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Thursday, November 4, 2004

 

Seems Europe's beginning to come around

From an Aussie blogger Chrenkoff which shows what happens when a nation mandates that we remain a super power on the same course .. other nations begin to fall in line to Follow the leader. 

"A bit more willing this time around? 

What are the foreign policy implications of the election in terms of America's relations with the rest of the world?  wrote yesterday  that "holding your breath and turning blue for the next four years is no longer a viable option" for foreign governments, and therefore we are likely to see a thaw of sorts between those from Mars and those from Venus.

Is it starting 
already ?

" 'The United States and the European Union are linked by strong cultural, economic and political ties, and by our shared values. This makes us each other's natural and indispensable partners,' said Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who holds the EU's rotating presidency.

" 'Together, Europe and the United States face many critical challenges in the years ahead. As in the past, our best hope for success lies in common action,' EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana said in a statement...

" 'On behalf of France, and on my personal behalf, I would like to express to you my most sincere congratulations for your re-election to the presidency of the United States of America,' Chirac wrote in a letter to Bush. 'I hope that your second term will provide an opportunity to reinforce the Franco-American friendship.'

"German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who also clashed with Bush over Iraq, voiced hope that his country would continue its 'good cooperation' with the United States...

"Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said from Bonn that he hoped the new US government 'would help to bring peace to the Middle East'...

"In Madrid, Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said his government 'wishes to contribute to effective and constructive cooperation with the Bush government'."
And Russia's Vladimir Putin had this to day:

"I am convinced that international terrorism gave itself the goal of not allowing the re-election of Bush. The statement by bin Laden in the final stages of the pre-election campaign is the best confirmation of this... If Bush wins, then I can only feel joy that the American people did not allow itself to be intimidated, and made the most sensible decision...

"Relations will not be easy. Between such countries as the United States and Russia with such a scale of mutual obligations, there are always some problems... Our relations in the last four years have undergone a big change, for the good of our peoples, of our countries, and for the good of our security... [Bush is] a reliable and predictable partner... [he] has proved to be a firm man, with a strong character, and a coherent policy."
Now, it's easy to dismiss all these comments as polite diplomatic chatter; after all, hardly anyone in the international arena - arguably, with the occasional exception of French officials - ever says what they actually think, and elections, like funerals, always provide an opportunity for an obligatory kind word to be said.

But I think there's more to it all than just rhetoric. Here is why:

For the past few years, the "international community" has built its policy vis-a-vis the United States on an assumption that Bush, that uncomfortable aberration from Texas, would be a one-termer. Walled in inside their own echo chamber, reinforced and amplified by the American mainstream media's anti-Bush stance, foreign governments have managed to convince themselves that no incumbent could survive electoraly the "quagmire" of Iraq abroad and the groundswell of opposition at home. In other words, the leaders from Caracas to Paris, and from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur, made the assumption that since they wouldn't vote for Bush, and the "New York Times" wouldn't vote for Bush, the American people wouldn't either - that is, for all the sophisticates' sneering about America and the Americans, the "unwilling" governments around the world thought that in the end the US voters would behave as "rationally" as the Belgians or the Jordanians would in these circumstances.

It was not to be. George W Bush has been clearly and convincingly re-elected and his policies at home - and most importantly abroad - re-endorsed by the majority of the electorate. And France, Germany, the EU, the UN, and all others are stuck with W in the White House for the next four years. Going back to the good old days of doing nothing and doing it all together is no longer a possibility.

Whatever we might think of foreign leaders and their ideological preferences, these people also tend to be realists. Now the uncertainty is over and it's time for plan B. Another few years of Cold War is not a productive option for anyone. The governments around the world are realizing, to use Lyndon B Johnson's favorite normulation, that it's better to be inside the tent pissing out than the other way around. As a mate of mine likes to say, even piss kills if from a a great enough height, but as the international community has discovered it's difficult enough to achieve the necessary deadly height if you're planning to urinate on a hegemon and a hyper-power.

The United States throughout the crisis of the last few years has generally tried to maintain good relations with everyone, including its many foreign detractors. I have a feeling that the second Bush term will see an even greater effort to reach out to international critics and skeptics - not to dilute the current policies of the Administration, but more on a symbolic level to help the Frances and Germanys of this world save some face.

So, one big happy multilateral family again? Non. But a detente, perhaps? Oui.


