 |
|
 |
| [-] |
| [−] |
| [−] |
| [−] |
| [−] |
Prev | List | Random | Next |
With the debates coming up, here are several questions I've posed to Senator Kerry in previous posts on Jet Noise. I've included a few from Peter Kirsanow's excellent articles in The National Review:
1. On Meet the Press, President Bush said he would release his military records. He has done so. You made the same promise, but to date at least 31 pages of your records remain unreleased and they pertain directly to allegations made by the Swift Vets. Since your medals are currently under investigation by the Navy, can you explain to the American people why you still refuse to sign a Form 180? You called for the President to release all of his records - why should you be exempt from the same scrutiny?
2. President Bush ran on his record as a two-term governor of the second-largest state in the country. You spent 19 years in the Senate. What do you consider the 7-10 most important bills you authored during your Senate career? How many were signed into law?
3. During the past two years, you've missed 87% and 67%, respectively, of Senate votes due to your run for the presidency. Massachusetts Lt. Governor Kerry Healey called upon you to resign, saying you have failed the people of Massachusetts. 2 USC ? 39 states that your salary is forfeit, yet you continue to collect it. How can you accuse George Bush of being AWOL from the TANG when you've been AWOL from the Senate for two years?
4. You claim you would do a better job than George Bush on the economy and on supporting the military, yet several independent organizations have rated your 10-year voting records on small business and national security issues at 13.5 and 11.8 out of 100, respectively. Do you think this is a strong record?
5. [From Peter Kirsanow] During your eight-year tenure on the Senate Intelligence Committee you missed more than three fourths of all public meetings. It's also been reported that you have skipped or delayed receiving intelligence briefings during the campaign. Why should the public believe that you're serious about this issue?
6. [From Peter Kirsanow] In a speech before Drake University Law School you characterized U.S. allies in the war in Iraq as "some trumped-up so-called Coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted,..." Do you maintain that Great Britain has been bribed, coerced, bought, or extorted? What about Italy? Japan? Poland? Please specifically identify those members of the Coalition that have been either bribed, coerced, bought, and extorted and the officials who were bribed or bought.
7. You have repeatedly implied you would be more successful than President Bush in getting "allies" (France, Germany, Russia, China) who did not join in the coalition to contribute troops and money in Iraq and Afghanistan. Given that France in particular withdrew from the military portion of NATO long ago and all four nations have a long history of refusing to cooperate with the US, explain in detail how you would succeed without bartering away vital US interests.
8. [From Peter Kirsanow II] In your convention speech, you stated that every terrorist attack would be met with an immediate response and you've also stated that you would emphasize a law-enforcement approach to the fight against terrorism. This is identical to the pre-9/11 U.S. approach to terrorism. Could you please explain how a pre-9/11 approach to terrorism will prevent another 9/11?
9. You have characterized the DOD's callup of the IRR as a "backdoor draft", even though you know, as a former commissioned officer and as a Senator who served during the time this modification of the total force structure was implemented, that every single military person is obligated by their contract to serve if called. Such a statement can only be beneficial to our enemies and demoralizing to our armed forces. Why do you persist in making such a misleading, inflammatory, and irresponsible statement in time of war?
10. You have repeatedly said the White House has questioned your patriotism and service (they have not - this is a lie) as a means to open the door to attack the service of Dick Cheney and George Bush. You criticized Cheney's deferments, yet you yourself applied for a deferment and were denied. You have stated you went to Vietnam because you wanted to defend your country, yet you are on record as having opposed the war in several interviews before you left. You stated you volunteered for dangerous Swift duty, yet the Swift boat mission was not a combat mission at the time you volunteered. Is it possible that you're accusing Cheney of draft-dodging and Bush of being AWOL to distract voters from the fact that you met with the North Vietnamese in Paris during time of war? Come to think of it, have we seen your drill records, Mr. Kerry? h/t D. Mendoza for the CNS article.
There is widespread misunderstanding in the media about the nature of drill obligations and whether Mr. Kerry would have been subject to the UCMJ during that time. While I am not a lawyer, it seems to me that he most likely would not have been: he was neither in training, nor was he on active drill status at the time he traveled to Paris. He was unlikely to have been wearing the uniform.
I have not read the laws referred to in Corsi's article, so I cannot pass judgement on that issue, however it raises an interesting question as to Kerry's judgement and loyalties. Whether or not he broke the law technically is almost irrelevant in my mind. Obviously if he did break the law, that is bad. But even if he did not: do we really want a man serving as President who, after serving in our Armed Forces, traveled to Paris, met with the enemy during time of war when we had POWs in captivity, then returned to this country and openly advocated the enemy position? This is not only a betrayal of his comrades and country, but a declaration of principle that is alarming in the extreme. Combine it with his statements about Communism in his Winter Soldier testimony, and you have something that should give any serious voter pause:
I think that politically, historically, the one thing that people try to do, that society is structured on as a whole, is an attempt to satisfy their felt needs, and you can satisfy those needs with almost any kind of political structure, giving it one name or the other. In this name it is democratic; in others it is communism; in others it is benevolent dictatorship. As long as those needs are satisfied, that structure will exist.
Keep in mind that Kerry was a Yale-educated, 27 year old man, not an unsophisticated child. He appears to have thought that Communism was as good as any other system of government. In other places in his testimony, he states that Communism was not a danger and that the South Vietnamese could not tell the difference between Communism and democracy. Tell that to the Boat people or the S. Vietnamese army. Or the thousands who were slaughtered when Saigon fell.
Regardless of whether a law was broken, going to Paris to talk to the North Vietnamese seems an incredibly foolish thing to have done.
By comparison, it makes the furor over whether George Bush missed a flight physical and a few drill periods (and if one knows anything about flying, this is hardly remarkable - what is the point of taking a flight physical if one knows one is transferring to a non-flying billet?) look silly.
11. [From Peter Kirsanow II] In several speeches before black audiences you've stated that a million African Americans were disenfranchised and had their votes stolen in the 2000 presidential election. There are no official or media investigations that support that statement. What evidence do you have to support the statement and if you believe a million blacks had their votes stolen, why haven't you called for criminal prosecutions and congressional investigations?
12. In the Senate, you made your focus Congressional investigations rather than legislation. The Winter Soldier hearings you were a part of in 1971 were a fraud. Subsequent investigation by NIS revealed that several of the men you testified were "highly decorated Vietnam vets" were neither "highly decorated" nor "Vietnam vets". In fact, some were coached by the Nation of Islam. Why after 33 years, have you refused to retract your testimony, which you now know to be based on false witnesses? What do you have to say in response to the affadavit of Steve Pitkin that he was coerced by you into testifying?
There are many more good questions for John Kerry in Kirsanow's two articles, but these are the ones I'd like to see him answer during the debates.
