Kerry to the Senate 1971 - Fisked
Fri April 16th, 2004 02:44 MSTHere is a “fisking” of Kerry’s testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1971, where he makes numerous false allegations about his country and the conduct of our soldiers in Vietnam. He also acts as an agent for the enemy, recommending immediate, unconditional surrender. As a Vietnam Veteran, I consider John F. Kerry’s testimony to be unforgivable. one of the most damaging actions of any American from that period, and a look at the true nature of this treacherous man.
If you’ve read all the other articles on this blog on this subject, you will only find a few new things here.
If you get your information about Kerry from the mainstream press or the Democratic side of things, this posting should shock you.
As you read this, remember that Benedict Arnold also was a decorated warrior.
Kerry said:I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
There are many things wrong with this statement. The “investigation” did not check the background of those “150 honorably discharged… veterans.” Others have since done so, after a Congressionally ordered investigation failed to substantiate even one of the allegations! Many of those “veterans” had never been to Vietnam. Some had never even served. Others could not possibly have been present at the events they testified to. And he sure as hell didn’t represent “all those veterans.”
On top of that, Kerry implied that war crimes were U.S. policy.
And:
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam
Now, why do you think Kerry is telling these lies against his fellow Veterans while his country is at war?
Here is the origin of the damaged veteran myth that is still widely held:
The country doesn’t know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.
Again, this is nonsense. First of all, there weren’t millions in combat. There were only 2.5 million vets who even set foot in the country. The vast majority were not in combat. Second, polls then and polls now showed that most people were proud of their service and recently have said that given the chance, they would do it again.
blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties
Absolutely false. Blacks had an almost perfectly representative percentage of the casualties.
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them.
Again, nonsense. One practice vaguely related to this happened when the enemy would hide in a village. The village civilians would escape, and ask the Americans to bomb the village to kill the VC. The civilians then would no longer be troubled by them, and the US would provide the money to them to rebuild their village better than it had been.
A more likely source came during ‘Tet ‘68 regarding the town of Ben Tre. Most of the destruction was by VC using seized 105mm cannon. Nonetheless, Peter Arnett reported a comment by a US major that “we had to destroy the town to save it.” Not surprisingly, Arnett reported the story as if American weapons had destroyed the town, even though he went to the town and interviewed Major Canella, who subsequently confirmed that Arnett had reported the story incorrectly. Used out of context the phrase became an anti-war rallying cry. That it referred to a single incident, reported incorrectly, was ignored. [Stolen Valor p 121]
We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.
The Mai Lai massacre was not received “very coolly.” It was a major scandal and occupied a whole lot of press time and caused a lot of condemnation. Once again, Kerry is simply lying.
We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals.
This is a deliberate misinterpretation. A free fire zone doesn’t mean you can shoot at anything. It means that you don’t need higher level clearance to fire at a valid target. That’s all it means. Notice the “cheapness on the lives of Orientals” – you will see that slander again.
We fought using weapons against “oriental human beings,” with quotation marks around that. We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater or let us say a non-third-world people theater,
As you can see, he is using the standard anti-American trick of painting our efforts in a racist way. In fact, the weapons used in Vietnam were standard weapons which would have been used in any conflict. Except that in Europe we expected to have to use nuclear weapons, which were never recommended in Vietnam. Once again, Kerry lies.
and so we watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the high for the reoccupation by the North Vietnamese because we watched pride allow the most unimportant of battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn’t lose, and we couldn’t retreat, and because it didn’t matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point. And so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 881’s and Fire Base 6’s and so many others.
Here, if you believe Kerry is not lying (which is quite a leap), you have to conclude he had no understanding of the strategy of the first half of the war (which, by the way, had been abandoned before Kerry’s short tour, when Abrams became the new commander). Westmoreland was fighting a war of attrition. Hence battles for many of these places took place not to seize territory, but to kill the enemy. Once that was completed, the forces left.
In particular, the battle of Khe Sanh was a move to trick the enemy into trying to recreate Dien Bien Phu. A major base was put very close to the Ho Chi Minh trail. Sensors were planted around it by VO-67 (whose survivors I knew and which was classified until 1997). Because of its position, it appeared to be vulnerable as Dien Bien Phu had been, and it threatened the trail, so the enemy was forced to accept combat with main force units. The sensors allowed B-52 Arc Light raids to be called in on enemy concentrations, and entire North Vietnamese divisions were destroyed. I heard the strategy described by Westmoreland in person.
Abrams correctly determined that attrition was not the appropriate strategy, so by the time Kerry was in country, the strategy changed to protecting the rural Vietnamese populace. Kerry was complaining about a strategy, that while devastating to the enemy, could never provide a decisive win, but a strategy that had been abandoned before he even went to Vietnam and 3 years before his testimony.
Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.
This is a nice sound bite that contains another lie. Vietnamization meant turning the war over to the Vietnamese. It didn’t mean what Kerry implies.
Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can’t say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to dies so that President Nixon won’t be, and these are his words, “the first President to lose a war.”
Again, this mischaracterizes the war in the most damning way. Nixon was trying to get Americans out of Vietnam while at the same time providing South Vietnam the ability for it to defend itself against the North. He succeeded very well at this, by the way. The loss of the war came later, as a result of Democrat votes which outlawed Nixon’s strategy.
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to dies in Vietnam? How do ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
Another nice bit of rhetoric, but meaningless. Every war has a last casualty. And this war was only a mistake because of the way it was ended, as a result of people like Kerry.
But the issue, gentlemen, the issue is communism, and the question is whether or not we will leave that country to the communists or whether or not we will try to give it hope to be a free people.
But the point is they are not a free people now under us. They are not a free people, and we cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.
This is very misleading. The Vietnamese under the corrupt South Vietnamese government were much more free than they have been since the North took over. Furthermore, although it isn’t well known, the population was allowed to vote with its feet after 1954, with communists going north and people who did not want to live under communism moving south (when they could get away, which wasn’t easy in spite of the agreement, because the communists tried to stop the southward exodus). Furthermore, we did fight communism all over the world, when someone with more vision that Kerry (Reagan) took over, and we won, liberating hundreds of millions (but the poor Vietnamese are still suffering the tyranny of Communist rule).
I understand 57 percent of all those entering the VA hospitals talk about suicide. Some 27 percent have tried, and they try because they come back to this country and they have to face what they did in Vietnam, and then they come back and find the indifference of a country that doesn’t really care, that doesn’t really care.
Once again, we see the myth of the damaged veteran. It is true that much of the country didn’t care – Kerry’s allies were spitting on returning troops. But “have to face what they did in Vietnam” is yet another slander on veterans, implying we had been committing atrocities.
the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions, in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners, accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam.
Once again, exaggeration painting us as butchers. Free fire zones, H&I fire, search and destroy missions and bombings are not violations of the Geneva conventions. Torture and killing of prisoners was rare in American units, and was prohibited with severe penalties.
We are also here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We are here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric and so many others. Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded.
This is an amazing paragraph. The people he names were part of the Democrat administration. Kerry was testifying 2 years into the Nixon administration. Of course they were not around.
We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped their memories of us.
Almost all Vietnam Veterans have no problems with the memories of their service. And how he can divine the contents of the memories of the administration is a mystery to science.
I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh’s points it has been stated time and time again, and was stated by Senator Vance Hartke when he returned from Paris, and it has been stated by many other officials of this Government, if the United States were to set a date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would be returned.
Madam Binh’s points were the North Vietnamese surrender terms. Kerry went to Paris to meet with our enemy. Kerry, the private citizen, the “representative” of Vietnam Vets, carried the enemy’s water.
Speaking for the enemy:
with that statement that all of our troops, the moment we set a date, will be given safe conduct out of Vietnam.
Only defeated armies need “safe conduct.”
I would, therefore, submit that the most expedient means of getting out of South Vietnam would be for the President of the United States to declare a cease-fire, to stop this blind commitment to a dictatorial regime, the Thieu-Ky-Khiem regime, accept a coalition regime which would represent all the political forces of the country which is in fact what a representative government is supposed to do and which is in fact what this Government here in this country purports to do, and pull the troops out without losing one more American, and still further without losing the South Vietnamese.
In other words, stop fighting and leave. Surrender unconditionally. At the time Kerry was urging this, the situation on the ground in Vietnam was very favorable to the South. The war was essentially won in the South by 1970, and by 1972 the South Vietnamese demonstrated they could defeat a full scale invasion requiring only materials and air support from the U.S. Furthermore, at the end of 1972, Richard Nixon unleashed the Rolling Thunder campaign. Within 2 weeks the North Vietnamese came to a much more favorable agreement (for us) agreement than Kerry advocated, and also released the POWs. Those same POWs have since written that part of their torture was being forced to listen to Kerry’s testimony.
We believe we do have a plan, and that plan is that if this body were by some means either to permit a special referendum in this country so that the country itself might decide and therefore avoid this recrimination which people constantly refer to or if they couldn’t do that, at least do it through immediate legislation which would state there would be an immediate cease-fire and we would be willing to undertake negotiations for a coalition government.
Now he is asking Congress to force the Commander in Chief to immediately cease fire.
I am talking about a vote here in Congress to cut off the funds,
He advocated what Congress did: cut off the funds, handing South Vietnam to the Communists, leading to millions of deaths in Cambodia, hundreds of thousands in South Vietnam, and an untold number as the residents attempted to flee on boats.
Senator Aiken: Do you believe the North Vietnamese would seriously undertake to impede our complete withdrawal?
Mr. Kerry: No, I do not believe that the North Vietnamese would and it has been clearly indicated at the Paris peace talks they would not.
Senator Aiken: Do you think they might help carry the bags for us? (Laughter)
Mr. Kerry: I would say they would be more prone to do that then the Army of the South Vietnamese. (Laughter) (Applause)
Real funny, eh?