Comments 18 | Trackbacks 2 "
 
 

Wednesday, November 3, 2004

 

Four More Years

Embedded live links within article accessible with Internet Explorer.
 
"Four More Years
 
At the polls yesterday, the American people gave George W. Bush an unprecedented mandate to win the War on Terrorism. Even according to notorious election night "exit polling" - which appears to be Big Media's last attempt to fix the race for the Left - the vast majority of voters considered terrorism the top issue this year, and "security voters" gave President Bush a lopsided advantage over the junior senator from Massachusetts.

With 96 percent of the nation's precincts reporting as of this writing, George W. Bush had already received more than 57 million votes, more than any other candidate in electoral history (Ronald Reagan won 54 million in 1984.) Although the popular vote was still being tabulated as of this writing, it appears George W. Bush will garner nearly 51 percent, making him the first president in 16 years to be elected by a majority of voters. This is the largest popular vote victory since his father won 54 percent of the vote against Michael Dukakis in 1988.  (To put things in perspective, Ronald Reagan also won 51 percent of the vote in 1980. By contrast, Bill Clinton earned only 49 percent in his 1996 "landslide" victory over Bob Dole.) 

Most importantly, last night the American people endorsed an aggressive, forward-looking policy of taking the War on Terrorism to the enemy. The race began with the Democrats flocking to Howard Dean's antiwar message and ended with John Kerry promising a more effective effort to "hunt down and kill the terrorists wherever they may be." Had he been elected, Kerry would have faced the same policy restrictions Bill Clinton did, undoubtedly with less grace and self-serving panache. With a hawkish American public and a Republican Congress, Kerry would "not even have the courage of his weakness." The nation is better off not forcing an already indecisive candidate to develop political schizophrenia. We can now unite around a leader who has proven his unwavering resolve in the fires of political controversy. 

A History Making Presidency 

We are now embarking upon the second half of an historical presidency. Even at this early juncture, it is fair to say history will likely remember George W. Bush as a steadfast leader during a time of national peril, the right man at the right time. 

His entire presidency to date has been one for the record books. 

George W. Bush was the first presidential candidate ever to have his political opponents try to steal the election judicially - and nearly succeed. After an unprecedented 36-day recount, Bush became one of four presidents elected despite losing the popular vote count. (The last was Benjamin Harrison in 1888.)  

Displaying the determination that would inspire his admirers and infuriate his enemies, he did not allow his confidence in his agenda to be shaken by leftist catcalls of "President Select" or Jesse Jackson's charges of "illegitimacy" (a word choice soon revealed to be pregnant with irony). After dramatically renorming the tax code and passing the largest tax cut in history, he boldly asserted American interests by canceling the International Criminal Court, Anti-Ballistic Missile and Kyoto treaties - all over the vehement objection of the "international community" and the Democratic Party. Shortly thereafter, a gadfly Republican defection gave America only its second evenly divided Senate in history, the first in 120 years. The Democrats used this advantage to filibuster federal judicial nominees for the first time in history - a history that, sadly, is still playing out.  

Then tragedy struck. For the first time since the War of 1812, a foreign enemy attacked Americans in their homeland. President Bush rallied Americans to the defenses, reversing a decade-long retreat in the face of terrorism. After a lightning-quick campaign (which, Charles Krauthammer has pointed out, was being called a quagmire during its second week), the new commander in chief destroyed the Taliban while bombing innocent Muslim children - with care packages donated by their American counterparts, at his behest. 

Moving to protect the United States against the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction, he gave Saddam Hussein an ultimatum: fully disclose the status of WMD programs or face "serious consequences." Stumping the nation with this message in 2002, President Bush became one of the few presidents in modern times to pick up Congressional seats during a midterm election, winning back control of the Senate. 

He then overcame an international Oil-for-Food blackmail to launch a "unilateral" war aimed at.preserving the integrity of the United Nations. In the process, he endured an unprecedented level of hatred from his political enemies, receiving criticism from feminists for shutting down a regime that employed the rape and torture of women (and young girls) as tools of political repression. He has since liberated a second Muslim nation from the clutches of a madman. 

With last month's election of Hamid Karzai, he brought democracy to Afghanistan for the first time in history. Next January, he will do the same for Iraq. 

On the domestic front, after his second tax cut package took effect, Bush presided over the best economic gains in 20 years. He has since added 1.6 million new jobs to the economy, nearly canceling out the jobs lost during the Clinton recession and 9/11. 

