Sixgun Symphony
03-12-2004, 12:41 PM
by Guest Columnist:
Adam Teiichi Yoshida
I’ve always wondered if it were possible for someone to get elected President with a truly secret agenda in the back of their mind. Could a sufficiently determined individual mouth the right platitudes, do the right things, get to know the right people, and then take hold of the greatest office in the land and use it for some strange purpose?
Such things are hardly unknown. Our recent history is filled with examples of covert agents how managed to remain under cover for years or even decades. Look at how high the Cambridge Spies rose in Britain before their fall. Or look at Robert Hansen and Aldrich Ames. They managed to pull off their deceptions for years without being detected. And this, I might add, they managed despite the fact that, to do their work, they needed to be known to Soviet (or Russian) intelligence and actively cooperate with them, thereby opening up any number of chances for exposure.
But what if someone was a really deep sleeper agent? Or simply a rogue individual with a private agenda? How could they be detected? How could they be stopped?
That brings us to this question: just how radical was John Forbes Kerry in the early 1970’s? How have his positions changed since that time? Has he ever renounced any of the positions that he held in the past? These are important questions that the media needs to ask and have answered. In his 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he made mention of the “Indian Nation of Alcatraz”, an apparent reference to the seizure of that island by a group of Indian radicals. Does John Kerry still believe that there is a right of secession from the United States? Does he believe that Indians have a right to seize American land at will?
In 1971 John Kerry accused American soldiers in Vietnam of a variety of war crimes and went on to proclaim that he himself had committed war crimes. Does he still believe this to be true? If so, ought he be tried for the crimes that he committed? If he does not believe that he or the other war criminals he cited should be tried, what does he think of the Nuremberg Tribunals, the Tokyo war crimes trials, or other, more recent, war crimes tribunals where various individuals who were merely “following orders”?
In 1984 John Kerry won the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in Massachusetts and went on to win the election partially as a result of his strong support of a “Nuclear Freeze”, a move which would have involved unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United States in the face of the Soviet threat. Does he still believe that unilateral disarmament would have been a good idea? If not, what changed his mind?
It’s wrong to castigate a politician for “flip-flopping” every time they change their position on an issue. Sometimes events truly change people’s minds. This seems to have certainly been the case with George W. Bush and “nation-building.” He was opposed, then 9-11 came, and he changed his mind. Politicians are bombarded with information every day, it is hardly surprising that some of it will, sometimes, lead them to new opinions.
That being said, John Kerry’s flip-flops have been so common, so inexplicable, and so often self-contradictory that one begins to wonder if he has any political principles at all. He’s liberal, sure: but he’s also from Massachusetts, so that’s nothing less than a political necessity.
To put it very mildly, it is not uncommon to find politicians who will say anything to get elected. Such people run for President not out of any great conviction save a narcissistic belief that they “deserve” the job. Nothing in John Kerry’s past would suggest that such a conclusion is unthinkable. Yet still, I am left with something of a deeper fear.
There is a second reason, beyond personal ambition and vanity, that a major politician may outwardly seem to have no major convictions: they have secret convictions that they don’t want to tell us about. They purposefully deceive the public because they are well aware that the voter will never willingly accept their ideas.
I’ve always found the history of young John Kerry to be an odd one. When he graduated from Yale in 1966, he gave a speech in which he attacked US foreign policy. Yet, almost immediately afterwards, he joined the Navy. Now, more recently, it has emerged that he joined the service only after his request for permission to study in France (thereby extending his draft exemption) was denied. Yet still: it strikes one as rather strange.
In Vietnam, John Kerry behaved like someone out to burnish a resume. He actually brought with him a film camera which he used to create films for later use. He kept a daily journal which he managed to type up. His refusal to release his military records (something that his surrogates angrily demanded of George W. Bush) is also troubling.
When he came back, and found the war unpopular, he turned to the radical left- becoming a leader of the anti-war movement. He even went so far as to actually commit the treasonous act of personally meeting with representatives of the enemy in an effort to “negotiate” with them.
In his 1970 run for Congress, Kerry claimed to be an “internationalist” and to believe that US troops ought to only be dispatched only at the orders of the United Nations. Through the “Winter Soldier Investigation” and other means, he spread anti-American propaganda of the same sort spread by the KGB. In the Senate he supported unilateral American disarmament, voted to cut virtually every useful defense program, voted to gut the intelligence community, deliberately obstructed efforts to fight the spread of communism in the world, reportedly sabotaged an investigation into American POW’s still held by Vietnam, and then pushed for full relations with that country.
