Human Events:
The second in a series of anti-Kerry ads was released today by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In the new ad, Vietnam-era POWs critically denounce John Kerry for his anti-war activities.
Despite today’s allegations in the New York Times that the group is a front for Bush political operatives, the harshest words for Kerry in the ad come from Paul Galanti, a former POW who served as Virginia campaign chairman for Bush rival Sen. John McCain (R.) and who was also an active member of Veterans for Mark Warner (the Democratic governor of Virginia) during Warner’s 2001 gubernatorial race.
“John Kerry gave the enemy, for free, what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, took torture to avoid saying,” says Galanti, who was held prisoner for seven years in the prison camps of North Vietnam.
Referring to John Kerry’s Senate testimony of April 22, 1971, Galanti continues: “It demoralized us. He dishonored his country and, more importantly, the people he served with. He sold them out.”
...
In the ad [which can be seen on HumanEventsOnline.com], one wounded Swift Boat veteran and two former POW’s comment on Kerry’s testimony, in which Kerry accused U.S. troops of murdering 200,000 Vietnamese civilians per year, and gave a litany of gruesome atrocities that he claimed were commonplace in Vietnam -- "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."
...
Ken Cordier, a POW from 1966 to 1973, appears in the Swift Boat Ad to explain how Kerry’s testimony was particularly devastating to POWs suffering in captivity. "That was part of the torture -- to sign a statement that you had committed war crimes," Cordier says in the ad. "He betrayed us in the past--how could we be loyal to him now?"
Comments
Post a Comment