And with tonight's election, he became the first "second generation" president ever to be re-elected president of the United States. (John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams, and Benjamin Harrison, the grandson of William Henry Harrison, lost their re-election bids in 1828 and 1892, respectively.) 

Already the force of his character has left an historic imprint upon his nation, and the quality of character cannot be overestimated. Recent times have shown us that events do not make the man. After 9/11, Bill Clinton publicly sulked that he faced no great crisis that would cement his legacy in perpetuity. Yet as president, he exploited the greatest act of domestic terrorism to that time for crass political advantage, blaming the Oklahoma City bombing on the "anti-government rhetoric" of his political opponents. Confronted by North Korea's nuclear program, Red China's saber rattling, and ever-more-ominous incidents of Islamic terrorism, he averted his ever-smiling gaze to more politically advantageous subjects. Even Hollywood leftist Rob Reiner caricatured his do-nothing, poll-tested presidency in the film The American President. Great men are self-made; Bill Clinton was not a great man 

If he continues to wage a successful and unrelenting war on America's intractable foes, George W. Bush may prove to be. In the interim, we may rest assured we are in good hands. 

A Time for Healing 

With tonight's resounding endorsement of George W. Bush and an aggressive war on terror, it is time for the nation to reunite from the fractious political battles of the past four years. After their bitter (and undeniable ) defeat in the 2000 recount, leftists waged an endless political war, reaching heights of personal hatred not seen in 20th century America. Unlike the responsible opposition of the last fifty years, they proceeded to politicize a war, undermine troops in battle, and provide our terrorist foes with talking points in their blind hope of clawing their way back into power. 

America has spoken, and America has rejected their destructive cynicism. Today's election proves America's elections can t be purchased by George Soros, Peter Lewis, and the constellation of 527 front groups their dirty money funds. Further contesting a hopeless race will only perpetuate the divisions of the past and prevent our needed national reconciliation. Voters have come together to protect their nation from the threat of suicide bombers who are convinced they are doing the will of Allah, and patriots from around the nation have selected the man who pledged to be most forthright in his defense of their families.  

The Left may continue its unreasoning hatred of that man and his policies, but the American people stand united behind their president. We are ready to heal our divisions, secure our borders, and defend our freedoms.

It is time for the thoughtful Left to join us.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15799

 


Tuesday, November 2, 2004

 

Forgotten Clinton Report

The Forgotten Clinton Report

The Bush administration's twin pillars for going to war in Iraq were weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. Critics have seized upon the lack of WMD stockpiles as a means to de-legitimize the war. Yet, in their zealousness to discredit the entire Bush effort, they've also claimed that Iraq didn't sponsor terrorism. This is a wild assertion; the reality is that there's no question whatsoever that terrorists were harbored in Iraq and operated there openly, usually with support from Saddam's regime, and did so prior to the coalition invasion in 2003, prior to September 11, and throughout the 1990s.

An extraordinary catalogue of evidence-one that liberals especially ought to view as authoritative and trustworthy-has been ignored by all sides, including both Democrats and Republicans: I'm speaking of the final report on terrorism issued by the Clinton administration. For some strange reason, amid all the heated debate, this official statement has gone completely ignored. In 2000, President Clinton's State Department, headed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, listed Iraq among the two leading sponsors of terrorism, as it had regularly in its Patterns of Global Terrorism report.

What was this report? Congress was so worried about terrorism that in 1979 it passed the Export Administration Act, which required that the State Department submit "detailed assessments of foreign countries where significant terrorist acts occurred" and a list of countries "that have repeatedly provided state support for international terrorism." This annual assessment lists the top terrorism-sponsoring states. To quote the 2000 report: "Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan continue to be the seven governments that the U.S. Secretary of State [Albright] has designated as state sponsors of international terrorism." These were the same seven nations identified in 1999 and in previous years; among them, Iraq and Iran were singled out as the worst offenders.

The 2000 report didn't rank the seven. Nonetheless, some terrorist nations received considerably more attention than others. The report devoted 78 words to Cuba, 112 to North Korea, 187 to Sudan, 199 to Syria, 390 to Iran, 537 to Libya, and 638 to Iraq. Yes, the winner was Iraq, which received literally more attention than any other country in the final terrorism report issued by the Clinton State Department.

The Iraq section of the report began categorically: "Iraq planned and sponsored international terrorism in 2000." It then listed where and how "the regime continued to support various terrorist groups." These included activities in London, Prague, Berlin, and other Western cities, as well as various activities in northern Iraq and even in neighboring Iran. The mode of attack ranged from shootings to car bombs.