After advocating removal (by the United States, btw) the government of South Vietnam, Kerry states:
But I think, having done what we have done to that country, we have an obligation to offer sanctuary to the perhaps 2,000, 3,000 people who might face, and obviously they would, we understand that, might face political assassination or something else. But my feeling is that those 3,000 who may have to leave that country-
He never mentioned that in Tet ’68 at least this many civilians were taken to the killing fields and shot by the VC, just from the city of Hue during the short time they occupied it and while they were under constant attack. These were determined killer. And of course history tells us that the number endangered by the Communist takeover was a million or more, not a few thousand.
If we don’t withdraw, if we maintain a Korean-type presence in South Vietnam, say 50,000 troops or something, with strategic combing raids from Guam and from Japan and from Thailand dropping these 15,000 pound fragmentation bombs on them, et cetera, in the next few years, then what you will have is a people who are continually oppressed, who are continually at warfare, and whose problems will not at all be solved because they will not have any kind of representation.
The actual strategy was to take this force down to nothing but a few advisors, and maintain the threat of air attack. As was amply demonstrated in 1972, this was sufficient to defeat the best attack the North Vietnamese could mount, with no American ground troops involved in the combat. So Kerry is again recommending a surrender, while tossing in the “dropping these 15000 pound fragmentation bombs on them” lie (there was and is no such thing)
He next, in a couple of paragraphs too long to bother with, attacks the nature of the Vietnamese Forces. In fact, by the time Kerry was in country, those forces were starting to become effective, and by the time he testified, they had taken back all but 5% of the country, and later that year (as mentioned before) those forces, with only US air support, drove back a massive enemy invasion, which consisted of more manpower than the United States currently has in its army, and involved integrated armour, infantry, shock troops, and anti-aircraft batteries.
Yes, sir. I think we have a very definite obligation to make extensive reparations to the people of Indochina.
So not only should we surrender, but we should give a lot of money to the butchers and terrorists.
My feeling, Senator, on Lieutenant Calley is what he did quite obviously was a horrible, horrible, horrible thing and I have no bone to pick with the fact that he was prosecuted. But I think that in this question you have to separate guilt from responsibility, and I think clearly the responsibility for what has happened there lies elsewhere.
I think it lies with the men who designed free fire zones. I think it lies with the men who encourage body counts. I think it lies in large part with this country, which allows a young child before he reaches the age of 14 to see 12,500 deaths on television, which glorifies the John Wayne syndrome, which puts out fighting man comic books on the stands, which allows us in training to do calisthenics to four counts, on the fourth count of which we stand up and shout “kill” in unison, which has posters in barracks in this country with a crucified Vietnamese, blood on him, and underneath it says “kill the gook,” and I think that clearly the responsibility for all of this is what has produced this horrible aberration.
Now, I think if you are going to try Lieutenant Calley then you must at the same time, if this country is going to demand respect for the law, you must at the same time try all those other people who have responsibility, and any aversion that we may have to the verdict as veterans is not to say that Calley should be freed, not to say that he is innocent, but to say that you can’t just take him alone, and that would be my response to that.
This tries to raise the rare, isolated incident of Mei Lei to the status of a normal action in the war. It blames our entire culture. It paints us a racists and killers. And yet Calley was stopped by another officer who saw what he was doing and threatened to shoot these heavily armed men. Calley was the exception, and in the entire history of the war there are only two incidents that rise to that level of atrocity. Kerry would make us believe it is the norm. Furthermore, it ignores the fact that these kinds of events happen in all armies in all significant wars, but our army (unlike that of the enemy) tries to avoid them and prosecute those responsible.
You don’t have a chance for peace when you arm the people of another country and tell them they can fight a war. That is even criminal in the sense that their country, if we are really worried about recrimination, is going to have to someday face up to the fact that we convinced a certain number of people, perhaps hundred of thousands, perhaps there will be several million, that they could stand up to something which they couldn’t and ultimately will face the recrimination of the fact that their lives in addition to all the lives at this point, will be on our conscience.
This is ridiculous. And John Kerry should have those lives on his conscience, since he betrayed all of those people. We gave them a fighting chance – a very good one, and Kerry and others took it away. The idea that it is criminal to arm an ally that is fighting an invasion is preposterous.
It is my opinion that the United States is still reacting in very much the 1945 mood and postwar cold-war period when we reacted to the forces which were at work in World War II and came out of it with this paranoia about the Russians and how the world was going to be divided up between the super powers, and the foreign policy of John Foster Dulles which was responsible for the creation of the SEATO treaty, which was, in fact, a direct reaction to this so-called Communist monolith. And I think we are reacting under cold-war precepts which are no longer applicable.
Kerry now lectures the senate on US world-wide strategy. He was, as history has shown, terribly wrong, but the position was certainly helpful to our enemy.
At any time that an actual threat is posed to this country or to the security and freedom I will be one of the first people to pick up a gun and defend it, but right now we are reacting with paranoia to this question of peace and the people taking over the world.
Do you want this man waiting until the planes are about to strike a building in the US before deciding we should defend ourselves? He denies that danger of the Communists in the cold war. This man had no concept of geopolitics and sadly, still does not.
Senator, I will say this. I think that politically, historically, the one thing that people try to do, that society is structured on as a whole, is an attempt to satisfy their felt needs, and you can satisfy those needs with almost any kind of political structure, giving it one name or the other. In this name it is democratic; in other it is communism; in others it is benevolent dictatorship.
He gives moral equivalence to communism and democracy. Do we want this man as our leader?
A lot of guys, 60, 80 percent stay stoned 24 hours a day just to get through the Vietnam-
This allegation, widely reported, did wonders for the job prospects of Vietnam Veterans. It is also a lie.
We would go in with two quarter-inch aluminum hull boats and get shot at and never secure territory or anything except to quote Admiral Zumwalt to show the American flag and prove to the Vietcong they don’t own the rivers. We found they did own them with 60 percent casualties and we thought this was absurd.
I went to Saigon and told this to a member of the news bureau there and I said, “Look, you have got to tell the American people this story.” The response was, “Well, I can’t write that kind of thing. I can’t criticize that much because if I do I would lose my accreditation, and we have to be very careful about just how much we say and when.”
He admits to violating his oath as an officer, considering his judgment to be superior than that of Admiral Elmo Zumwalt. Considering the number of negative reports that were filed from Vietnam after Tet 1968, it is highly probably that he is lying about the response of the reporter. The press of 1969 or 1970 would have jumped on any story like that.
There is now a more militant attitude even within the military itself, among these soldiers evidenced by the advertisements recently in the New York Times in which members of the First Air Cavalry publicly signed up and said, “We would march on the 24th if we could be there, but we can’t because we are in Vietnam.
This is also a lie. While there were morale problems, the New York Times advertisement was found to have been a forgery.
Again, he lies.
During John Kerry’s 1971 Congressional testimony, he complained that, “We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts.”
However, it seems to me that he himself may be guilty of inflating his own body counts.
Consider the 28 February 1969 incident for which he received his silver star. On page 290 of his book, Tour of Duty, he states that his three
boats were carrying 18 crewmen, as well as 20 to 30 PFs (Popular Forces, a type of Vietnamese militia), and an unspecified number of U.S. demolition experts, which totaled about 40 to 50 Americans and allies. Kerry’s boat, backed up by the other two boats under his command, got into a shootout and killed one VC. Moments later and a couple hundred yards further along, Kerry and his crew killed another VC. Page 292 notes that the PFs, ashore at a distance from Kerry’s boat, also killed 2 VC.
On page 289, however, Kerry’s boat’s log reports that 9 VC were killed and two were captured, even though page 289 also reports that the official U.S. Navy report records ten VC killed. So, the body count magically inflates from two or even four to nine, and finally to ten.
The size of the enemy force seems somewhat uncertain, as well. On page 295 Michael Medeiros, a crewman, said that besides the two dead Viet Cong, “there were others waiting.” But how many were there?
On page 296, “(Kerry) could not stop wondering: Instead of one VC with a B-40 in the spider hole, what if there had been three, or five, or ten?” But, there must have been at least ten. Isn’t that how many they killed? Unless, of course, there weren’t really ten VC there.
Then, his silver star citation (page 294-95) inflates the numbers even more: “Kerry…serving as…Officer in Tactical Command of a three-boat mission…all units opened fire and beached directly in front of the enemy ambushers…This…succeeded in routing a score of enemy soldiers (i.e., 20 enemy soldiers)…The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry in attacking a numerically superior force…”
The size of the enemy force grows from being “others” to three, or five, or ten, up to 20. However, I don’t understand how Kerry, having 40 or 50 friendlies with him against 20 enemy soldiers, could possibly be construed as “attacking a numerically superior force.”
Perhaps the revulsion that John Kerry expressed in his Congressional appearance came from his participation in his apparent “false body count” scam which landed him a high national honor, a silver star.
Wow John, instead writing my own for the Vietnamese American in the Demo party who has no idea of how their beloved president candidate sold them, their families, their parents down the drain to the communist, I just translate all of this, with your permission, of course. I don’t know if any Vietnamese having any conscience would vote for a character like Kerry.
A Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. In 120 days.
Too bad he couldn’t have stuck around for 13 months, or at least long enough to supplant Audie Murphy as America’s all-time greatest military hero.
Imagine. He might’ve continued up the Mekong, captured Hanoi, Peking, and ultimately, Moscow. This is the stuff legends are made of. Just ask his pal Teddy Kennedy, who is an expert on navigating tricky waterways, himself….
Carnival of the Bush Bloggers
The Carnival of the Bush Bloggers: April 19, 2004 Edition
John, you have a very interesting and informative site. This is my first visit here, and your information on Kerry is a real eye opener.
