Cambodia Revisited (again)

[britinusa]

The Kerry campaign have changed there story several times. It's so hard to keep up. First, they said it wasn't Christmas '68 but January '69; also, he didn't actually enter Cambodia, but was very close to the border. No, wait! He may have accidently crossed the border. The Kerry campaign and its surrogates even tried to suggest that the Mekong river forms the border between southern Vietnmam and Cambodia. It doesn't.

Now they claim Kerry ferried a Navy Seal into Cambodia. So what are we to make of this? Sometime in January 1969 Kerry was tooling along, minding his own business, when he accidently crossed into Cambodia. "Dammit!" Lieutenant Kerry exclaims. "And look at that! A bunch of drunken South Vietnamese Buddhist soldiers celebrating Christmas are firing on us." Kerry's face brightens. "Hey, I've got an idea. We don't we drop off this Navy Seal guy who just happens to be on board?"

 

[britinusa]

As you can see on the map; there are only two points at which a river boat could cross the border. Each must have been heavily guarded. I don't think they would miss a loud, fifty feet long swift boat.

 

[AequitasVeritas]

Sometimes I wonder if the Kerry camp goes behind closed doors and laughs hysterically about how many people they have fooled.

 

[insein]

Same as MM. Only moore laughs with a chicken bone in his craw and a wad of cash in his pants. So many stupid people in America.

 

[Hobbit]

"I went into Cambodia before I stayed in Vietnam."

It's like 1984. Kerry changes positions in mid speech and the Dems all pretend it's what he's been saying since the beginning of time.

 

[britinusa]

Why was Kerry so outraged that Nixon... er, I mean LBJ sent people into Cambodia when the North Vietnamese had five divisions there?
If Kerry found out that our special ops were operating today in Syria and Iran, would this be a "turning point in his life"? Would it be "seared" in his memory?

 

[britinusa]

OK, the Mekong river DOES form a small part of the Vietnam/Cambodia border. Also, there is a section of canal that runs within a mile of the border for a few miles. I found a link to a very detailed map on the Power Line Blog.
But I don't see how Kerry could "accidently" stray into Cambodia. In order to do this, he would have to turn ninety degrees, travel up the river bank and into Cambodia... by accident. If Kerry dropped off some Navy Seal guy, Kerry's boat would simply stop at the river bank, drop the guy off and continue on its merry way. Kerry, his boat and his crew wouldn't need to violate Cambodia's so-called neutrality.
The points at which waterways dissect the border (more than two as I stated earlier, but not many more) would have been heavily guarded.

 

[Merlin1047]

E-mailed to me. I got a major chuckle out of this one.
==========================================


The Cambodian candidate
Tony Blankley August 18, 2004

Only a few short weeks ago, John Kerry was enjoying the temperate climate and familiar old stones of his native Boston. But now, as if in a "Twilight Zone" nightmare, he finds himself stumbling about, half lost in the steamy jungles of the Mekong Delta. It's 1968 again, or is it 1969?

The Doors blasts from the radio: "This is the end, beautiful friend, This is the end, My only friend, the end ... " He wakes up: "Saigon, damn. I'm still only in Saigon. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I'd wake up, and there'd be nothing ... I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a divorce. When I was here, I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle ..." (opening voiceover of Martin Sheen's character, Capt. Willard, from "Apocalypse Now").

"On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in "Apocalypse Now," took my patrol boat into Cambodia. In fact, I remember spending Christmas Eve, 1968, five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies, who were drunk and celebrating Christmas ... But nowhere in "Apocalypse Now" did I sense that kind of absurdity ... " (Senator John Kerry, Congressional Record, March 27, 1986).

He is either in Cambodia or somewhere damn near. He is either exchanging fire with the Khmer Rouge -- which would make it no earlier than 1972. Or it's 1968, and he is being shot at by drunken South Vietnamese soldiers celebrating Christmas Eve (a fine old Buddhist holiday). He was either there inadvertently, without orders, or on special assignment dropping CIA agents and SEALs behind enemy lines.

Last week, the Kerry campaign released a statement asserting that: "During John Kerry's service in Vietnam, many times he was on or near the Cambodian border, and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group operating out of Ha Tien ... Kerry's was not the only United States riverboat to respond and inadvertently or responsibly cross the border ... " In any event he was, as his campaign spokesman said last week, somewhere on the Mekong River, which separates Cambodia from Vietnam -- except that the Mekong does not separate those two countries; it crosses perpendicular to their border.

Then it was announced in the London Daily Telegraph by Douglas Brinkley -- Kerry's biographer, confidante and enabler -- that Kerry was mistaken about being in Cambodia in Christmas of 1968, but "Kerry went into Cambodian waters three or four times in January and February, 1969, on clandestine missions. He had a run dropping off U.S. Navy Seals, Green Berets and CIA guys." The missions were not armed attacks on Cambodia, Mr. Brinkley informed the newspaper, and he had not included these secret missions in his biography of John Kerry. "He was a ferry master, a drop off guy, but it was dangerous as hell."

Sort of like the patrol boat captain who took Capt. Willard on a mission to "proceed up the Nung River in a Navy Patrol boat. Pick up Col. Kurtz's path, and terminate the colonel ... with extreme prejudice ... .You understand, Captain, that this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist" (Col. Lucas in "Apocalypse Now").