The report detailed Iraqi attacks on U.N. workers-i.e., assaults not unique to today's post-war Iraq: "Baghdad continued to denounce and de-legitimize UN personnel working in Iraq, particularly UN de-mining teams, in the wake of the killing in 1999 of an expatriate UN de-mining worker in northern Iraq under circumstances suggesting regime involvement. An Iraqi who opened fire at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) office in Baghdad, killing two persons and wounding six, was permitted to hold a heavily publicized press conference at which he contended that his action had been motivated by the harshness of UN sanctions, which the regime regularly excoriates."

Most remarkable, the Clinton State Department reported: "The Iraqi regime rebuffed a request from Riyadh for the extradition of two Saudis who had hijacked a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Baghdad.. Disregarding its obligations under international law, the regime granted political asylum to the hijackers and gave them ample opportunity to ventilate in the Iraqi Government-controlled and international media their criticisms of alleged abuses by the Saudi Arabian Government, echoing an Iraqi propaganda theme. While the origins of the FAO attack and the hijacking were unclear, the Iraqi regime readily exploited these terrorist acts to further its policy objectives."

This is an utterly fascinating finding, reported one year before the September 11 hijackings, which were orchestrated by radical Saudi citizens expelled from Saudi Arabia. The report is very short on details and provides no names. Nonetheless, the statement is extremely intriguing. How has it escaped our notice over the last few years?

Likewise significant, the 2000 assessment listed the various thugs that found safe haven under Saddam's Baathist-fascist regime: "Several expatriate terrorist groups continued to maintain offices in Baghdad, including the Arab Liberation Front, the inactive 15 May Organization, the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), and the Abu Nidal organization (ANO). PLF leader Abu Abbas appeared on state-controlled television in the fall to praise Iraq's leadership in rallying Arab opposition to Israeli violence against Palestinians. The ANO threatened to attack Austrian interests unless several million dollars in a frozen ANO account in a Vienna bank were turned over to the group."

The report said more, but still only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg. There was no mention of Mr. Al-Zarqawi, of the April 1993 assassination attempt on an American president traveling to Kuwait, or of the chilling clandestine facility south of Baghdad called Salman Pak, a terrorist training camp which drew attention after September 11 when it was reported that terrorists there-of Saudi and Egyptian origin-had conducted training missions on an actual 707 fuselage, where they practiced the art of hijacking an aircraft without guns, using only knives and utensils, all before September 11. Also, the report didn't note that Saddam had publicly offered payment of $10,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who blew themselves up in the service of killing Israel's Jews, a total that he upped to $25,000 in April 2002. The report could not have known of the thousands of suicide-bomber vests that American and British troops would find in Iraq in April 2003.

The facts are painfully obvious: Saddam Hussein's Iraq was one of the world's leading terrorist states. If it didn't top the list, it was second. That was literally the conclusion of the final report on terrorism by the Clinton-Albright State Department.

To borrow from the language applied to George W. Bush by Madeleine Albright and Al Gore, was the 2000 report just a bunch of lies? Of course, not. It was the awful truth. And yet, liberal Democrats now say there was no pre- or post-9/11 terror threat coming from Iraq. How can they so willingly disregard this lengthy record of Iraqi crimes, denying the undeniable? And how can journalists join them in lock-step after dutifully reporting many of these facts for a decade? Can they all put aside Bush hatred for a moment and consider this crucial 2000 report produced by their very own? Please?

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=15695


Monday, November 1, 2004

 

The moral right to commit voter fraud

From the Powerlineblog.com site. 

"The moral right to commit voter fraud

Walter Cronkite to Larry King:

The only thing that could damage the turnout would be the threats that might be implied, as many of the new registrees are challenged as to their various things. Their spelling of their name and the state where they really come from, whether they're immigrants or not, do they have passports, all that kind of thing. If they are challenged at the polls, as they line up to go into the polls, they may fear having to answer all those questions. Particularly if they do have anything wrong about them and shouldn't vote.

