New revelations about McCain torpedo his already vain attempts to become
president.
John McCain proudly received John Hagee's support and even spoke at his
university's commencement.
Reverend John Hagee has called the Catholic Church the "Great Whore."
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1393
He has said that the Anti-Christ will rise out of the European Union
http://www.alternet.org/story/39748/?page=1
(of course, the
Anti-Christ will also be Jewish
http://www.raptureready.com/faq/faq72.html).
He has said all Muslims are trained to kill
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/28/hagee/index.html
and
will be part of the devil's army when Armageddon comes (which he hopes
is soon). http://youtube.com/watch?v=mOsYSwNrlBo
John McCain continues to say he is proud of Reverend Hagee's
endorsement.
Luck Of The Admiral's Son Not For "Grunts"
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
October 1999
George Smith and Claude McClure
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.
McCain and Vo Van Kiet
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.
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