20040527 POW Congressman Johnson Hanoi Used Kerry Speech

20040527 POW Congressman Johnson Hanoi Used Kerry Speech

POW Congressman: Hanoi Used Kerry Speech, Gore Comments 'Traitorous'

Thursday, May 27, 2004 11:34 a.m. EDT

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/5/27/113857.shtml

POW Congressman: Hanoi Used Kerry Speech, Gore Comments 'Traitorous'

North Vietnamese jailers at the Hanoi Hilton invoked Sen. John Kerry's 1971 anti-war testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to taunt and demoralize U.S. POWs, Vietnam war hero Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, revealed on Wednesday.

Johnson, who spent six years at the infamous prison camp, also called former Vice President Al Gore's remarks yesterday to the radical left-wing group Moveon.org "traitorous."

Asked if he'd heard about Kerry's speech while he was at the Hanoi Hilton, Johnson told WABC Radio's Mark Levin, "Yes, we did."

"[Hanoi Hilton jailers] played stuff on the loudspeaker darn near 24 hours a day - propaganda, of course - telling us about the 'uprisings' in the United States," he said.

A fighter pilot in both Korea and Vietnam, Johnson was shot down on his 87th combat mission in 1966. He spent three and a half of his six POW years in solitary confinement, during which he was repeatedly tortured and had no contact whatsoever with any other American.

A fellow POW Navy captain recalls that Johnson's first words upon being released from solitary were "Lieutenant Colonel Sam Johnson reporting for duty, sir."

Johnson told Levin that his North Vietnamese jailers found the anti-war activities of actress Jane Fonda, who teamed up with Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1970 and '71, to be particularly useful.

"They played her speech to the guys on the front line, where she talked through a loudspeaker and told them to lay down their arms and quit fighting," he recalled. "And John Kerry was part of that anti-war movement."

"He was a Jane Fonda type, if you will," added Johnson, who referred to Kerry on the House floor last month as "Hanoi John." "That's what most of the POWs refer to him as," he explained.

"[Kerry] let the veterans down. When you're in a war you don't go out there badmouthing your fellow soldiers," he noted, referring to Kerry's 1971 speech. "You know, that's a disservice to the veterans."

"Anybody who comes back and works against the best interests of the United States, in my view, doesn't deserve to be president of the United States," the former fighter ace said.

Johnson also weighed in on former Vice President Al Gore's speech to Moveon.org yesterday, where Gore called on top Bush defense and national security officials to resign.

After Levin played a clip from the Gore speech, the Texas Republican was livid, saying that the comments were "as close to being traitorous as I can think of."

"You know what, we're in a war. I think people ought to stop and think about that," Johnson added. "I think that our [soldiers] are doing such a grand job [in Iraq] that they just need to be commended and not slaughtered by traitorous remarks that I just heard."

"Al Gore is no friend of America the way he was talking in those clips you played," he told Levin. "It's just unbelievable to me that anyone would make comments like that about our nation and the war that we're involved in today."

Rep. Johnson's war decorations include two Silver Stars, two Legions of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, one Bronze Star with Valor, two Purple Hearts, four Air Medals and three Outstanding Unit Awards.

He also served as director of the Air Force "Top Gun" Fighter Weapons School.

Editor's note:

 Breaking: The Real Story About John Kerry`s Vietnam Record – Click Here!

2004052 Author turns story of Silver Run silver mine into a children's book by Carrie Ann Knauer

2004052 Author turns story of Silver Run silver mine into a children's book by Carrie Ann Knauer

Author turns story of Silver Run silver mine into a children's book by Carrie Ann Knauer

By Carrie Ann Knauer, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Lois Szymanski, children's author and assistant to the director of the library at McDaniel College, said that she was always interested in the history and legends of her hometown in Silver Run.

When she first heard about the legend of the silver mine in Silver Run, she was intrigued and wanted to find more about it. She ended up turning her research into a children's book called "Silver Lining" about two girls hearing the legend of the mine and then trying to find it.

Szymanski gave a talk at the Historical Society's monthly box lunch talk Tuesday on the legend of the silver mine in Silver Run. While she may not be a historian, Szymanski said she has done a lot of personal research on the silver mine and other local pieces of history.

[…]

Read the rest of the article here: Author turns story of Silver Run silver mine into a children's book by Carrie Ann Knauer

Reach staff writer Carrie Ann Knauer at 410-857-7874 or carriem@lcniofmd.com.

http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/articles/2004/05/12/news/local_news/news5.txt

20040410 White House Aug 6 2001 al Qaida briefing

White House Aug. 6, 2001, al-Qaida briefing

WASHINGTON - The following is the full text of an Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence briefing for President George W. Bush that outlined al-Qaida plans to strike within the United States.

It was released on Saturday by the White House.

Declassified and Approved for Release, 10 April 2004

Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and “bring the fighting to America.”

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a ...(redacted portion) ... service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an ... (redacted portion) ... service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative’s access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin’s first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa’ida members -- including some who are US citizens --have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa’ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ... (redacted portion) ... service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of “Blind Shaykh” ’Umar ’Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

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