I’m a Viet Nam Vet also, Army, June of ‘67 to June of ‘68. I was first a grunt with the 1st Infantry Division, then re-enlisted (short term) to be a helicopter door gunner. On getting an early out through extending my tour in Korea, 69-70, I became anti-war myself, accepting and believing a lot of left-wing lies and propaganda about it. It has only been in the last decade or so that my thinking has finally coalesced into what I now believe to be a realistic assessment of that war.
Over the 20 or so years following our exit from that war, I was of the opinion that we lost there, and deservedly so. When I went, I was a volunteer, accepting totally the premise that Communism must be stopped and that was where we chose to stop it. We all heard about the domino theory. Today, my thinking has swung full circle back to our original premise for that war.
We actually succeeded in our original objectives there, and just as with Tet, didn’t realize the victory we had achieved! Communism was virtually stopped there, in its quest to spread around the world! They were far more economically depleted by that war than we were, and they saw something that I have never seen even mentioned by the media or even any of our leaders!
The Soviets saw us fight the longest war in our nations history on the far side of the globe and never come close to collapse, either militarily or economically, while scarcely a decade later, they entered into a war in Afghanistan, right on their own eastern border, and eventually were unable to sustain it! They were very nearly bankrupted by that war, and were bankrupted in their attempt to keep pace with President Reagan’s Starwars program, coming on its heels. I can’t help but think that these facts played in the minds of Gorbachev and the other leaders at the Kremlin as they were considering releasing their hold on their client/slave states in Asia and Eastern Europe.
Our war in Viet Nam was not a war primarily aginst North Viet Nam as it is now portrayed. It was a sustained engagement of the global so-called Cold War, fought in a local arena. And we won that war largely due to our efforts in Viet Nam, a fact that is completely overlooked by not just the media, but by our leaders as well.
Henry
Remember, contrary to popular impression, Kerry was still in the reserves when he gave this testimony, as well as when he went on his investigative tour.
Yes, I know. See later articles on this blog where I discovered, reported and analyzed that and the cover-up he attempted of that fact.
Have you never heard of Tiger Force? Tiger Force was an elite fighting unit in Vietnam who terrorized the Vietnam countryside for seven months committing almost all the atrocities Kerry mentioned.
This was reported in October 2003 in the Toledo Blade, which gained access to over 100 Army documents detailing the incidents (including cutting the head off a baby, cutting off ears, etc.).
In fact, the Army investigation recommended three soldiers be tried for murder for atrocities but nothing was done. Many of these soldiers have admitted to it both to the Army and now to reporters. Yet it took us almost 35 years to find out about it. Is it so hard to believe that with My Lai and now Tiger Force there may have been others committing similar atrocities?
Certainly these two fully substantiate Kerry’s claims.
You should not let partisanship blind you to truth.
Further, Kerry was not equating communism and democracy. Only a simpleton would suggest that. Kerry was saying that man will create structure to satisfy his needs and can find satisfaction in such structure whether it be communism or democracy.
He’s correct. Most of your debunking is based on the same simple-mindedness. He wasn’t saying you should just let people “be invaded.” He said it was a mistake to arm people and convince them they could win a civil war when we weren’t going to do everything we could to help them succeed, meaning we convinced them to fight when we weren’t committed to ensuring their success. It’s long been known that our own military wasn’t provided with the equipment they needed to win Vietnam. We would have won if we had been properly equipped.
Some of what Kerry said was based on hearsay, but it’s an absolute fact that marijuana use was very very common in Vietnam. Perhaps you are forgetting that a lot of soldiers in Vietnam were poor and many were minorities, and drug use was high in minority communities in America. In fact, marijuana use was fairly high all over the United States during the late 60s and early 70s. There was a huge “drug culture” going on. So this is ludicrous to suggest Kerry’s lying and maligning his soldiers.
I know Vietnam vets. They all say there was a lot of marijuana use going on. And who could blame them with what they were living with?
Sorry but you’re wrong about Kerry and you’re distorting the facts and that’s a shame.
Cat M.
Certainly these two fully substantiate Kerry’s claims.
P. T. Barnum made his money off of people like you. Are you familiar with the fallacy of argument by anecdote?
Kerry didn’t claim that TWO groups committed atrocities. He claimed that atrocities were widespread, created millions of psychological damaged vets (”monster” was his term), and were a matter of policy.
“Tiger Force” is an example of what always happens in war. In rare cases, military discipline breaks down. I am sure there were a few other cases nobody knows about, since 2.5 million men served in country.
But Tiger Force in no way validates Kerry’s claims, any more that My Lai does. For you to assume it does means you either didn’t read Kerry’s testimony, you didn’t understand it, you don’t have a sense of proportion or you are dishonest.
I am sure there were a number of other atrocities - it is impossible to fight a war for that long, with that intensity, without a few losses of military discipline that lead to atrocities.
Kerry was giving enemy propaganda. It worked on you very well.
You might explain why Kerry never mentioned the VC/NVA policy of atrocities.
In our case, atrocities were a matter of failure of discipline. In their case, they were a matter of policy. That Kerry attacked ours but didn’t mention theirs says a lot about his nature.
Nobody has denied that atrocities took place (go ahead, read my whole blog, you won’t find it). Kerry asserted that they were normal, approved at many levels, involved illegal weapons, and were racist (note his false assertion that we used weapons against “oriental human beings” that we would never use against Europeans).
Since I never said that Kerry equated Communism and Democracy, your comment on it is specious.
Since you are convinced I am simple-minded ( a normal bigoted belief of the left about conservatives), could you please explain to me how “moral equivalence” means “equates?”
Most of your debunking is based on the same simple-mindedness. He wasn’t saying you should just let people “be invaded.” He said it was a mistake to arm people and convince them they could win a civil war when we weren’t going to do everything we could to help them succeed, meaning we convinced them to fight when we weren’t committed to ensuring their success.
He is speaking about Lyndon Johnson’s and MacNamara’s foolishness, but he was speaking at a time when Nixon was in charge. Nixon was indeed committed to allowing them to succeed, and he appointed Genearl Abrahms who succeeded in the ground war (See the book “A Better War”). It was Kerry himself who contributed greatly to our ultimate betrayal of the south. He climbed to power on the graves of our soldiers and their people, who still live in a communist tyranny.
Furthermore, it was not a civil war. Kerry knew that, as is shown by his later comments on fighting communism. If it were, why did the North Vietnamese get so much aid from the Soviet bloc? In the ’50s, people were allowed to vote with their feet, and the folks who liked communists went North and the folks who didn’t went South (except many were not allowed to - see the personal testimony of Lan Nguyen in my comments sections). The Communists of the North then spent a couple of years purging the non-Communists who remained. They didn’t start to attack the south until their military had recovered from the true civil war within the North.
Furthermore, the Viet Cong, who were supposedly the indigenous southern group, started as Viet Minh who were ordered to stay behind during the migration (the voting by foot). They used terror to recruit their soldiers, which is why Abrams Vietnamization policy was so devasating to them - with protective forces in each village, the terror - normally killing Village Chiefs and their families in gory and horrible ways - was no longer possible. Hence the villagers did what they had long wanted to do - go about their lives in peace. The Viet Cong political arm was the NLF, which I heard many people cheer on at peace rallies while our men were dying in Vietnam: Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, NLF Is Going To Win. By the way, the Viet Cong was destroyed by the time Kerry was in-country. It was wiped out as a result of three ill-planned offensives in 1968, starting with the truce breaking Tet Offensive, which was a military disaster to the enemy but, because of press misreporting, was shown as a victory for the VC. The last offensive was in September. Kerry arrived in December. By that time, the “Viet Cong” were almost all NVA wearing black pajamas, and there weren’t many around - especially around Cam Rahn Bay where he “won” his first Purple Heart (which his commander at the time turned down, by the way, as he said last week, because he did not think Kerry had been involved in actual combat).
It’s long been known that our own military wasn’t provided with the equipment they needed to win Vietnam. We would have won if we had been properly equipped.
Where you dug up that gem is a mystery to me. Which weapons were we missing? Why didn’t we have them? There was a lot of bitching about the M-16 at one point, because a contractor produced a bad batch of ammo that was prone to jamming, but that only for a short period of time and typical - in World War II there was a long period during which torpedoes fired by our submarines failed to detonate.If weapons were the problem, please explain how we DID win in Vietnam by the end of 1972, both on the ground in the South as a result of the Vietnamization policy which Kerry mischaracterizes, and in the North as a result of the 1972 Christmas Bombing? By the way, by the time Kerry testified, the removal of American troops was already underway, as Nixon kept his promise. The last U.S. combat troops left in August, 1972.
What Vietnam Veterans were denied with was not the equipment (although soldiers are always complain about their equipment) but the ability to strike important targets in North Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson fought to lose (not that he knew he was doing that) - preventing the United States from effective tactics and strategy, to the point of personally approving every bombing target in the north.
But Lyndon Johnson had been history for 2 years when Kerry testified, and was president for only a month when Kerry was in ‘Nam (of course, Kerry was only there four months). So Kerry’s criticism was about the past, but str4ongly implied that it was about current events.
Kerry wanted us to give up with nothing but a promise to “negotiate” to get the POWs back in 1971, when in 1973 Nixon’s policies got the POWs back and left the South in a position to defend itself, as long as we were willing to ship it supplies and, in the case of a major invasion, willing to provide air support. We demonstrated in 1972 that this approach was sufficient.
Now I’m sure you haven’t studied that war very well, so allow me to contribute to your education.
A Democratic congress subsequently made it illegal to provide either military supplies or air support, but it still took the North over two years to conquer the South, because the North’s forces were so damaged by their defeat. When the North did attack, the forces committed to the attack were more than the entire U.S. Army today. They used more tanks than Patton ever commanded. They had integrated AAA battalions. This wasn’t a revolution, it was a main force invasion.
