Obama has been accused of being friends with a terrorist, but
just who is this terrorist? And just who is McCain's friend?
Well how many of you remember Vietnam? How many of you know
someone who protested the war or someone who fled to Canada or some
other country to avoid the draft? If you know someone who was
active against the Vietnam War, then you too may be friends with a
terrorist.
The terrorist that Obama is accused of being friends with was
just one of the many Americans who were sickened by the senseless
deaths of their friends and relatives drafted into the Vietnam War.
Add to this the reports of murder, torture, and general abuse of
Vietnamese civilians by some American Soldiers, and it is easy to
understand how Ayers along with millions of other Americans joined
in the protests against the government.
At one protest by a group of college students, National
Guardsmen fired tear gas into the crowd. When this failed to break
up the protest, the Guardsmen fired live rounds on the students,
killing four of them and wounding ten others. This frightened some
protestors and enraged others. William Ayers was just one of the
enraged that decided to fight back in a very troubling time for the
youth of this country.
That was almost 40 years ago and this so called terrorist
that Obama is accused of being associated with is now a professor
of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Not to
mention that Obama was just a small child when all of this was
happening, and had not yet met the man.
Now in the interest of fairness it is important to note that
while Obama may have known Ayers, a terrorist against the Vietnam
War, McCain has been and still is friends with a man who is accused
by some of war crimes related to that very same war.
McCain's good friend Henry Kissinger is the same man who is
reported to have prevented the ceasefire in Vietnam in order to
help Nixon get elected. The cost in lives to American soldiers was
a small price to pay to help get Nixon elected according to "The
Trial of Henry Kissinger", a book by Christopher Hitchens. In the
book, later made into a documentary film by Eugene Jarecki and Alex
Gibney, Kissinger is said to have "in the process of increasing his
own power, be personally responsible for prolonging the Vietnam
War". It is reported that Kissinger stalled the ceasefire meeting
that was to take place just days before the election in which Nixon
was elected.
Christopher Hitchens also claims that Henry Kissinger
directed the first phase of the holocaust in Cambodia during the
war, resulting in the murder of an estimated 600,000 peasants.
Hitchens is neither the first nor only person to accuse
Kissinger of war crimes. As of May 2002, he is wanted for
questioning in Chile (related to the Pinochet coup) and Spain.
(Didn't McCain say he would not sit down for talks with the leader
of Spain? Maybe he is protecting his friend.)
The book also sites that in November 2002 Henry Kissinger was
appointed as the chairman of the independent panel investigating
the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America. His
appointment led to widespread criticism, generally taken from the
position that "Kissinger has never been supportive of the public's
right to know", and also from the position that Kissinger is viewed
by some as a war criminal in his own right.
So who has the most questionable friend?
In response to assignment:
Campaign 2008