Via Tom von Gremp

Posted by deacon at 05:15 PM | PermalinkTrackBack 1 "

Monday, November 1, 2004

 

They'll Do Anything

"They'll Do Anything
Why Democrats and the media think they're entitled to do whatever it takes to win this election.

by Fred Barnes
11/01/2004 12:00:00 AM

THE SCARIEST THING about this election is not the prospect of a contested outcome with no winner declared for weeks, just as in 2000. No, the most scary thing is the sense of entitlement that many Democrats and their allies have about tomorrow's election. It goes like this: Bush stole the presidency four years ago, then proceeded to act as if he had a mandate, so now we're entitled to do whatever it takes to defeat him, to say whatever we want.

You see it in the bumper stickers that call for the "re-defeat" of President Bush. You see it in the destruction of Bush yard signs and posters all across the country. You see it in the harassment, at least in blue states, of anyone wearing a Bush pin or button. You see it in the hatred of Bush by his opponents, who think they're only venting righteous indignation.

You see it in the religious bigotry against the president, a born-again Christian, and against his conservative Christian supporters. Without any evidence, Bush's opponents accuse him of believing that he has a direct line to God and that God gives him instructions, such as when to invade Iraq, and that any criticism of him is illegitimate. You see the bigotry as well in the belittling of Christians who support Bush as if their political views have no standing or worth because they may have been influenced by their religious faith.

You see it in the now exposed plans of Democrats to claim intimidation
of minority voters even if no intimidation actually occurs. You see it in the voter registration efforts by Democrats that have made the number of people on the voting rolls in some jurisdictions larger than the voting age population. You see it in the plans of Democratic lawyers to file lawsuits all over the country, challenging the outcome unless Bush is defeated.

You see that same sense of entitlement in elements of the national media--especially CBS News--who jettison the normal rules of journalism when Bush is the target. CBS not only rushed out with forged documents to torpedo the Bush campaign in September, the network intended to take another bite at Bush two days before the election by airing a dubious story about stolen explosives in Iraq. Would CBS have dared to do this against any other public figure but Bush? No.

And you see it in the victimization that is claimed for John Kerry. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Anything they say about Kerry is automatically a smear and thus doesn't have to be examined or even considered. And Kerry has no obligation to answer questions about his Vietnam experience, though he's played it up in the campaign. Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war, however, is fair game.

And you see the feeling of entitlement in comments by the Democratic candidates and their backers, who seem to feel they're free to say anything they want about Bush and Vice President Cheney. So we get the targeting of Mary Cheney as a lesbian and the criticism of Laura Bush for having worked in jobs that weren't real jobs. And when anyone accuses Democrats of debasing the campaign, the answer is always: it's Bush's fault. Bush is hardly without fault, but the shabby style and substance of this campaign is the fault of his opponents.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/859goxwi.asp


Monday, November 1, 2004

 

Kerrys' public school green indoctrination kindergarten-college

Nothing like a little ProgressiveSocialist/Communist re-education for our kids, huh??????????
 
Green Parties BTW have been researched and found to have Communist organizations as sponsors and underpinning their "movement."
 
FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
"Green indoctrination
on Kerry's agenda?
Candidate founded group to shift
children's 'thinking, values, action'


Posted: November 1, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com - a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25 years.

WASHINGTON - Presidential candidate John Kerry and his wife, Teresa, organized a group 11 years ago with an agenda to use public schools at all levels to "leverage change" throughout U.S. society by instigating "a complete shift in thinking, values and action" among America's youth.

Second Nature, run by Anthony Cortese, an adviser to Kerry who has campaigned for him this year, promotes the notion of "Education for Sustainability" in schools across the country - from kindergarten through the universities.

Cortese, president of the organization that is financed principally by Teresa Heinz Kerry's foundations, made clear the breadth of the group's agenda when he said: "And humans are guided by a whole set of beliefs and values, and those come from culture, from religion, from social, economic, and political structure. We need to change all of those."

Holly Swanson, a critic of the radical environmental movement and author of "Set Up & Sold Out," said the beliefs Second Nature is advocating parallel those of the international Green parties.  

"It's time to question the assumption that any idea that has to do with the environment is automatically a good idea," she said. "Education for Sustainability is a prime example. Education for Sustainability is the vehicle to slip Green beliefs into the curriculum and slide the political goals right past students, teachers, parents, politicians and the American people. Second Nature' radical goals are buried beneath environmental rhetoric such as: 'Second Nature . is dedicated to making environmentally just and sustainable action central to learning and practice of education at all levels.'"

Swanson says that represents the political exploitation of children and the use of education as a tool to indoctrinate.