Some of what Kerry said was based on hearsay, but it’s an absolute fact that marijuana use was very very common in Vietnam.
In some units it was indeed common. Rear echelon primarily. So what?
Perhaps you are forgetting that a lot of soldiers in Vietnam were poor and many were minorities, and drug use was high in minority communities in America. In fact, marijuana use was fairly high all over the United States during the late 60s and early 70s. There was a huge “drug culture” going on. So this is ludicrous to suggest Kerry’s lying and maligning his soldiers.
Kerr lied and maligned the soldier. It is true there was some marijuana use. And your soft bigotry is showing as you talk about poor and minorities. First, they did not make up an excess of either the soldier population nor the casualties. Easily checked. Second, you assume falsely that their being poor and minorities made them the most likely marijuana users. Where is your proof.
I know Vietnam vets. They all say there was a lot of marijuana use going on. And who could blame them with what they were living with?
Oh goodie, you “know Vietnam vets.” I’m impressed, I tell you, really blown away.
I know Vietnam Vets too, because I am a Vietnam Vet. I don’t have to rely on heresay and I don’t have anyone programming me with propaganda. Get it? Real experience beats leftist propaganda every time! I volunteered (and I was neither poor, nor a minority, nor undereducated - I dropped out of college - engineering-physics - to serve).
Here is what Kerry said about me:
That, along with:
Sorry but you’re wrong about Kerry and you’re distorting the facts and that’s a shame.
Sorry that you are so dishonest that cherry picking Kerry’s treasonous report is the best you can do. Sorry that you don’t understand the dramatic difference between a few atrocities and a accusations of them being common and a matter of policy, and I quote:
That statement is a lie, not just because those “honorably discharged” veterans were lying ( as two investigations have shown - one by the military and one by Burkette and Whitley), but because Kerry knew these were lies. His claim that there was an awareness of officers at all levels of command obviously implies that there was approval at those levels. In fact, My Lei was stopped when an helicopter pilot found the action in progress and threatened to kill the American soldiers. His account> is here, and you won’t find him whitewashing anything or being happy with the Army’s investigation, but you will find that he considered it a rare incident. What kind of an army produces people that threaten to fight a platoon of heavily armed men in order to stop an atrocity? Certainly not the Army that you and Kerry want us to believe existed.
By the way, regarding marijuana. About 10% of my unit used it, until many were caught and discharged. So what? It varied by unit. Oh, and contrary to your assumption, the majority of the users in my unit were white and middle class, and they did it for fun, not to avoid the effects of the war. After all, if you are in a scary and dangerous situation, marijuana amplifies the fear. It’s not a drug for those under fire.
Now, maybe you should go and find some leftist site that sustains your beliefs. I am not only a Vietnam Veteran, I have also been studying the war in depth recently, because of Kerry’s candidacy. And these is a large group of veterans on a BBS I own who are contributing their own experiences.
I’ll tell you one thing… the number of vets still fooled by Kerry is dropping rapidly, especially since POWs have been attacking Kerry, and a former Senator and POW accused him of treason (not using that word, but the terms “aid and comfort to the enemy”).
Now, do you think we are all fools and dupes? Or do you have the courage to listen to other viewpoints and learn from them? A year ago, I didn’t know that Kerry was the guy who had started all the stupid myths about Vietnam. I didn’t know of his behavior. He was just another Mass. Senator to me. But when I started researching (and by that I mean going to primary sources in some cases, like the CSPAN transcript and broadcast of his Senate testimony, a person who knew Bush in Arkansas, and others).
It is a shame that so many people can be fooled by such a dishonest man and his dishonest partisan.
We know what happened. We were there, we know people who were there, and we studied the facts.
Mr or Ms Cat:
Convincing you that Kerry’s testimony was based on a fiction would be impossible. Let it be said, nevertheless, that either Kerry is lying or we are. “We” are thousands of veterans who served multiple tours in Vietnam and categorically deny that Kerry’s charges were true.
Remember that Kerry identified the atrocities as a feature of U.S. policy, and his testimony, in the absence of identified individuals, essentially profiled the rest of us. If, for reasons of ideology, you choose to accept John Kerry as a legitimate witness, go for it. It’s clear anyway that you have an argument notable for its selectivity and simplemindedness. Your social analysis about the drug culture, and minorities is about as precise as a goldfish “thinking” that the entire world is made of water and glass. Please stay away from issues you don’t understand.
With respect to your moral and political acuity: Kerry’s inane and sophomoric “analysis” of what constitutes a social contract would embarrass a junior college freshman with a passing acquaintance of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Kerry didn’t equate communism with democracy. He did something worse. He advertised that he didn’t understand either one, and used a Cliff Notes definition of need-satisfaction in an attempt to sound like an intellectual. Yale failed to educate Kerry AND failed to demonstrate to him what a real education sounds like. When you learn a little more, Cat, about a lot of things, listen very closely to John Kerry. He’s a dolt.
Your incomprehensible paragraph about failing to supply troops in Vietnam, and our unwillingness to support the Vietnamese in their “civil war” is, by the way, NOT an argument in favor of John Kerry’s testimony. Better organized, it would be an argument AGAINST John Kerry, whose principle charge was that we were cynical and ruthless in our campaign there; not that we were letting the Vietnamese down. And by the way, I spent over fourteen months there in the Iron Triangle and didn’t see you at all. I had plenty of equipment and would have given you some if you needed it.
Finally, yes, there were atrocities committed in Vietnam. What a surprise! Over a decade of war and 2.5 million participants on our side argues in favor of the probability of atrocities. But, your confused, anecdotal and otherwise jumbled “argument”, whatever it is, will never wash John Kerry clean. If you can stand him, you can have him.
To whom it may concern: I cannot stand Hanoi Johnny Boy Kerry never could stand the ugly person inside and out that he is.. and talk about putting our brave men and women down??? He does it for sure.. and Hanoi Jane Fonda and he could care less as you can tell by his ugly puss.. I am at least trying to do all I can to stop this liar from getting anywhere and if I am not lucky then I’ll have to find a deserted island to move too as I could not stand being here any longer.. WELCOME HOME TO YOU ALL WHO DID THE RIGHT THING.. and did not come home and bitch… and that is from my HEART.. My husband was Navy Seal Team support during Vietnam and my oldest son did 20 years active in the USN… Marsha Jean Ledeman aka powmiavets11@juno.com
I was the AMO and Plane Commander of Crew 6 in VO-67. I am now a member of the Khe Sanh Association. The Marines were very happy for us to emplace those sensors around Khe Sanh. The sensors we emplaced on the HO CHI MINH TRAIL helped stop the flow of men and material into South Vietnam.
The Navy wanted to mine all of the harbors in North Vietnam when the war started but were refused. Had we been able to due that, it would have been a completely different war. As Lenin said, Control the food and you control the mind.
Alex.
Kerry Lied To The Senate - 1971
Here is a “fisking” of Kerry’s testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1971, where he makes numerous false allegations about his country and the conduct of our soldiers in Vietnam. He also acts as an agent for the enemy, recommending…
John, I couldn’t agree with you more! I commanded an artillery battery in VN for a year, saw some amazing things happen, and have never seen anything like those events that Kerry mentioned. He has to be unbalanced to make the statements he did.
And, like you, I not only “know Vietnam veterans” but am one! (PH, BSw/OLC&V, etc) Never saw any use of drugs…we rarely got to a rear area where they would be available…went out of our way to prevent harm to civilians, aided evacuation of a village when the villagers said they had killed the NV who had kept them captive..etc. Even refused a fire mission when I knew the target was a village in which I had earlier seen women and children (made a helicopter recon of the surrounding area when my boss visited). Had nothing but respect for our soldiers. Did then, still do!
A very well written and documented blog, sir. I
host a local Public Access TV show and will recommend it to my (at least 3 or 4) listeners.
Just finished reading the blog, Bootsonground, and Kevin is heading back to Iraq. He’s the same type of American as most of the guys who served in Vietnam, and those I knew in WWII, and those I met who served in Korea. A few bad apples and guys like Kerry want to make them scapegoats. Yeah, Kerry, who miraculously managed 3 scratches somehow and 3 purple hearts in a few weeks in Vietnam. Notice, too, he “beached his boat”, which another boat commander states emphatically is absolutely against Naval policy and orders, and puts the boat aground and at the mercy of the enemy forces instead of in the water where it is highly maneuverable and able to escape.
Hey, I was on a Liberty ship and we knew we were safest in deep water. What ho!
Beautiful layout and you express yourself so well. Thanks. Yes, as Lenin called them: Useful fools. I hit Russia during WWII, as well. Poverty was the rule.
It would be nice if you provided some primary sources for your claims. What you have done is basically take a sentence from the Kerry testimony, write the word “False” under it, reference something vaguely, and repeat.
I came here by Google looking for intelligent criticism of the Kerry testimony, and instead it’s more of the same inane blathering.
First, my comments are far more substantive than just “it’s not true.” They offer the related truths.
There are many sources available. I had a stack of books sitting here, some of which have been returned to the library. But I didn’t have time to put them all in.
If you research the claims, you will find my comments to be correct.
Here is a source that gives the background of the Winter Soldier investigation, from which most of Kerry’s charges are taken: “Stolen Valor” by B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley.
There is a link to the raw testimony, which is the primary source.
Other sources:
A Viet Cong Memoir: Truong Nh Tang
Victory at any Cost (Biography of Giap) - Currey
A Better War (Lewis Sorley)
I don’t have the rest handy.
I will get them when I have time.
As far as the comments on My Lai - personal obse
rvation of the reaction in the US.
