"la n." <nilita2004@NOSPAMyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2nff45Fcps4U1@uni-berlin.de...

"Adam H." <adam@mailinator.com> wrote in message
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On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 17:37:35 GMT, Gactimus <gactimus@xrs.net> wrote:

Adam H. <adam@mailinator.com> wrote in
news:mso4h0pshmdm7d1qc5rdm0idfl4cv0l0sa@4ax.com:

On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 11:10:10 GMT, Gactimus <gactimus@xrs.net> wrote:

"ouroboros rex" <c-bee1@itg.uiuc.edu> wrote in
news:ces135$894$1@news.ks.uiuc.edu:

"Gactimus" <gactimus@xrs.net> wrote in message
news:bc1b3f5ed44aaaf1c77e137acd0a7098@news.bubbanews.com...

"ouroboros rex" <c-bee1@itg.uiuc.edu> wrote in
news:ceqr80$oev$1@news.ks.uiuc.edu:

"Gactimus" <gactimus@xrs.net> wrote in message
news:Xns953B4FDB537F9YX@alaska.local...

http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php?topic=SwiftPhoto

This photograph of John Kerry and 19 other Coastal Division 11
Swift boat officers was taken at Ton Son Nhut Air Base on

January

22, 1969, immediately following a meeting with General Abrams

and

Admiral Zumwalt.

The Kerry campaign featured the photograph in an advertisement
released in May titled Lifetime. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

has

contacted surviving members of this group to find out how many
actually support John Kerry, and discovered that of 19 Swift

boat

skippers pictured other than Kerry, 12 consider him unfit, 4 are
neutral, two have died, and 1 is working with the Kerry

campaign.

Four other officers were not present for the photo session; all
oppose Kerry.

Only 1 of John Kerry's 23 fellow Swift boat commanders from

Coastal

Division 11 supports his candidacy today.

Oddly enough none of them served under him.

All the men in the photograph served with John Kerry.

I said under, dumbass.

No difference.

* On May 17, 2004, Matt Gunn shares a segment from Joe Conason's
recent registration-required Salon "uncovering" of "yet more 'Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth' Republican ties, as if there weren't enough
on record already" [Gunn comments]:

"When the 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' launched its campaign
against John Kerry 10 days ago, leadership and guidance were provided
by Republican activists and presidential friends from Texas --

notably

Houston attorney John E. O'Neill and corporate media consultant

Merrie

Spaeth.

"On closer inspection, the ostensibly nonpartisan 'Swift Boat
Vets' seem to have another pair of significant sponsors with deep and
long-standing Republican connections in Missouri. Both are officers

of

Gannon International, a St. Louis conglomerate that does lots of
overseas business in, of all places, the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam.

"Ties to Gannon can be traced via the Swift Boat Vets Web site

...

On April 14, the site was registered under the name of Lewis

Waterman,

Gannon's information technology manager, at 11301 Olive Boulevard in
St. Louis, the firm's headquarters address. Although Waterman

wouldn't

discuss why he had set up the Web site, he didn't deny that his boss,
Gannon president and CEO William Franke, had asked him to do so.

"'The information about my client is confidential,' said

Waterman.

He acknowledged knowing, however, that his boss Franke is a Navy
veteran who served in Vietnam on swift boats. Gannon vice president
Stephen D. Hayes, who oversees the company's office in Alexandria,
Va., is likewise a swift boat veteran who first met Franke when they
served together in the Mekong Delta."

"What is most intriguing about Franke, Hayes, and Gannon --
especially in light of their apparent role in the campaign against
John Kerry -- are their strong commercial interests in Southeast

Asia.

While Gannon is a highly diversified holding company whose divisions
range from real estate in Florida and Missouri to Internet technology
and software, it maintains an unusual presence in Vietnam, with
offices in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Indeed, Gannon has
operated in that country's tourism, real estate and import-export
sectors for a decade. (The target market for its tours was fellow
Vietnam veterans.)

"None of Gannon's profitable activities in the communist republic
would be possible, of course, without the approval of the Hanoi
government, which Franke has described as 'strong' and 'stable.' Nor
would Gannon be conducting business in Vietnam without the Clinton
administration diplomacy, assisted by Sen. Kerry, that established
diplomatic and trade ties with the United States in 1994. Franke

first

began traveling to Vietnam on behalf of Operation Smile, an American
charity that provides plastic surgery to children abroad. The
relationships he established during those humanitarian missions
provided a considerable advantage in doing business under government
auspices.

"It was also during those early visits to Vietnam, as he told the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, that Franke reached a clearer understanding
of the war he had once fought as a young Navy lieutenant.

"'As I looked back 20 years, I saw that it was a very imperial
relationship we had with these people,' said Franke in 1989. 'We were
young. We were there because we were told to be there and that they
were the enemy. This time I saw them as human beings who had fears

and

hopes the same as we.'

"Yet he evidently cannot forgive John Kerry for reaching the same
conclusion about that war and its victims, so many years before he
finally did."

(from

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Trut

h)

And what does that have to do with the validity of their statements?