"Education for Sustainability is one of the most important issues of our time because it involves the education of our children and therefore, the future of our nation," she said. "Cortese refers to Education for Sustainability as a 'bold experiment.' We do not send our precious children to school so political extremists can `experiment' with their lives and `redirect' their beliefs."

Second Nature was founded in Boston in 1993 by Cortese, Kerry and his wife, according to the organization's website.

"When we began, we envisioned a path to start transnorming our relationship with nature and each other through the transnormation of education - a high leverage way to affect change throughout society," wrote Cortese. "We realized the immense benefits of, and sought to promote, a learning environment providing the awareness, knowledge, skills and values to help all current and future generations achieve good health, economic security, social equity and stability while restoring and sustaining the Earth's life support systems. We focused our work on the wisdom of creating a society in which this would happen. We imagined a world where all current and future people are healthy, live in socially vibrant and culturally diverse communities have personal and economic security, fully participate in governance of society and our life support system is biologically diverse and sustainable."

Cortese was normerly commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and, according to a source within the Kerry campaign, will be a top consideration for the job of director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency if Kerry is elected Tuesday. He is also a founding member of the Board of Councilors for the China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development.

Both Kerry and his wife currently serve as members of the board of directors of Second Nature, a non-profit group.

WorldNetDaily columnist Henry Lamb, executive vice president of the Environmental Conservatin Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International, says most Americans have now heard the word "sustainability" over and over again yet don't really know what is meant by the term. He says the concept was first developed in a 1987 United Nations report by Gro Harlem Brundtland, vice president of the World Socialist Party.

"'Sustainability' ... is not simply a comprehensive approach to environmental protection," he explains. "The recurring theme throughout the sustainability literature is the integration of 'economic, equity, and environmental' policies. That grandiose language is translated by specific policy recommendations which use the environment as an excuse to manage the economy to achieve social equity."

Lamb says the arbiters of sustainability have already determined air conditioning, convenience foods, single-family housing and cars have to go. "Equity," he says, "means forcing those who produce an income to provide for those who do not." And "Environmental protection," he says, "means constraining individual freedom to accommodate 'management' to prevent the impending impoverishment of the planet."

Cortese doesn't limit himself to environmental activism. A week after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Cortese was one of the celebrity signers of a petition denouncing any future military action in response. He was joined by Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Mike Farrell, Bonnie Raitt, Marcus Raskin pf the Marxist Institute for Policy Studies. David Salniker, executive director of the Tides Center, a foundation supported by Teresa Heinz Kerry, Martin Sheen and Gloria Steinem.

Cortese is also the author of "Walls and Bridges: Social Justice and Public Policy," "Provocateur" and "Ethnic Ethics: The Restructuring of Moral Theory."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41196


Monday, November 1, 2004

 

Kerry's Discharge Questioned by an Ex-JAG Officer

"Kerry's Discharge Is Questioned by an Ex-JAG Officer

BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB - Special to the Sun
November 1, 2004

A normer officer in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve has built a case that Senator Kerry was other than honorably discharged from the Navy by 1975, The New York Sun has learned.

The "honorable discharge" on the Kerry Web site appears to be a Carter administration substitute for an original action expunged from Mr. Kerry's record, according to Mark Sullivan, who retired as a captain in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve in 2003 after 33 years of service as a judge advocate. Mr. Sullivan served in the office of the Secretary of the Navy between 1975 and 1977.

On behalf of the Kerry campaign, Michael Meehan and others have repeatedly insisted that all of Mr. Kerry's military records are on his Web site atjohnkerry.com, except for his medical records.

"If that is the case," Mr. Sullivan said, "the true story isn't what was on the Web site. It's what's missing. There should have been an honorable discharge certificate issued to Kerry in 1975,if not earlier, three years after his transfer to the Standby Reserve-Inactive."

Another retired Navy Reserve officer, who served three tours in the Navy's Bureau of Personnel, points out that there should also have been a certified letter giving Mr. Kerry a choice of a reserve reaffiliation or separation and discharge. If Mr. Meehan is correct and all the documents are indeed on the Web site, the absence of any documents from 1972 to 1978 in the posted Kerry files is a glaring hole in the record.

The applicable U.S. Navy regulation, now found at MILPERSMAN 1920-210 "Types of Discharge for Officers," lists five examples of conditions required to receive an honorable discharge certificate, four required to receive a general discharge "not of such a nature as to require discharge under conditions other than honorable," and seven for "the lowest type of separation from the naval service. It is now officially in all respects equivalent to a dishonorable discharge."