Somehow, I doubt you will uses those sources, because the calling my critique “inane blathering” indicates a closed mind.
DB -
This will seem unfair to you, but is there a school where folks like you learn to write? Is there a school for folks like you with a course in disputation which involves one-sentence rebuttals? In all the many months I have been on this and associated websites, I have concluded one thing: There are only two of you out there.
One of you is you, the “inane blathering” person; I have seen that expression hundreds to times. You effortlessly focus on a single feature of any of our arguments and in some curious twist of logic, dispute the entire case. I can understand taking a position on something and needing to dispute it, but I hope you don’t think this way across the board. And you must be very busy furnishing the same argument on every topic.
The other one, not you, is the Lefty maniac with the strange haircut living in his mother’s garden shed. This is the guy who wishes death and destruction on everything better than he is, which covers a lot of ground, for sure. You can’t blame conservatives for him, by the way, and his type composes 99% of your base, and some of them are even in Congress.
what is it about Leftism that so appeals to you? It’s a cloaked form of authoritarianism. Maybe that’s it.
It never fails to amaze me how some people can go through life with blinders on. They refuse to accept what is real. John I appreciate what you have done, I am trying to get to the bottom of this Kerry thing. I know he is not the one I want to lead my country, he scares me, and he is a phony, he wants us to think he is a big war hero, what a joke, four months..amazing isn’t it. I heard a vet, who was with him on the speed boat, state that his picture is in the Hanoi museum, “Our Special Friends:, have you heard this?
I served in the Air Force, the Vietnam War ended while I was in boot camp. After finishing advanced training I was assigned to a Strategic Air Command base in the upper peninsula of Michigan. While waiting for a flight home to visit I was called a baby killer. There just isn’t anyway to express what that feels like. I had never been to Vietnam I had never pointed a gun at another human being. It wasn’t long after that when three friends and myself went off base to play some pool. While minding our own business about nine bikers came in one of them began to call us fly boys. Well, who cares we just kept playing, but one of the fellows I was with started to tell this guy to stop calling him that. The next thing I know their locking the doors and taking pool sticks off the wall to use on us. We convinced them that we weren’t any different from them and got them to engage us in a game instead of a fight.
But it didn’t take long before they started up again and we had to back all the way out to the parking lot. They also directed a lot of anti-war sentiment towards us. Now I don’t know if it was the Winter Soldier testimony’s which created all of this animosity, but I’m sure it didn’t help.
I don’t think that anyone who is simply doing his job shouldn’t have to go through all of that because someone else can’t just suck it up. If I received so much crap and wasn’t even in Vietnam, I know it must have been worse for a lot of other military personal. I know that Kerry is just trying to leave his mark on this world. But if he did that much harm while he was in the reserves can this country afford for him to Commander and Chief.
Henry
How can I get a complete text of the speech to congress by Kerry re:atrocities, etc?
My father is a veteran of the Viet Nam War and is anti-Kerry because of information such as this. But I still love him even though I am a Kerry supporter. I noticed that you did an excellent job of nit-picking through Kerry’s testimony that was given over thiry years ago when he was a young man. I respect that he had the integrity to question the war and what he saw. I don’t think this was politically advantageous for him to do then and apparently it really isn’t helping his campaign now. The Viet Nam Veterans against Kerry definitely prove that. So what was his motive for protesting the war? Perhaps there was something wrong, but I guess by reading what some of you vets write that every action taken was done for the right reasons and shouldn’t be questioned. Sending people to a place where they have a good chance of dying or being injured horribly should be severely questioned. Sometimes war is necessary and if it is, there should never be any doubt about it, because, after all, it is a matter of life or death.
Connie Mitchum
Connie
If there is anything I wish you would learn from this, it is that lying is not a valid form of protest, and lying - vicious lying - is what Kerry did. Also you should understand that it took no courage at all to protest the war in the 1970s.
According to the FBI and people in the VVAW, Kerry’s motive was political advantage. As a result of his actions, he had widespread media exposure, which he used to gain office back in the mid ’70s.
Remember that 30 years ago I was a young Vietnam Vet also, but I didn’t protest (other than going to a couple out of curiosity).
You say I guess by reading what some of you vets write that every action taken was done for the right reasons and shouldn’t be questioned.
I would be interested in seeing a vet write that. I would argue that almost all actions were done for the right reasons (defending our country) but that doesn’t mean they were all wise actions. Like in any war, lots of mistakes were made. Lyndon Johnson, who sent in the troops, had a badly flawed strategy of attrition. Many people died due to that flawed strategy. But there were many similar events in World War II and there weren’t any protests. Valid protests were not a problem, although most protests were based on invalid information.
In 1968, the Viet Cong had a major offensive (the Tet Offensive). In the process, they were badly defeated. The North Vietnamese (who controlled the VC) decided to sue for peace. But then they noticed that the US Press erroneously reported the offensive as a big US defeat. The Communists put aside their plan to surrender, and changed their tactics to one of breaking the will of the US at home. Kerry was instrumental to that strategy, through his spreading of their propaganda.
The time was very complex. With very few exceptions, Vets acted honorably. Kerry painted all of us as psychos and committers of war crimes. Most people who went to Vietnam were volunteers, by the way, including myself.
My “nit picking” is dissecting his remarks to show the lies that he told. There were many, some of them directly from Hanoi. Hence he put together a speech that was not questioning or protesting, but rather one that was knowingly filled with lies and enemy propaganda.
I detest John Kerry - not for having “the courage to protest” but for lying, lying at the expense of those he left behind in Vietnam, lying about almost everything related to the war, costing American and Vietnamese lives by aiding the enemy.
Believe me, it took zero courage to protest. It seemed like everyone was doing it. Protests were like 10Ks except you didn’t have to run. I went to one in San Francisco with 300,000 people. Courage? For what? I had a SECRET/CRYPTO security clearance at the time and it was no problem. The police were there to keep protesters from being run over.
Courage was not an attribute of protesters.
But Kerry was a big cheese protester. He made national TV. He testified before the Senate. And he lied, and he lied, and he lied, and he lied.
There were many other protesters. Many we have no problem with. But Kerry was special. He did the most damage to the United States, aided the enemy (consciously), and did the most damage to us personally.
Please understand the difference between an honest protest and an act of enemy propaganda. The former uses truth (and there were many things to criticize). The latter uses lies with the intent of causing defeat.
I would ask you to go back and read Kerry’s words with my comments here. Ask your father if there is some old stuff you don’t know about. But read it honestly and then tell me it was anything other than slander of America and those of use who defended her. And remember, this wasn’t a kid. He was 27 or 28 years old. He had been in command of a deadly little boat. In my work, we had nuclear weapons, and often the oldest person on the airplane was younger than Kerry. In other words, Kerry was old enough to be held accountable for his words. It wasn’t a youthful over-exuberance.
Finally, history as taught at Universities ( especially ) is usually taught by people who stayed in graduate school to avoid service. Hence they are anti-war and very leftists, and write up Histories that are incorrect.
Oh, and one more… why, if John Kerry was acting for America, does the Vietnamese Communist Government have his picture in a room dedicated to those who helped defeat the United States? here is the article.
So, what did John Kerry have to gain in aiding the communist party? Does he want to turn the USA into a communist country? Or is he personally profiting from this somehow? If he becomes President, what do you predict will happen?
By the way, I know that there were atrocities committed in Viet Nam. I have seen my father’s slides of photos he took while he was there. In one there is a dead Viet Cong with his ears cut off. Also, when the Iraqi prisoner abuse was in the news my father stated that he knows that when Viet Cong were captured and intelligence wanted info, they would take two of them up in a helicopter, push one out, and then the other was sure to talk. (When he told me this I was in a debate with him on whether or not the Iraqi prisoner abuses were “atrocities” or not). Since I haven’t been exposed to real death and violence (and hope I never have to be), I find these acts to be atrocities. My father was in VN 1966/67 and was a carreer Marine. He was older than most of you when he served (he is now 75 yr old). This is a small sample. Kerry mentions this kind of behavior in his speech, and I have a first hand account that confirms it. Whether or not it was widespread is not an issue. What the other side has done is not an issue. That Americans who represent a country that values freedom, individual rights, and treating others with decency and respect behaved this way is an issue with me. This kind of behavior should never be excused. To me Kerry was not painting a picture of soldiers who are “psychos and committers of war crimes”; he said men “who are taught to deal and trade in violence.” My father is a kind-hearted decent person, but he is a die-hard Marine. When he speaks of war, I hear a hardness there. A callousness. This is what I feel Kerry is addressing in his speech. I still believe that Kerry was standing up for what he truly believed. It’s hard for me to believe it was all some kind of communist plot.
Thank you for your quick response. I am enjoying this debate and hope that we both are learning something from it.
Connie
P.S. Just one more comment. Your whole argument is based on assumptions and interpretations. You assumed what Kerry’s motives were, and then took what he said and did and rationalized it so that it supports your assumption. Sorry, but I still have my Kerry for President sign in the front window. All I have to go on is the word of one man speaking to millions and millions on national television. The communists apparently used what Kerry said and did for their own agenda. How do you know that is what Kerry intended?
It seems whenever someone tries to work something out by using peaceful means they’re immediately labeled a “communist” and “leftist.” Yes, there have been Hitlers in the world that can only be stopped with force. But Hitler and others rose to power with labeling people and interpreting others’ actions and words to justify their accusations.
Connie
Connie
You ask what Kerry had to gain. First, he wasn’t aiding the Communist Party - he was aiding the North Vietnamese regime (which was communist). His compatriots in the VVAW, and the FBI watchers concluded that he did this for personal gain. Since he had wanted to be President since he was in high school, presumably he did this to gain national prominence, which he did. Note that he joined VVAW just after a failed bid for congressional office. He was so helpful to the enemy that to this day, his picture hangs in a museum room in Vietnam dedicated to those foreigners who helped the North win the war. His lies about atrocities continue to be used against the United States.