To the best of my knowledge he has never foresworn any of the positions he once held. Indeed, he openly brags of some of them to this very day, though he is generally silent about the majority. I begin to wonder: did the radical John Kerry ever go away, or did he just go into hiding? Certainly, by most accounts he held near-communist views at that time. The people he associated with were radicals Maoists and their ilk. Everything he has done since that time has been directed towards the political advancement of John Kerry- all the way to the White House. But what is he taking into that place?
The old Soviet Union certainly had sleeper agents in the United States. While some were spies, many were simply waiting for the day on which they’d be called to action. They’d have been used to sabotage the American war effort, damage morale, and pull off all sorts of other nastiness. It is generally expected that a large number of your sleepers will eventually go native and simply decide to live in the society which they were sent to subvert. But some don’t. Some are so loyal that they never will.
What happened to all of those people when Soviet Communism fell? Did they all throw up their hands and quit? Certainly some of them would have. But almost as certainly some would not have. They’re still out there. They’re probably angry and, given that they’d have been recruited at least a decade and a half ago (and most of them long, long before that) some of them might well be in positions of power.
Now, I doubt if John Kerry is or was a Soviet agent of influence. Though, with equal certainly, I’d add that it doesn’t seem entirely impossible either: he couldn’t have done much more to help the Soviet Union had he been on the payroll of the KGB. Hell, he should have received the Order of Lenin for his efforts regarding Vietnam alone. Maybe he did. He might have thrown it away. Or perhaps he threw someone else’s Order of Lenin away. Who knows?
Or perhaps John Kerry never had any contacts with the Soviets. But he has never let go of the bizarre convictions of his youth. Perhaps he holds within him the spirit of the age of Aquarius, and he’s waiting until the right time to let it out. After all, it’s now pretty well established that Democrats will do just about anything to save an incumbent President of theirs. If President Kerry went on TV and announced his plan to communize America, I’m quite certain that a majority of Democrats would be ready to jump in line.
John Kerry may well now believe Communism to be repellant. If so, good for him: but he ought to say so. If one picture emerged of George W. Bush, in 1970, of raising his arm in what vaguely appeared to be a Nazi salute, the media would cover it for weeks. Why, then, has no one in the mainstream media probed John Kerry’s ties to an evil which, at the very least, is the equal of Nazism? Don’t answer: we all already know.
Adam Teiichi Yoshida
I’ve always wondered if it were possible for someone to get elected President with a truly secret agenda in the back of their mind. Could a sufficiently determined individual mouth the right platitudes, do the right things, get to know the right people, and then take hold of the greatest office in the land and use it for some strange purpose?
Such things are hardly unknown. Our recent history is filled with examples of covert agents how managed to remain under cover for years or even decades. Look at how high the Cambridge Spies rose in Britain before their fall. Or look at Robert Hansen and Aldrich Ames. They managed to pull off their deceptions for years without being detected. And this, I might add, they managed despite the fact that, to do their work, they needed to be known to Soviet (or Russian) intelligence and actively cooperate with them, thereby opening up any number of chances for exposure.
But what if someone was a really deep sleeper agent? Or simply a rogue individual with a private agenda? How could they be detected? How could they be stopped?
That brings us to this question: just how radical was John Forbes Kerry in the early 1970’s? How have his positions changed since that time? Has he ever renounced any of the positions that he held in the past? These are important questions that the media needs to ask and have answered. In his 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he made mention of the “Indian Nation of Alcatraz”, an apparent reference to the seizure of that island by a group of Indian radicals. Does John Kerry still believe that there is a right of secession from the United States? Does he believe that Indians have a right to seize American land at will?
In 1971 John Kerry accused American soldiers in Vietnam of a variety of war crimes and went on to proclaim that he himself had committed war crimes. Does he still believe this to be true? If so, ought he be tried for the crimes that he committed? If he does not believe that he or the other war criminals he cited should be tried, what does he think of the Nuremberg Tribunals, the Tokyo war crimes trials, or other, more recent, war crimes tribunals where various individuals who were merely “following orders”?
In 1984 John Kerry won the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in Massachusetts and went on to win the election partially as a result of his strong support of a “Nuclear Freeze”, a move which would have involved unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United States in the face of the Soviet threat. Does he still believe that unilateral disarmament would have been a good idea? If not, what changed his mind?
It’s wrong to castigate a politician for “flip-flopping” every time they change their position on an issue. Sometimes events truly change people’s minds. This seems to have certainly been the case with George W. Bush and “nation-building.” He was opposed, then 9-11 came, and he changed his mind. Politicians are bombarded with information every day, it is hardly surprising that some of it will, sometimes, lead them to new opinions.
