized, Smith and McClure quickly learned that the charge of aiding the enemy carries the death penalty and that they could be tried by a military tribunal without witnesses.
Then, the Army dropped another bomb shell in their laps. Their debriefings, which they had given freely and openly were to be used as evidence against them.
The Army moved Smith and McClure to a secret location away from the press and the Pentagon issued press releases implying that they had turned official papers over to the Viet Cong.
Members of the press accepted the Pentagon's accusations against the two enlisted men without investigation or verification of the facts. Some elements of the media printed stories which referred to them as "turncoats."
Prior to being captured November 24, 1963, there was nothing in the service records of Smith or McClure that indicated any lack of loyalty to the United States.
Both men wore the Green Beret of the elite Special Forces. They were captured with several other Americans after the Viet Cong overrun their Special Forces camp at Hiep Hoa, South Vietnam. Any sensitive documents that Smith and McClure might have had access to were destroyed by flames that engulfed their team house during the attack.
Hiep Hoa was the first Special Forces camp to be overran in the Vietnam War. It was located in the Plane of Reeds between Saigon and the Cambodian border and was one of many Special Forces camps fortified and strategically located in the midst of known heavy enemy presence. Because of their isolated locations, camps like Hiep Hoa were vulnerable to attack.
Captured with Smith and McClure were Sgt's Issac "Ike" Camacho and Kenneth Mills Roraback.
The Viet Cong force marched the captured GI's from Hiep Hoa south deep into the jungles of the U Minh Forest to a crudely built POW camp that the Americans later nick named "Auschwitz."
The American prisoners in "Auschwitz" were placed in bamboo cages four feet wide, six feet long, just tall enough to sit up in. Life for the POWs became an every day struggle for survival. Communist interrogators effectively used sleep deprivation and the withholding of food and medicine as tools of torture to intimidate and break the prisoner's will to resist.
Other American POWs were brought to "Auschwitz" and chained in the cramped bamboo cages.
The new occupants included: Sgt.'s Harold Bennett and Charles Crafts who were captured December 29, 1964 during a fire fight with the Viet Cong in Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam. They were operating as advisors to the South Vietnamese Army.
Marine Capt. Donald Cook, who was captured New Year's Eve, 1964, while serving as an advisor to the 4th Battalion of the Vietnamese Marine Corps. Cook was wounded in the leg and later captured.
Army Capt. John Robert Schumann, who was captured June 16, after his unit was ambushed.
With the new POWs came an even more grueling barrage of indoctrination attempts by the interrogators: "Sign a statement declaring the United States imperialist aggressors and we will let you go home.
"If you don't repent your crimes, you can stay here forever. This war can end tomorrow, but you can be here for the rest of your life."
Any ranking POW who attempted to establish a chain of command in the camp would be severely beaten and isolated from other prisoners.
When Capts. Cook and Schumann, attempted to establish command of the POWs in "Auschwitz," the Viet Cong responded mercilessly with beatings. They labeled the two captains "unrepentant reactionaries" and segregated them from the rest of the camp.
From the beginning of Roraback's capture, he let his Viet Cong captors know that he believed in the Military Code of Conduct and had no intention of violating it while he still had the will to resist. From that point on, his interrogators set out with a pathological desire to break him. When the guards ordered that no one in the camp was to talk to Cook, Roraback defied them by yelling a conversation with the captain who was isolated on the other side of the camp.
Roraback was soon isolated from the other prisoners.
Comacho escaped July 9, 1965 during a heavy rain storm. For four days he used his survival skills to avoid Viet Cong patrols and made his way back to friendly forces. He was the first American serviceman to escape from the Viet Cong.
In September 1965, Smith and McClure heard some horrifying news. National Liberation Radio was announcing to the world that the Viet Cong had executed three U.S. POWs: Capt. "Rocky" Versace and Sgts. Kenneth Roraback and Harold Bennett.
Soon after, Smith and McClure signed a promise that if released, they would join the anti-war movement upon returning to the United States. The were released in November 1965.
Cook and Schumann disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. The Vietnamese later claimed they died of illness.
Sgt. Crafts secured his freedom about a year later.
The Viet Cong National Liberation Front policy of terrorizing and torturing American prisoners by the intentional withholding of food and medicine was barbaric and premeditated. The percentage of U.S. prisoners of war who died in National Liberation Front POW camps in South Vietnam was double, if not triple, that of Union prisoners who died in the infamous Andersonville POW camp during the Civil War. Because so many U.S. prisoners died there, the U.S. government hung the Commander of the Andersonville POW camp, Confederate Captain Henry Wirz.
In April 1966, the Pentagon announced to the press that although Smith and McClure had not been totally cleared, the charges were being dismissed because there was "not sufficient evidence to prove a violation."
Smith and McClure were given a less than honorable discharge and drummed out of the Army, their reputations tarnished forever.
During the time the Americans caged in "Auschwitz" were enduring torture and deprivation, young Navy pilot John McCain was in flight training and having different troubles. Surviving a crash unscathed in Corpus Christi Bay, he managed to later collide another training plane into power lines in Spain.
Despite the crashes, he was allowed to continue flying as a Navy aviator. Luck, or maybe it was the admiral, had smiled on him.