So here is my suggestion: look at the points I singled out from his speech (I also provide a link that you can use to verify that I am not making any of this up). See how many are lies - for ones you don’t think are lies, bring it up here.
Then go to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and read what his fellow officers have to say about him. Read Joe Crecca’s request (as a POW) for people to not vote for Kerry.
Then please explain why Kerry should not be considered a liar, despised by those who knew and fought with him, and so damaging to our country that the Vietnamese are openly grateful to him (by the way, our guy who took the museum pictures ended up with the Secret Police following him around).
Also, consider the result of the US betrayal of Vietnam. Several million were killed by the Khmer Rouger in Cambodia. Hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were sent to concentration camps (not the 3000 Kerry predicted), and tens to hundreds of thousands died there (I’ve read two biographies of Viet Cong who ended up there - the North didn’t want any Southerners in position of power, and there were a tiny number of VC left). Other tens of thousands were simply executed ( just like 3000 civilians were taken out of their homes in Hue and simply shot and buried out in the countryside during the 1968 Tet Offensive ). Kerry contributed to this.
But ultimately, the issue is not as much why he did it but what he did. He made many, many claims that were false. The most notorious was his claim that atrocities were widespread (routine) and approved by all levels of the chain of command.
If your father knew of these events, he was required by law to report them. Did he?
Whether or not it was widespread is most certainly an issue. A widespread pattern indicates that the government is knowing and tolerating. It indicates an army of monsters (which is what Kerry called us). A few isolated cases are to be expected (it happens in all wars) and punished. So when you try to equate a few with a lot in moral impact, you are essentially saying that all of us are guilty when only a few did it. Kerry implied that we all did so, and that it left us psychologically damaged. That was a slander on people who had fought for their country, a terrible slander, all by this guy who only spent 4 months in country.
Let me say it again: There is a dramatic difference between widespread atrocities known to all levels of command, and occasional atrocities in an army which disapproved of them. I know a lot of Vietnam Vets and none of them have ever witnessed an atrocity.
You are selectively reading Kerry’s text. Look at the issues I pointed out. There are many, many lies. Are you going to address each one, or just the ones for which you have arguments?
You see, I don’t like being slandered as a child killer, because its a lie. I don’t like being characterized as part of a monster made up of people damaged by what we did in the war, because it’s a lie. I don’t like my country accused of racism, either in its treatment of South Vietnamese or its treatment in Vietnam of blacks (his statistics are very wrong). I don’t like a guy who aided the enemy in throwing away a victory earned by the 58,000 people whose names are on the wall, and others (including friends of mine) whose names never made it to the wall. I don’t like a man who says America lost its morality over Mei Lai, even though that massacre was stopped by a single brave American helicopter pilot, who stood up to Lt. Calley’s heavily armed troops and threatened to shoot them if they continued, and the massacre made headlines and was taken very seriously.
I don’t want as president a man who, after being in a combat zone for 4 months and in charge of a gunboat, doesn’t even know what a free fire zone really is. I don’t want a man whose first Purple Heart was received fraudulently for a self inflicted wound while not in enemy contact.
BTW… Thanks you for your civil tone. It is not what I am used to and I appreciate it. If others here get grumpy with you, please accept my policy. There are plenty of very angry Vietnam Vets this year.
Is your father reading this?
Would you be willing to forward the address http://kerrylied.com/ ?
P.S. Just one more comment. Your whole argument is based on assumptions and interpretations. You assumed what Kerry’s motives were, and then took what he said and did and rationalized it so that it supports your assumption.
That is totlly not true. It went the other direction. I started with what Kerry did, which was to repeatedly make very nasty and damaging lies about America and Vietnam veterans. The only motives I know of are those presumed by his own protest group (VVAW) and the FBI. I also know what his fellow officers throught (because I have talked to some of the swifties) and it was not pleasant. They thought he was an opportunist, also. If anyone other than Kerry was running this year, I would not be an activist, just a blogger. But because of Kerry, and my reading (for the first time in 33 years) of his Senate speech, I am an activist at Vietnam Vets for the Truth. It’s also the last chance for Vietnam Vets to set things straight - to remove the stain Kerry left on all of us.
Sorry, but I still have my Kerry for President sign in the front window.
I’m not surprised. It is very hard to change peoples’ opinions (and that is not meant as an insult). I have my KerryLied.com bumber sticker.
All I have to go on is the word of one man speaking to millions and millions on national television. The communists apparently used what Kerry said and did for their own agenda. How do you know that is what Kerry intended?
It is very important to keep in mind what he did. His intentions count, but his deeds count too. You do have other information to go on: his 1971 Senate speech (above). You can visit Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth. You can look at wintersoldier.com. You can look at our reports linked above about how the communists think about Kerry. You can attempt to deduce his motives by his meeting, before his speaking, with the enemy in Paris.
In other words, there is a lot of information about what Kerry did both in Vietnam and in his anti-war activities. You can also order the book Unfit for Command:Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry. This is number 2 on Amazon now and it isn’t yet available. I know one of the authors and this book covers both Kerrys - the one in Vietnam and the one in the VVAW. If nothing else, it might be a good present for your dad.
It seems whenever someone tries to work something out by using peaceful means they’re immediately labeled a “communist” and “leftist.” Yes, there have been Hitlers in the world that can only be stopped with force. But Hitler and others rose to power with labeling people and interpreting others’ actions and words to justify their accusations.
Just remember that the leftists in the US were in favor of Hitler after the Molotov-Ribentrop pact in 1939.
Sorry, but I have never labelled Kerry a communist. I don’t believe he was a communist at all. I think that he didn’t fully appreciate the evil of communism (which I experienced first hand), but many had that problem. I believe he was and is an opportunist. I know he is a man without honor, because of what he did - I don’t need to know his motivations to recognize that faking a Purple Heart, telling vicious lies about one’s fellow soldiers, and slandering with lies one’s country is dishonorable.
Doesn’t it bother you that his 1971 Senate speech was full of lies? Seriously - do you want a man who lies wildly, all lies against his country and fellow soldiers, on national TV and then in speeches around the country?
Doesn’t truth count?
By the way, Kerry wasn’t trying to work things out using peaceful means. The effect of his actons and others was far from peaceful - with millions dead who could have been saved. Surrendering nations to communists was not peaceful. There was no way that the South could have avoided the slaughter except with US aid, which we denied. Same with Cambodia.
I’m a little surprised you dropped into an old-fashioned leftist cant with your charge, by the way. If I were to call someone a communist, it would be because they were a communist. I know communists and they don’t bother me because today they are no threat. I didn’t call Kerry a communists, and I am not stupid enough to equate a protester with a communist. I went to a couple of anti-war protests after my service, because it was the happening thing. I know what kind of people were there - which was a melange from innocent people simply in favor of peace (not realizing that peace mean slavery in SE Asia), to members of the Communist Party and Maoists and SDS - all radical.
I have been studying Kerry for monnths now. I am not making assumptions. I am reporting truth (although when I report what the VVAW thought, that is a truthful report of their belief).
First and foremost I want to thank all veterans for their service to this GREAT country and for protecting our way of life.
I would also like to thank John for all the research he has done on John Kerry and for your history lessons on the vietnam war, much appreciated!
In response to Connie’s question of John Kerry’s motives. In my opinion, it really doesn’t matter what his motives were back then. What matters is his character and judgement, both then and now.
Not only did John Kerry lie about the widespread atrocities in Vietnamam, but he has help perpetuated the lies of today, that President Bush mislead us into war, doesn’t say much about his character.
John Kerry had every right to protest the war, but to lie about atrocities, in order to get the U.S to surrender is something completely different. His intentions maybe nobel, but to orchestrate lies, present them as fact, to get the results he wanted, doesn’t say much for his character. “The end justifies the means”. I don’t think so.
After The 9/11 commission report exonorated President Bush from allegations that he mislead the U.S. into war, I was appauled that John Kerry is still perpetuating this lie by saying, during his nomination speech, “I will be a commander and chief who will never mislead us into war.” He should have apologized to President Bush, especially, since he voted for the war based on the same information that President Bush, British intelligence, Russian Intelligence, French intelligence had.
Then John Kerry votes to send our men and woman into war, but votes against funding their effort. Even if he changed his mind (which he seems to do a lot)about going into Irag, he should have funded the troops.
I think one of the biggest reasons I would not feel comfortable having John Kerry as our commander and chief is his poor judgement. He has been on the wrong side of history his whole career.
Take a look at a statement regarding President Nixon’s statement regarding communism and John Kerrys
Nixon
“But the issue, gentlemen, the issue is communism, and the question is whether or not we will leave that country to the Communists or whether or not we will try to give it hope to be a free people.”
Kerry:
But the point is they are not a free people now under us. They are not a free people, and we cannot fight communism all over the World, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.”
It’s a good thing Ronald Reagan never learned that lesson.
John Kerry didn’t do anything to help President Reagan win the cold war, he voted against every major weapon system during the 80’s. In the 90’s he wanted to gut the CIA. And while on the intellengce committee for eight years, why didn’t he propose legislation to fix the promblem. Of the 40 meetings the intelligence committee held he missed 28 of them.
Wouldn’t you agree, John Kerry lacks the vision and good judgement to lead us into the future and the war on terror?
I went to amazon to check out the book you recommended and here’s something else I found. Interesting. Or this is this more lies and propaganda? And another thing, when I read the actual transcript of Kerry’s testimony, he began by saying that he only had a few days notice before speaking and would be speaking in generalizations. Also, I don’t think Regan single-handedly won the Cold War and Kerry did not single-handedly stop the Viet Nam War. That’s a little too simplistic. So again, you are measuring John Kerry by his involvement in something thirty years ago. How did you feel about all of this thirty years ago? Did you know how it would all turn out?