Any group that can't even tell the truth about their partisanship (a
point you weren't honest enough to leave in, I see) obviously can't be
trusted when they attack the *other* party's candidate, and any group
that attacks someone for views held by their own members is equally
suspect. That's beside the lies told in the ads they take part in.

Swift Vets is a Republican love fest. There's no 'non-partisan'
thought here, as they claim.

I just heard on the news that the White House is trying to
dissociate itself from the Swift Vets Against Kerry
advertising campaign , with
a statement that "The White House has never questioned
Kerry's military service."

On some show on CNN tonight, a "swift boat veteran
against Kerry is going to be interviewed with a veteran
who served under Kerry and remains Kerry's supporter.

btw, Sen. John McCain specifically asked the White House
to denounce the ads of the "Vets against Kerry", which the
White House did. McCain mentioned that he, himself, was
the victim of murmurings of denouncement against his own
military service by Bush people when he was running against
Bush for the GOP leadership.

"la n." <nilita2004@NOSPAMyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2nff45Fcps4U1@uni-berlin.de...

"Adam H." <adam@mailinator.com> wrote in message
news:qvs4h0diko73vnbqqkklbtpdpfmvo665qm@4ax.com...

On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 17:37:35 GMT, Gactimus <gactimus@xrs.net> wrote:

Adam H. <adam@mailinator.com> wrote in
news:mso4h0pshmdm7d1qc5rdm0idfl4cv0l0sa@4ax.com:

On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 11:10:10 GMT, Gactimus <gactimus@xrs.net> wrote:

"ouroboros rex" <c-bee1@itg.uiuc.edu> wrote in
news:ces135$894$1@news.ks.uiuc.edu:

"Gactimus" <gactimus@xrs.net> wrote in message
news:bc1b3f5ed44aaaf1c77e137acd0a7098@news.bubbanews.com...

"ouroboros rex" <c-bee1@itg.uiuc.edu> wrote in
news:ceqr80$oev$1@news.ks.uiuc.edu:

"Gactimus" <gactimus@xrs.net> wrote in message
news:Xns953B4FDB537F9YX@alaska.local...

http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php?topic=SwiftPhoto

This photograph of John Kerry and 19 other Coastal Division 11
Swift boat officers was taken at Ton Son Nhut Air Base on

January

22, 1969, immediately following a meeting with General Abrams

and

Admiral Zumwalt.

The Kerry campaign featured the photograph in an advertisement
released in May titled Lifetime. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

has

contacted surviving members of this group to find out how many
actually support John Kerry, and discovered that of 19 Swift

boat

skippers pictured other than Kerry, 12 consider him unfit, 4 are
neutral, two have died, and 1 is working with the Kerry

campaign.

Four other officers were not present for the photo session; all
oppose Kerry.

Only 1 of John Kerry's 23 fellow Swift boat commanders from

Coastal

Division 11 supports his candidacy today.

Oddly enough none of them served under him.

All the men in the photograph served with John Kerry.

I said under, dumbass.

No difference.

* On May 17, 2004, Matt Gunn shares a segment from Joe Conason's
recent registration-required Salon "uncovering" of "yet more 'Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth' Republican ties, as if there weren't enough
on record already" [Gunn comments]:

"When the 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' launched its campaign
against John Kerry 10 days ago, leadership and guidance were provided
by Republican activists and presidential friends from Texas --

notably

Houston attorney John E. O'Neill and corporate media consultant

Merrie

Spaeth.

"On closer inspection, the ostensibly nonpartisan 'Swift Boat
Vets' seem to have another pair of significant sponsors with deep and
long-standing Republican connections in Missouri. Both are officers

of

Gannon International, a St. Louis conglomerate that does lots of
overseas business in, of all places, the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam.

"Ties to Gannon can be traced via the Swift Boat Vets Web site

...

On April 14, the site was registered under the name of Lewis

Waterman,

Gannon's information technology manager, at 11301 Olive Boulevard in
St. Louis, the firm's headquarters address. Although Waterman

wouldn't

discuss why he had set up the Web site, he didn't deny that his boss,
Gannon president and CEO William Franke, had asked him to do so.

"'The information about my client is confidential,' said

Waterman.

He acknowledged knowing, however, that his boss Franke is a Navy
veteran who served in Vietnam on swift boats. Gannon vice president
Stephen D. Hayes, who oversees the company's office in Alexandria,
Va., is likewise a swift boat veteran who first met Franke when they
served together in the Mekong Delta."

"What is most intriguing about Franke, Hayes, and Gannon --
especially in light of their apparent role in the campaign against
John Kerry -- are their strong commercial interests in Southeast

Asia.

While Gannon is a highly diversified holding company whose divisions
range from real estate in Florida and Missouri to Internet technology
and software, it maintains an unusual presence in Vietnam, with
offices in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Indeed, Gannon has
operated in that country's tourism, real estate and import-export
sectors for a decade. (The target market for its tours was fellow
Vietnam veterans.)

"None of Gannon's profitable activities in the communist republic
wou