In 1965, when Smith and McClure stepped from the horrors of a bamboo cage prison into the humiliation of a court-marshal for their anti-war statements, Navy pilot McCain and Carol Shepp, a tall Philadelphia model were married.
Two years later, on Oct. 26, 1967, the admiral's son while flying his 23rd mission over North Vietnam, once again fell from the sky, this time landing in the hands of a brutal enemy. He was beaten and bayoneted. His shoulder was smashed and his right calf was nearly perpendicular to his knee.
The severely wounded McCain was finally thrown on the back of a truck and hauled to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp. Immediately, his captors began to interrogate him using sadistic methods they had perfected on hundreds of captured U.S. servicemen before him.
His interrogators demanded military information. When he refused, his guards kicked and pounded him mercilessly.
McCain admits that three to four days after he was captured, he promised the Vietnamese, "I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital."
McCain also admits that the Vietnamese rushed him to a hospital, but denies he was given "special medical treatment" because of his promise.
He claims he was given medical care normally unavailable to captured Americans only because the Vietnamese learned he was the son of Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., the soon-to-be commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific including those fighting in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese figured that because POW McCain's father was of such high military rank that he was of royalty or the governing circle in the United States. Thereafter the communist bragged that they had captured "the crown prince"and treated him as a "special prisoner."
Less than two weeks after McCain was taken to a hospital, Hanoi's press began quoting him giving specific military information, including the name of the aircraft carrier on which he was based, numbers of U.S. pilots that had been lost, the number of aircraft in his flight, information about location of rescue ships and the order of which his attack was supposed to take place.
There is also evidence that McCain received "special" medical treatment from a Soviet physician.
After he was out of the hospital, McCain continued cooperating with the North Vietnamese for a period of three years. He made radio broadcasts for the communists and met with foreign delegations, including the Cubans. He was interviewed by at least two North Vietnamese generals one of whom was Vietnam's national hero, General Vo Nguyen Giap.
On June 4, 1969, a U.S. wire service story headlined "PW Songbird Is Pilot Son of Admiral," reported one of McCain's radio broadcasts: "Hanoi has aired a broadcast in which the pilot son of the United States commander in the Pacific, Adm. John McCain, purportedly admits to having bombed civilian targets in North Vietnam and praises medical treatment he has received since being taken prisoner.
"The broadcast was beamed to American servicemen in South Vietnam as a part of a propaganda series attempting to counter charges by U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird that American prisoners are being mistreated in North Vietnam."
McCain says he violated the Code of Conduct only when the North Vietnamese brutally tortured him. He further claims that he was so distraught afterwards that he tried to commit suicide. He has never explained why his "aid to the enemy" continued for more than three years.
Even though there are no reports in the public record from other POWs who witnessed McCain's claims of torture and heroics or his attempted suicide, the American media has accepted his version of events word for word, no questions asked.
Yet, the same press that transformed the admiral's son into an "incredible war hero--an inspiration to all Americans," vilified the two grunts.
Comparing the incidents surrounding the fates of three POWs,' who collaborated with the enemy, makes one question why two faced possible execution for treason, while the third won acclaim as a hero fit to be President of the United States.
Once more, Lady Luck had smiled on John McCain . . . or was it the admiral?
Sources for this report include: Newsweek, Dec. 13, 1965, Jan. 10, 1966, Apr. 25, 1966, U.S. News and World Report, May 14, 1973, POW-Two Years With The Viet Cong, By George E. Smith, Viet Cong Memoir, by Truong Ntu Tang, Five Years to Freedom, by Nick Rowe, Last Firebase Archives files, The Nightingale's Song, by Robert Timberg, Faith of my Fathers, by John McCain.
posted
I think it is ridiculous for anyone to sit back and Monday morning quarterback what happened to McCain in Vietnam. Maybe some can delude themselves as to how they would have performed under those conditions but believing and actually doing are completely seperate things.
McCain has suffered, his body shows us that. Why is it that his fellow POW's that were with him at the time have supported him throughout his career. They were there with him and could have denounced him when they were relaesed.
Good for the Goose mentality is wrong. This nation was not built on that philosophy. We are supposed to be better than that. Ever since 9/11 it seems more and more people are willing to give up the ideals that made this a great country and stoop to the level of the enemy.
The more that happens the more our attackers have won. They have already been successful in some ways. Due to their attack, we now use torture and have limited some of our country's rights.
It's OK to spy on individuals, it's ok to deny due process, etc etc.
We as a nation need to rise above, we can start by not buying into or promoting this type of offensive propaganda. I didn't like it when it was used against Kerry and I don't like it now.
"I think it is ridiculous for anyone to sit back and Monday morning quarterback what happened to McCain in Vietnam. Maybe some can delude themselves as to how they would have performed under those conditions but believing and actually doing are completely seperate things."
_________________________________________________
Good point Wallymac!
It is easy to get caught up in the politics of what is going on and all the mud slinging.
But man what a different game it is being in the middle of war, let alone even imagining what it would be like to be in a prisoner of war camp and surviving it.
That's what i am sure it comes down to is survival.
A year in Vietnam's jungles is one thing being a prisoner of war has to be a completely different ballgame and i know being there was no party.
IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