That being said, John Kerry’s flip-flops have been so common, so inexplicable, and so often self-contradictory that one begins to wonder if he has any political principles at all. He’s liberal, sure: but he’s also from Massachusetts, so that’s nothing less than a political necessity.
To put it very mildly, it is not uncommon to find politicians who will say anything to get elected. Such people run for President not out of any great conviction save a narcissistic belief that they “deserve” the job. Nothing in John Kerry’s past would suggest that such a conclusion is unthinkable. Yet still, I am left with something of a deeper fear.
There is a second reason, beyond personal ambition and vanity, that a major politician may outwardly seem to have no major convictions: they have secret convictions that they don’t want to tell us about. They purposefully deceive the public because they are well aware that the voter will never willingly accept their ideas.
I’ve always found the history of young John Kerry to be an odd one. When he graduated from Yale in 1966, he gave a speech in which he attacked US foreign policy. Yet, almost immediately afterwards, he joined the Navy. Now, more recently, it has emerged that he joined the service only after his request for permission to study in France (thereby extending his draft exemption) was denied. Yet still: it strikes one as rather strange.
In Vietnam, John Kerry behaved like someone out to burnish a resume. He actually brought with him a film camera which he used to create films for later use. He kept a daily journal which he managed to type up. His refusal to release his military records (something that his surrogates angrily demanded of George W. Bush) is also troubling.
When he came back, and found the war unpopular, he turned to the radical left- becoming a leader of the anti-war movement. He even went so far as to actually commit the treasonous act of personally meeting with representatives of the enemy in an effort to “negotiate” with them.
In his 1970 run for Congress, Kerry claimed to be an “internationalist” and to believe that US troops ought to only be dispatched only at the orders of the United Nations. Through the “Winter Soldier Investigation” and other means, he spread anti-American propaganda of the same sort spread by the KGB. In the Senate he supported unilateral American disarmament, voted to cut virtually every useful defense program, voted to gut the intelligence community, deliberately obstructed efforts to fight the spread of communism in the world, reportedly sabotaged an investigation into American POW’s still held by Vietnam, and then pushed for full relations with that country.
To the best of my knowledge he has never foresworn any of the positions he once held. Indeed, he openly brags of some of them to this very day, though he is generally silent about the majority. I begin to wonder: did the radical John Kerry ever go away, or did he just go into hiding? Certainly, by most accounts he held near-communist views at that time. The people he associated with were radicals Maoists and their ilk. Everything he has done since that time has been directed towards the political advancement of John Kerry- all the way to the White House. But what is he taking into that place?
The old Soviet Union certainly had sleeper agents in the United States. While some were spies, many were simply waiting for the day on which they’d be called to action. They’d have been used to sabotage the American war effort, damage morale, and pull off all sorts of other nastiness. It is generally expected that a large number of your sleepers will eventually go native and simply decide to live in the society which they were sent to subvert. But some don’t. Some are so loyal that they never will.
What happened to all of those people when Soviet Communism fell? Did they all throw up their hands and quit? Certainly some of them would have. But almost as certainly some would not have. They’re still out there. They’re probably angry and, given that they’d have been recruited at least a decade and a half ago (and most of them long, long before that) some of them might well be in positions of power.
Now, I doubt if John Kerry is or was a Soviet agent of influence. Though, with equal certainly, I’d add that it doesn’t seem entirely impossible either: he couldn’t have done much more to help the Soviet Union had he been on the payroll of the KGB. Hell, he should have received the Order of Lenin for his efforts regarding Vietnam alone. Maybe he did. He might have thrown it away. Or perhaps he threw someone else’s Order of Lenin away. Who knows?
Or perhaps John Kerry never had any contacts with the Soviets. But he has never let go of the bizarre convictions of his youth. Perhaps he holds within him the spirit of the age of Aquarius, and he’s waiting until the right time to let it out. After all, it’s now pretty well established that Democrats will do just about anything to save an incumbent President of theirs. If President Kerry went on TV and announced his plan to communize America, I’m quite certain that a majority of Democrats would be ready to jump in line.
John Kerry may well now believe Communism to be repellant. If so, good for him: but he ought to say so. If one picture emerged of George W. Bush, in 1970, of raising his arm in what vaguely appeared to be a Nazi salute, the media would cover it for weeks. Why, then, has no one in the mainstream media probed John Kerry’s ties to an evil which, at the very least, is the equal of Nazism? Don’t answer: we all already know.