“If you want a REAL, objective, scholarly account of Kerry’s time in Vietnam, see Douglas Brinkley’s _Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War_ ‘Tour of Duty : John Kerry and the Vietnam War’. Brinkley is director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies and a history professor. Or buy Or ‘A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America’. ‘Tour of Duty : John Kerry and the Vietnam War’ focuses on his Vietnam period.
–
Do not buy John E. O’Neill’s tract book ‘Unfit for Command : Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry’, which is partisan propaganda, nothing more. O’Neill joined the Navy’s Coastal Division 11 two months after senator left Vietnam. He has no idea what Kerry did in combat. He is a Republican hatchet-man. (He now is part of the Houston old-boy oil/energy corrupt complex, that includes lawyers for Enron, Bush’s general counsel Alberto Gonzales who drafted the pro-torture memos of January 2002, Margaret Wilson before Gonzales, etc.) He repeats gossip and partisan attacks. Nixon recruited him back in 1971 to attack John Kerry, who Nixon feared for his anti-war leadership. Nixon’s counsel, Chuck Colson, said: “We found a vet named John O’Neill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. We had O’Neill meet the President, and we did everything we could do to boost his group.” O’Neill hasn’t stopped attacking Kerry yet. But he did not know Kerry in Vietnam.
Listen to the men who did. A *dozen* of the men who served under Ensign Kerry have testified on his behalf. They were there, they saw Kerry in action, they saw him in repose, they obeyed his command, they endured enemy fire, they killed countless enemy. These men include Jim Wasser, Bill Zaladonas, David Austin, Mike Medeiros, Del Sanduskie, Fred Short, Gene Thorsen, Pat Runyan, and last but not least, Green Beret Lt. Jim Rassman. (Phonetic spelling for all; I missed three names, so add them in.)
Another crew-member seems to have changed his story now that Kerry is running for President. Back in 1996, Tom Belodeau stood beside Sen. Kerry, along with other crew-members. Referring to a VietCong that Kerry shot and killed, Belodeau said: “This man was more than capable of destroying that boat and everybody on it. Sen. Kerry did not give him that opportunity. The soldier that Sen. John Kerry shot was standing on both feet with a loaded rocket launcher, about to fire it on the boat from which (Mr. Kerry) had just left, which still had four men aboard.”
Also changing his story after-the-fact, to match his political hatred, is George Elliott. In a 1969 officer fitness report, Elliott wrote: “In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive action, Lieutenant Junior Grade Kerry was unsurpassed. LTJG Kerry emerges as the acknowledged leader in his peer group. His bearing and appearance are above reproach.”
Yet another disgruntled Republican to change his story is Grant Hibbard [ph]. His report said that on initiative, Kerry is “one of the top few”. Cooperation? “one of the top few”. Personal behavior? “one of the top few”.
They changed their views because they’re still sore that Kerry spoke up and helped end the Vietnam war, a war that killed 3 *million* Vietnamese (north and south), 60,000 Americans (and countless thousands wounded).
Admiral E.R. Zumwalt said he wanted to recommend Sen. Kerry for an even higher medal, the Navy Cross, but approval would have taken too long. Instead, he personally approved a Silver Star and sped along the award to improve morale at a time his sailors were taking heavy casualties. (Zumwalt’s son is a Republican and is not supporting Kerry, but he does not impugn Kerry’s military service to our country.)
The allegations that Kerry “re-enacted” movie scenes is just false, as NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller found after watching them all: “The first thing to be said is that the senator’s movies are not self-aggrandizing. Mr. Kerry is hardly in the film, and never strikes so much as a heroic pose. These are the souvenirs of a 25-year-old guy sent to an exoticplace on an otherworldly mission, who bought an 8-millimeter camera in the PX and shot a few hours of travelogue, most of it pretty boring if you didn’t live through it.”
If you want a REAL, objective, scholarly account of Kerry’s time in Vietnam, see Douglas Brinkley’s _Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War_ ‘Tour of Duty : John Kerry and the Vietnam War’. Or ‘A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America’.”
connie
Let’s stick to the subject. Nobody is saying that Kerry single handedly lost the war, and Reagan is not at issue. But Kerry’s strong efforts in that direction cannot be ignored.
You say we are measuring John Kerry by what he did 30 years ago. John Kerry is asking us to measure him by that. Didn’t his whole convention revolve around his Vietnam service? So if it’s reasonable of Kerry to bring it up, it’s reasonable of the rest of us to judge him by it.
When I was in the Navy (same time as Kerry), our crew carried nuclear weapons. Nobody in the crew was as old as Kerry was when he made those charges - I was 19. Kerry’s statements can not be ignored as naive mouthings of just a kid - he had a top secret clearance and had commanded a heavily armed vessel. He was 27 years old. You can’t just pass them off. That he only had a few days to prepare is meaningless. It’s what he said that counts, and how he sid it. Have you read it? Have you hear it? Are you older than 27 so much that you think we shouldn’t hold 27 year olds responsible for their speech, be should elect them because of their 4 months as a soldier?
Brinkley’s book is hagiographic. It’s the official biography, and ignores many of the problems. Every first campaign for president has a hagiographic biography. There is not book in the world that can wipe away Kerry’s conduct after the war.
Why don’t you go read Stolen Valor (Burkette), which just has a little bit about Kerry, because he wasn’t the main subject.
Now, you tell me not to buy O’Neil’s book. Since I know John O’Neill and people around him, I think I know a bit more about how trustworthy he is than you do. Yes, he is a Houston lawyer. Does that make him a liar? He founded that group back in the ’70s because he was upset that Kerry was telling so many lies, and he wanted to get the truth out. Hence the Dick Cavette debate. So Nixon noticed him… does that make him a republican partisan?
I can tell you that he is not a republican partisan. But he is anti-Kerry. But when you smear him, you smear every single one of Kerry’s CO’s and their bosses up through Zumwalt, and you smear almost 300 former Swift Boat sailors, combat veterans, who have joined together to contradict Kerry’s charges. Do you really think the Republicans could arrange for all of this? Think about it - every commanding officer and all of their bosses through CINCPAC - that’s a lot of independent individuals - to get unanimity about something this political from them is absolutely historical. What you are doing is calling these people liars. That’s a serious charge. We are calling Kerry a liar, but we have perfect proof just in his 1971 testimony. He lied, repeatedly. You have not even tried to refute that.
When you attack O’Neill as a partisan, remember you are attacking the man who served the tour of duty on PCF-94 that Kerry got out of. You are talking about a man who put his life on the line for a full year. And you are doing so with no evidence at all.
You are engaging in the same practice as the Kerry campaign - if someone says something bad about Kerry, they must be Republican stooges. If you have really fallen for that line, in the face of all the evidence, it’s too bad. Many people have. But you have an opportunity here to get the truth, or am I a liar too?
I have given you ample information about Kerry’s misdeeds. You don’t have to believe John O’Neil - just read the Senate speech. You have failed to excuse it. You have failed to refute any of the lies. You are simply brushing it aside, to attack a man who spent 3 times as long in Vietnam as Kerry, skippering the boat that Kerry abandoned.
Yes, there are some people on Kerry’s side. Not one of them is a Swift Boat officer. Not a single one. On the other hand, there are a couple of dozen Swift Boat officers against him. Do the math.
You even have the talking points about 1996. In 1996 a few Swift-vets and Admiral Zumwalt defended Kerry against war crime accusations by his Republican opponent. That’s all they did. They did so because to the best of their knowledge, there had never been war crimes committed by that unit, even though John Kerry admitted to some to the press.
You are now tapping into the FITREPS (Officer Efficiency Reports). More democrat spin. Have a military officer read those FITREPS and he’ll tell you that in spite of the grand language, those were very poor FITREPS - the kind that would stop a career. As my father, a former Navy officer said “I can see why they released them - they look good to civilians who don’t know how to read them.” Notice that I have once again given you the opportunity to verify information yourself. You can take his set of FITREPS and run them by a military officer. You should do so.
Tell me, are you genuinely interested in the truth, or are you just coming over here to raise hell? I have given you lots of information that you have simply failed to address. Instead you have made unfounded accusations against a number of people who miraculously became evil Kerry haters after some Republican pixie dust fell on them.
Stop being naive. These people are for real. Kerry’s testimony is recorded on CSPAN and is not going away, even though you try to ignore it or somehow brush it off.
If you don’t address that testimony, then you are not being honest. If you believe the Kerry spin about how all these men, from different walks of life, political parties, and parts of the country have been turned into liars for the republicans, you arebeing naive.
They are not liars. It is very dishonorable to imply that those people, or Hibbard, or O’Neill are.
Who told you that Zumwalt wanted to recomment Kerry for the Navy Cross? Zumwalt was concerned that Kerry was shooting without verifying targets in free fire zones, and jokingly said he should pu t a strait-jacket on him. Kerry’s fellow officers despised him.
I don’t know if Kerry re-enacted things or not. I have had press soures say that he did, and the NYT is hardly my standard for accuracy, since they are so incredibly biased. But let’s assume he didn’t - so what? You are talking about all sorts of stuff while ignorng the important issues.
And why should I look at Brinkley when you continue to ignore the absolutely solid evidence of Kerry’s perfidy when he was anti-war?
I never expected to be attacking Kerry for what he did in ‘Nam, it was his 1971 speech that angered me, that still angers me, that slanders the country, that slanders me, that is still being used by the totalitarian government of Vietnam.