Did John Kerry's mission ever exist? Was it known only to the CIA and God -- or not even to them? Is John Kerry dreaming of being Martin Sheen's Capt. Willard in "Apocalypse Now" or Martin Sheen's President Bartlet in "The West Wing"? That is the thing about dreams: They merge and twist, and generally lack linear reality.

It may now be dawning on John Kerry that he is living out Colonel Kurtz's Cambodian nightmare: "I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor ... and surviving." So far, John Kerry continues to slither ... and survive.

But the American political jungle is every bit as disorienting and suddenly lethal as the one he emerged from 30 years ago. John Kerry's tangled memory and war braggadocio has been mismanaged by him and his campaign team. They have given too many inconsistent answers, thus forcing the hand of major media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report, Knight-Ridder and the Boston Globe to start reporting the story.

Even self-admitted Kerry supporter Joan Vennochi wrote in her Boston Globe column this week that: "Kerry's statements about Cambodia do have traction for opponents ... (his spokesmen's) answer aren't good enough. ... He should answer every question voters have about it -- and he should answer himself."

I love the smell of political lies in the morning. ... The smell, you know ... smells like ... defeat.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

E-mailed to me. I got a major chuckle out of this one.
==========================================


The Cambodian candidate
Tony Blankley August 18, 2004

Only a few short weeks ago, John Kerry was enjoying the temperate climate and familiar old stones of his native Boston. But now, as if in a "Twilight Zone" nightmare, he finds himself stumbling about, half lost in the steamy jungles of the Mekong Delta. It's 1968 again, or is it 1969?

The Doors blasts from the radio: "This is the end, beautiful friend, This is the end, My only friend, the end ... " He wakes up: "Saigon, damn. I'm still only in Saigon. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I'd wake up, and there'd be nothing ... I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a divorce. When I was here, I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle ..." (opening voiceover of Martin Sheen's character, Capt. Willard, from "Apocalypse Now").

"On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in "Apocalypse Now," took my patrol boat into Cambodia. In fact, I remember spending Christmas Eve, 1968, five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies, who were drunk and celebrating Christmas ... But nowhere in "Apocalypse Now" did I sense that kind of absurdity ... " (Senator John Kerry, Congressional Record, March 27, 1986).

He is either in Cambodia or somewhere damn near. He is either exchanging fire with the Khmer Rouge -- which would make it no earlier than 1972. Or it's 1968, and he is being shot at by drunken South Vietnamese soldiers celebrating Christmas Eve (a fine old Buddhist holiday). He was either there inadvertently, without orders, or on special assignment dropping CIA agents and SEALs behind enemy lines.

Last week, the Kerry campaign released a statement asserting that: "During John Kerry's service in Vietnam, many times he was on or near the Cambodian border, and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group operating out of Ha Tien ... Kerry's was not the only United States riverboat to respond and inadvertently or responsibly cross the border ... " In any event he was, as his campaign spokesman said last week, somewhere on the Mekong River, which separates Cambodia from Vietnam -- except that the Mekong does not separate those two countries; it crosses perpendicular to their border.

Then it was announced in the London Daily Telegraph by Douglas Brinkley -- Kerry's biographer, confidante and enabler -- that Kerry was mistaken about being in Cambodia in Christmas of 1968, but "Kerry went into Cambodian waters three or four times in January and February, 1969, on clandestine missions. He had a run dropping off U.S. Navy Seals, Green Berets and CIA guys." The missions were not armed attacks on Cambodia, Mr. Brinkley informed the newspaper, and he had not included these secret missions in his biography of John Kerry. "He was a ferry master, a drop off guy, but it was dangerous as hell."

Sort of like the patrol boat captain who took Capt. Willard on a mission to "proceed up the Nung River in a Navy Patrol boat. Pick up Col. Kurtz's path, and terminate the colonel ... with extreme prejudice ... .You understand, Captain, that this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist" (Col. Lucas in "Apocalypse Now").

Did John Kerry's mission ever exist? Was it known only to the CIA and God -- or not even to them? Is John Kerry dreaming of being Martin Sheen's Capt. Willard in "Apocalypse Now" or Martin Sheen's President Bartlet in "The West Wing"? That is the thing about dreams: They merge and twist, and generally lack linear reality.

It may now be dawning on John Kerry that he is living out Colonel Kurtz's Cambodian nightmare: "I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor ... and surviving." So far, John Kerry continues to slither ... and survive.

But the American political jungle is every bit as disorienting and suddenly lethal as the one he emerged from 30 years ago. John Kerry's tangled memory and war braggadocio has been mismanaged by him and his campaign team. They have given too many inconsistent answers, thus forcing the hand of major media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report, Knight-Ridder and the Boston Globe to start reporting the story.

Even self-admitted Kerry supporter Joan Vennochi wrote in her Boston Globe column this week that: "Kerry's statements about Cambodia do have traction for opponents ... (his spokesmen's) answer aren't good enough. ... He should answer every question voters have about it -- and he should answer himself."

I love the smell of political lies in the morning. ... The smell, you know ... smells like ... defeat.

:teeth:

:clap1: That was hilarious even though it reminded me of that stupid movie.

Maybe that was when Kerry saw and participated in all those atrocities.

The horror.......the horror!