Reports: Sen. John Kerry Considered for Sec. Of Defense

Reports indicate that Senator John Kerry (D-MA) is being considered as a replacement for Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta during Obama’s second term.

Kerry is famous not only for the 1971 Senate testimony in which he threw his fellow Vietnam Vets under the bus, but also his numerous demeaning comments and actions toward our troops during the last decade. 

On April 22, 1971, Kerry gave testimony in which he alleged his fellow Vietnam Veterans had committed “war crimes…on a day to day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.” He said his fellow veterans had “personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power. Cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, [and] razed villages in the fashion reminiscent of the fashion of Gengis Kahn.” 

He also criticized “the applied bombing power of this country” and said it had been used to ravage Vietnam.

During the 21st century, his disparagement and abandonment of our troops has only continued.

For example, in 2003 he took back his earlier support of the Iraq War. He had actually voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2002, and then, when emerging as a possible presidential candidate, he said his 2002 vote was simply “to threaten” the use of force, not actually to use it. 

In 2005 he made our troops sound like terrorists when he accused them of “going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night [and] terrorizing kids, children, [and] women,” and “breaking historical and religious customs.” 

And during a speech in 2006, he commented thus on education: “If you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

And he has treated our allies the same way he treats our troops. In 2003 he used the phrase “a barrier to peace” to describe Israel’s construction of a security fence. But the next year, when his candidacy for presidency was becoming a reality, he called the fence “a legitimate act of self-defense.”

The bottom line: If Kerry comes before the Senate as Obama’s nominee for Sec. of Defense, the Republicans have a plethora of reasons to oppose and sink his nomination.  Our men and women in uniform deserve someone who respects their risks and honors their courage.