I read Kerry’s testimony and I can’t see what he is lying about. I think he sounds very supportive of Veterans. I am being about as honest as I can be. I’m sorry I didn’t make myself clear in my last post. The critisim of O’Neil’s book was not written by me. I found it on amazon.com. But I what think it’s really boiling down to is your word against his. For me to address that, would require a tremendous amount of research on my part. Thank you for your replys to my questions and the food for thought. The truth will out.
I was referring to the 1971 speech. Did you read that an not find it full of lies? That isn’t an issue of who to believe - it’s simply a matter of reading it, of knowing which parts were lies (which I point out above) and how those lies always worked in favor of the enemy. You don’t have to believe anyone - just read it critically.
Earlier this year, I had no idea who Kerry was, other than liberal Mass. Senator. Then Hugh Hewitt, and then CSPAN, broadcast his 1971 speech and the debate between Kerry and O’Neill. I found the transcript (it is on CSPAN’s site) and analysed it, and the more I read, the angrier I got. And that is how I became an anti-Kerry activist.
For a long time, I thought Kerry’s activities in ‘Nam were not a problem. I was willing to put out work, create websites and work against Kerry just for his anti-war activities, which went way over the line (I knew plenty of protestors - the only one who was like Kerry was Jane Fonda).
As far as O’Neill, just keep in mind that the only way the Kerry campaign can avoid damage from the charges from the Swift Boat Vets is to paint them with a partisan brush - to say or imply that they are all lying as part of a Republican plot. They are forced to say it. So please consider that they are the liars - those who have a very strong motive to lie. O’Neil has no motive to lie. In fact, this is costing him money in terms of time away from his Law Practice. He is doing this because he considers Kerry dangerous, and has told me that. But he isn’t the head of the SBVT - that’s Admiral Hoffman, who was Kerry’s commander’s commander. The Kerry campaign has a different slander for him.
So consider that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth would all have to be liars - all 300 of them. Does that seem plausible to you? They all stand behind O’Neil’s book. By the way, the co-author is a historian - PhD from Harvard - who specializes in the anti-war movement - so he would have to be lying too.
But again, the most crucial evidence of Kerry’s perfidy was that Senate speech. It is full of lies, all of which hurt the American cause, and hurt all of us who served in Vietnam. In it, he admits having met with the enemy (so we aren’t making that up) and even acts at one point as their spokesman. It is a place where you can examine the unvarnished truth - cold, hard reality - and not have to trust anyone.
I just can’t let this go. This is the last time I’ll “raise hell” on your BLOG.
If Kerry painted you all as butchers then Kerry has painted himself as a butcher, hasn’t he?
If you read Kerry’s entire testimony, you will see that the majority of the testimony is focused on helping the veterans. He never said you were all damaged. And by listening to my father, I know that veterans have not been treated fairly in getting medical care etc.
Also, before he gave his testimony, he said he was not prepared and had had short notification. He would be speaking in generalites. He was in Washington with the protestors (the chairman did compliment him on how peaceful thy had been and how they had not flown off the handle like others I know were doing around the country at the time).
It’s very difficult for me to believe that this BLOG of yours is not partisan. When in your biography you state: “Oh, and I almost forgot! Politically I’m a Conservative [also known as a Classical Liberal](I haven’t figured on which type of conservative: paleocon, neocon, libertariancon, etc.) and a big fan of Ronald Reagan. And I haven’t forgiven those of you who voted for Clinton and her husband!!! :-)”
I don’t know what a “Classical Liberal” is but a know a libertariancon conservative is a little bit right of Rush Limbaugh. Any other material you referred me to is also partisan (an exception would be the C-Span transcript of Kerry’s testimony).
You assumed that I am a Democart, but guess what? I’m a registered Republican. Without going into too much detail about my life, my views have changed because of my personal experience, which goes to show you political views are relative.
Also I can’t call O’Neil a liar yet you can call a man who is running for U.S. President a liar? I can’t base my vote on your interpretation of Kerry’s testimony.
According to you there are two Kerrys: the one that consciously aided the enemy and the one who underestimated the evils of communism. So did he know what he was doing, or not? I don’t think you can fully know what Kerry’s intentions were. The enemy could use your words or anyone’s words to suit their own purposes. I’m sure that’s not the first time that’s happened. Maybe Kerry exagerrated a little on the atrocities because he listened to the wrong people. Maybe he took up the wrong cause. So we all make mistakes. Can we all look back and agree with everything we once said or did? Heck, I once thought trickle-down economics worked. If you say you can, then you surely are not being honest with yourself.
You say Kerry’s fellow officers called him an opportunist? From my own experience with the military (father, once married to one, and a brother carreer AF), I noticed that most of them are opportunists. Are you confusing getting involved with being an opportunist? The men that Kerry had with him at the DNC were men that served under him. Their opinions are much more credible than some nebulous fellow officers. Yes, Kerry played the war hero card and it did make me want to gag at times, but he is running for President and has to sell himself in order to achieve that. His speech at the DNC was his resume.
And did Kerry fake all three purple hearts, the bronze star, and the silver star? Man… he’s good, isn’t he?
I am beginning to think that you just enjoy winning a debate over a few minor issues. You can call anyone a liar you want. That’s easy. You can take their words and twist them and put them in your own context. As for having over 300 vets supporting your cause. This has to be a small percentage of the total number of VN vets.
Sorry to be so blunt , but I think copying and pasting my words and adding in your cookie cutter repsonses is rude. Do you have all this stuff and the links already written up and ready to go? But I guess you can do whatever you want. It’s your BLOG right?
Obviously, you wouldn’t have this BLOG unless you wanted to change the minds of the voters. Well, you didn’t convince me.
By the way, I will give you this. You look like you have more knowledge on VietNam than me and of history in general. Although, your views on history are a little revisionist (like Kerry’s testimony was intrumental in getting the US out of VN and giving the Kamir Ruge (msp?) free reign to commit kill thousands of people) I never did take the time to verify any of your remarks. I’m just speaking from common sense.
Thank you for your time.
Connie
P.S. ONeil’s book and cause is costing him money when it’s a top seller at Amazon and not even published yet????????? Talk about an opportunist.
Connie
First, a meta-comment:
Copy and pasting and putting in responses is not meant to be rude, but rather is a standard electronic discussion technique to clarify. It makes it clear what I am responding to. If I wanted to be rude to you, believe me, you would know it. I’m sorry if you considered it rude - that was not my intent.
But I don’t want to be rude. I want to discuss this with you for three reasons: (1) I’d like to change your mind, or (2) I’d like to get an understanding of someone unconvinced by the evidence I present. and (3) Common courtesy - you put a lot into your comments, that deserves a response.
Of course this blog is partisan. So are most other sources of news, except bloggers admit their partisanship. I am a conservative (on most issues) but on this issue, I am afraid for my country if Kerry gets in because of his foreign policy track record and his opportunism and dishonesty. As I said before, if it weren’t for Kerry’s anti-war behavior, I wouldn’t be an activist (which I am). It’s not like I think all war protesters were bad people - I went to a couple of protests myself out of curiosity and with friends. I knew the head of the campus SDS. But Kerry went far beyond them - he met with the enemy and then carried their propaganda line. His organization established a liason with Hanoi. To me, that disqualifies him for any office. It wasn’t a youthful indiscretion, it was an act of anti-Americanism.
Most protesters didn’t knowlingly lie. Many were fooled into lying, but most were basically normal kids. Kerry was not a kid (he was 27) and he knew he was lying. The fact that last year he stood by his lies says that at age 60 he still holds to them. So you can’t write it off as just a mistake. And, since his message before the Senate was essentially the same as he preached all over the country, you can’t write it off, as you try to do, as something he came up with suddenly (see below).
Yes, Kerry painted himself as a butcher also. Then in 1996 in a campaign, when he was accused of war crimes by a political opponent, some of the same veterans who deeply resent Kerry’s lies in 1971 defended him against the war crimes charges. Those veterans are now being vilified by the Kerry campaign.
The majority of Kerry’s testimony isn’t helping veterans, it is using them. It is claiming all sorts of negative effects on the veterans that were not true in any larger percentage in Vietnam than in World War II. His characterization of Veterans led to unemployment of many Vietnam Vets - we were thought to be damaged ( he talks of millions in his “monster” statement ) or violence prone.
I have, of course, read Kerry’s entire testimony, and listened to it on the radio and watched it on TV, where he wore a phony uniform with ribbons incorrectly on it.
If you think that he wasn’t prepared, look at how well that speech is written. Everyone except Kerry and Wallinski think Adam Wallinski did most of the writing. Also, if it was so off the cuff, how did it manage to match the propaganda of the North Vietnamese?
There is a Kerry who consciously aided the enemy and one who underestimated the evils of communism. One guy. No conflict. Yes, he knew he was helping the enemy. It really doesn’t matter what you know about ideology when you help the enemy in the middle of a war. Especially when you meet with them, and when your organization maintains a liason with them.
Actually, we don’t know if he underestimated the evils of communism. After all, the 3,000 number was in the middle of a speech full of lies. Maybe it was a lie too - who knows? However, his meeting with the communist Sandinistas when he had been a Senator only 2 weeks is not encouraging.
You can call O’Neill a liar if it makes you feel better. It will be incorrect. I would argue that if you have a personal reason to vote against Bush, it doesn’t mean that Kerry has to be perfect.
On the other hand, Kerry is provably a liar. Just read what he said in that 1971 Senate speech.
There is no equality between me calling Kerry a liar, when he left us documentary evidence of it, and you calling John O’Neill a liar with no evidence whatsoever.
Kerry didn’t exaggerate a little on the atrocities, he completely changed the entire character of American soldiers fighting in the war - from occasional atrocities to a policy of atrocities. That was intentional and in line with NVA propaganda, so much so that just this summer the Vietnamese used Kerry’s words, attributed to him by name, in attacking the US.
The problem with Kerry is not that he made