Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

August 01, 2009

Shameful Sham: Ted Kennedy to Receive Medal of Honor

This post was written by husband-dude:

On August 12th of 2009, President Obama will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. In the press release, President Obama lauds the tireless efforts of the Senator over the last five decades as “an agent of change.”

The Medal of Freedom is the highest award that can be bestowed upon a civilian by the government for exemplary acts and behavior. The honor is for those who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interest of the United States... and world peace...”

What are some of the words and accomplishments of Senator Kennedy? How is he so deserving of such merit?

In 1968, as troops from the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring, Senator Kennedy then wrote, "Today, with the exception of East Germany, Russia has no more satellites." Over 300,000 people eventually fled the invasion of Czechoslovakia, seeking freedom as there was none to be found under the Communist tyranny that was reimposed.

In the '70s, uncounted millions of people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were murdered, forced into re-education camps. Millions fled the political and ethnic purges that followed. How did this happen?

"Congress and the American people," said the Senator, "do not hold the fate of Saigon and Phnom Penh in their hands.” To that effect he was a primary sponsor of the following rider to the 1973 Defense Bill. The following is taken from his own website:

● The Second Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1973, P.L. 93-50, specified that none of the funds appropriated by the Act were to be used “to support directly or indirectly combat activities in or over Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam or off the shores of Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam and South Vietnam by United States Forces and after August 15, 1973, no other funds heretofore appropriated under any other Act may be expended for such purpose.”

The words of James Baldwin regarding Richard II spring to mind. “For lack of a nail, the shoe was lost...” Without ammunition, petrol or replacement parts, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, despite its best efforts, was unable to hold back the full might of the North Vietnamese who had the full support of the Soviet Union for its logistics. In the words of former ARVN General Thi Quang Lam, “we were a democracy abandoned by our allies – the U.S. - at the darkest hour of our history.”

In 1983, Senator Kennedy made an offer to the Soviet Union – specifically to KGB head Viktor Chebrikov, to aid and coordinate the American media against the current President of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan. Senator Kennedy believed Ronald Reagan was a threat to the Soviet Union.

Let's repeat that statement, Senator Kennedy believed Ronald Reagan was a threat to the Soviet Union. As President Reagan challenged the Soviets to tear down the Berlin Wall, Senator Kennedy was busy replacing the mortar on the cracks.

In the '90s, his efforts continued unabated. With Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, he proposed to cut off all military and economic aid to El Salvador. It becomes redundant to list his opposition to the liberation of Kuwait, the military operation that deposed Manuel Noriega in Panama – a man whom even reporter Seymour Hersh noted was “significantly involved in money laundering and drug activities.” and like efforts following 9/11 in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For Senator Kennedy to be awarded the Medal of Freedom is an affront and insult to the people of the United States, and the world. Millions have directly and indirectly lost their lives and liberty with his complicity in word and deed. Senator Kennedy has indeed been an agent of change, but not for the better.