Kerry spokesmen have also repeatedly said that the senator has an honorable discharge. And there is indeed a cover letter to an honorable discharge dated February 16,1978,on the Kerry Web site. It is in norm and reference to regulation exactly the same as one granted Swiftboat Veterans for Truth member Robert Shirley on March 12, 1971, during a periodic "reduction in force (RIF)" by the Naval Reserve. The only significant difference between Mr. Kerry's and Mr. Shirley's is the signature innormation and the dates. In a RIF, officers who no longer have skills or are of an age group the Navy wishes to keep in reserve are involuntarily separated by the Navy and given their appropriate discharge. This is a normal and ongoing activity and there is no stigma attached to it.

Kerry spokesman David Wade did not reply when asked if Mr. Kerry was other than honorably discharged before he was honorably discharged.

"Mr. Meehan may well be right and all Mr. Kerry's military records are on his Web site," Mr. Sullivan said. "Unlike en listed members, officers do not receive other than honorable, or dishonorable, certificates of discharge. To the contrary, the rule is that no certificate will be awarded to an officer separated wherever the circumstances prompting separation are not deemed consonant with traditional naval concepts of honor. The absence of an honorable discharge certificate for a separated naval officer is, therefore, a harsh and severe sanction and is, in fact, the treatment given officers who are dismissed after a general court-martial."

With the only discharge document cited by Mr. Kerry issued in 1978, three years after the last date it should have been issued, the absence of a certificate from 1975 leaves only two possibilities. Either Mr. Kerry received an "other than honorable" certificate that has been removed in a review purging it from his records, or even worse, he received no certificate at all. In both cases there would have been a loss of all of Mr. Kerry's medals and the suspension of all benefits of service.

Certainly something was wrong as early as 1973 when Mr. Kerry was applying to law school.

Mr. Kerry has said, "I applied to Harvard, Boston University, and Boston College. I was extremely late. Only BC would entertain a late application."

It is hard to see why Mr. Kerry had to file an "extremely late" application since he lost the congressional race in Lowell, Mass., the first week of November 1972 and was basically doing nothing until he entered law school the following September of 1973.A member of the Harvard Law School admissions committee recalled that the real reason Mr. Kerry was not admitted was because the committee was concerned that because Mr. Kerry had received a less than honorable discharge they were not sure he could be admitted to any state bar.

The fact that Mr. Kerry had cancelled his candidacy for a Congressional seat in 1970 in favor of Father Robert Drinan cannot have hurt Mr. Kerry's admission to Boston College. The Reverend Robert Drinan's previous position was dean of the Boston College Law School.

Given this, it is likely that a legal review took place that effectively purged Mr. Kerry's Navy files and arranged for the three-year-late honorable discharge in 1978.There were two avenues during the 1977-1978 time period. This could have been under President Carter's Executive Order 11967, under which thousands received pardons and upgrades for harsh discharges or other offenses under the Selective Service Act. Or it might have merged into efforts by the military to comply with the demands of the 1975 Church Committee. Mr. Sullivan was personally involved in the 1976 and 1977 records review answering Senator Kennedy's demands to determine the scope of any counterintelligence abuses by the military.

In the Foreign Surveillance Act of 1977, legislation introduced by Mr. Kennedy to enforce the findings of the Church Committee, there is language that literally describes the behavior of Mr. Kerry. The defined behavior that could no longer be subject to surveillance without warrants includes: "Americans having contact with foreign powers in the case of Americans who were active in the protest against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Some of them may have attended international conferences at which there were representatives of foreign powers, as defined in the bill, or may have been directly in communication with foreign governments concerning this issue."

One of Mr. Kerry's first acts of office as he entered the Senate on January 3, 1985, was making sure what was still in the Navy files. A report was returned to Mr. Kerry by a Navy JAG on January 25, 1985, and appears on the Kerry Web site. There is an enclosure listed that may have contained a list of files, according to David Myers, the JAG who prepared it, that is not on Mr. Kerry's Web site. It could have provided an index for all of Mr. Kerry's Navy files.

All officials with knowledge of what specifically happened in Mr. Kerry's case are muzzled by the Privacy Act of 1974.The act makes it a crime for federal employees to knowingly disclose personal innormation or records.

Only Mr. Kerry can do that. As of this writing, Mr. Kerry has failed to sign a Standard Form 180 giving the electorate and the press access to his Navy files.

http://www.nysun.com/article/4040


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