John Kerry: the right man in the right place at the right time

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Tim Ashby
Special to The Times

I have been a lifelong Republican. I proudly served as a senior political appointee in the Reagan and elder Bush administrations. But today I am supporting John Kerry for president because I personally witnessed his courage, tenacity and leadership when he waged war against a dangerous international criminal enterprise. Because of that experience, I believe that he is best qualified to lead our country in an era of fundamental threats to our national security.

In 1988, Kerry began an investigation of international drug connections as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. He discovered that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a powerful global financial institution, was laundering drug money for Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and serving as banker for some of the world's most notorious terrorists, criminals and despots, including Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

At that time, I was the U.S. Commerce Department official responsible for Panama and other Latin American countries involved in the drug trade. I held a top-secret security clearance and read CIA reports bluntly describing the bank's role in drug-money laundering and other illegal activities. I was aware of Kerry's efforts to stop BCCI's activities.

I witnessed how Kerry met with opposition in Washington from powerful figures in both political parties. Even President George H.W. Bush, whose son George W. Bush received a $25 million BCCI loan for one of his oil businesses, pressured Kerry to drop the investigation. Finally, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Claiborne Pell, formally asked Kerry to end his probe.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002062322_timashby14.html

[Cha]

1. This is great!

"Kerry is a person of depth and intelligence who can see all sides of an issue and incorporate all available data before making a decision. The opponents he has faced and defeated during his career have characterized him as vacillating. Such a mistaken view is to be expected in a cynical political landscape where a politician who is contemplative and thorough may seem alien, because such attributes are now rare in our political environment.

In a dangerous epoch — made more so by a president who sees the world in stark black and white because simplicity polls better and fits into sound bites — John Kerry may seem out of place. He is, in fact, in exactly the right place at the right time to lead our country."

I believe he is the right man at the right time, too.

[dogtag]

2. What? John Kerry was the chairman of an important

committee in the Senate? Didn't both Cheney and Shrub say that he had no record and never, ever did a damn thing????

Oh, he was investigating THEM and their dealings with BCCI? Imagine that...no wonder they hate him so much.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

3. They have to say that

Because Dickhead's and the Chimp's record is so pathetic

[blm]

4. That's why we have to media blast articles like this one.

If we create a buzz, then we can move the media to finally cover it.

[starroute]

5. Funny -- I was just mentioning that BCCI loan to Harken on another thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=905620#

"The chairman of the nation's Homeland Security Advisory Council was helping to guide America's security strategy at the same time he was a top executive with an international banking firm that was investigated and eventually fined more than $100 million for cash transfers to rogue nations, including Iraq, Iran, Libya and Cuba, a Newsday investigation has found.

"Joseph Grano Jr., 56, said he did not inform Bush administration officials, including Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, about the problems of Swiss banking giant UBS, where he worked until June, because he said it "is public record" and he wasn't required to do so."


That 1987 Harken stock offering was placed with a UBS subsidiary and with a BCCI subsidiary in which UBS held a minority interest. It's amazing that Homeland Security would *not* have been aware of UBS's history.