Response to thread at Marc Cooper's blog
---------------------
Isn't it amazing how eyewitness testimony by combat veterans is ignored or automatically treated as lies by Kerry partisans.
The world is not that simple. I'd like to clear up some misunderstandings.
The person who spent the most time working on the same boat as Kerry was Steve Gardner. He is one of the people who condemns Kerry. He was the gunner on Kerry's boat, sitting in the gun tub feet from Kerry.
The veterans who support Kerry are his enlisted crew, not officers. Some of them barely served with him - the two guys who spoke at the Democratic Convention had between them 6 days with Kerry. We don't know what their relationship with Kerry is, whether there were any promises, etc, because the pro-Kerry media won't investigate it. But Kerry did arrange for his crew to have non-combat assignments when he left. That's a good way to buy future support.
Those who attack Kerry were officers. They included the entire chain of command of Kerry. Overall, it includes most of the officers in the command, with only one or two supporting him.
Those who call these folks liars should tell us why. There are 60 members of the Swift Boat Vets who actually knew Kerry in Vietnam. Do they all have some nefarious reason for lying? Kerry's supporters get to campaign with him, and get to be famous. They have motive to lie. Furthermore, from an enlisted man's view Kerry may have looked very different than from officers. His job was not to gain popularity with his crew.
For those who just brush off the Swiftee charges, the burden of proof is on them because Kerry refuses to release relevant records, although he has been asked to sign a Form 180 since May. What does he have to hide? Anybody care to answer that? How can you be confident that Kerry and 10 guys are telling the truth while 60 guys, with nothing to gain, are lying and expending a lot of effort to get out the word as they see it? They aren't hiding any records, but Kerry is.
As a Vietnam veteran, and someone who knows some Swiftvets, I think those who are attacking these eyewitnesses are out of line. They don't have evidence for their attacks, but they are calling these eye witnesses liars. In the military, and especially in the officer corps, there is a strong respect for honor, and that includes truthfullness. It requires a substantial conspiracy, held together for 6 months, to explain their charges as being lies.
Again, why did all these people join together to lie? I have never seen an explanation that comes anywhere close to being satisfactory. All republicans? No, they aren't. All Bush supporters? Even John O'Neil is not a Bush supporter.
If you choose not to believe the 60 witnesses, look at the available paperwork on Purple Heart #1. You will notice that some forms that are needed have not been revealed. That is because one of them shows that Kerry got the award, 3 months later after those who had turned it down had left, from an unknown officer in Saigon who had no direct information about the event. The 3 month delay and having the award come from outside the unit is a dead give-away that it was bogus.
I was in Cam Rahn Bay 2 months before Kerry got his "wound" at Cam Rahn Bay. It was the safest place in 'Nam - especially because at the end of 1968 the VC was not just defeated, but destroyed. People in the jungles took R&R at Cam Rahn on the becahes! Not exactly crawling with VC. Kerry wounded himself in an attack on people who did not fire back.
The issue of the Swift Boat people has been muddied by the press. There has not been a balanced public presentation of the charges and countercharges. But the second purple heart and bronze star can also be thrown into serious question by physical evidence that has been documented: the lack of bullet holes in the boats. In that incident, PCF #3 was hit by a mine, and all aboard were seriously injured. This was on a mission with 5 boats. They immediate opened up on both banks with heavy machine gun fire on the possibility that the mine was part of an ambush. Then they ceased fire, rescued the people in the water, and spent over an hour salvaging the damaged boat. This would not have been possible under fire. During this event, Kerry rescued a green beret who had fallen into the water. That person claims he was under fire, but he was hardly in a position to know whether fire was inbound or outbound.
So we have actions that took over an hour in an area supposedly under fire (if you believe Kerry) and no bullet holes in boats made out of thin aluminum (actually one had 3 holes in the gun tub, from action the previous day when the gunner was wounded).
A single AK burst would have put a bunch of holes in the boats. A period of sustained fire would have put a lot of holes in the boats.
A few other points. I have not heard it charged that Kerry's actions caused the POWs to be tortured. The POWs don't say that. They say that Kerry's speech was used as part of the psychological campaign to get them to confess to being war criminals (torture was part of that, of course, but no cause and effect). They also are angry because they withstood years of torture to avoid giving the communists the propaganda about war crimes that John Kerry gave them for free. You can understand that they might be a bit hacked off about that. I went through POW training (SERE school) and learned, among many other things, that propaganda statement by prisoners are more highly prized than military secrets!
Someone said that Kerry wasn't talking about all vets. Yes, he was. The implications (and the speech is full of them, like any good propaganda) were that war crimes were widespread, normal practice. That means anyone who believed him would suspect every vet of being a baby killer. One of the more amusing things is that he claimed using fifty caliber machine guns against people (instead of vehicles or fortifications) was a war crime. In fact, that was a widespread myth in Vietnam, caused by a temporary shortage of .50 caliber ammunition, resulting in orders not to use that weapon against people.
Kerry also worked with the enemy, meeting them twice (once secretly) at least while a member of the VVAW. This may explain some odd charges in his speech, as they may have been wanted by the Vietnamese communist propagandists.
On John O'Neil - he is one of the kindest persons I have ever met. In 1971 he wasn't some sort of Nixon shill. He was already speaking out against the anti-war people. Colson found him and invited him to the white house, to motivate him. O'Neil interests and Nixon's coincided - they both wanted to counter the incorrect information being spread about the war. Using that vague associated with Nixon to tar Kerry is right in the fine tradition of McCarthyism - guilt by association. I have zero respect for those who use this argument. First, it is unfair, and second, it is illogical.
O'Neil is a very well respected corporate law practitioner in Houston. He is respected both for his abilities in litigation, and because he is known to be absolutely honest. This latter comes from others in Houston.
If one believes any of the Swiftboat Vets charges, then one sees a very ugly picture. I can see why Kerry partisans don't want this information to be true. But the grounds for denying it are so thin as to be pathetic.
So tell me, why are 60 Swiftboat combat veterans lying about Kerry? Kerry has obvious reasons to lie, but why these guys?
Kerry supporters have tried to do to the Swifties what Kerry did to us: take away our honor, cause others to see us in a poor light, and generally smear us.
The Swifties were determined enough to ignore threats of lawsuit (the normal Kerry campaign first response to anything) bcause they knew that in court they would prevail on the facts. They were determined enough to go several times to DC for the filming of the advertisements. These guys aren't lying, but they certainly are angry at what one of their own did, during and after the war.
This piece addresses a poster on PressThink who claims to have seen atrocities in Vietnam, and who believes any command in chief should be a combat veteran.
Did you report the atrocities you saw or try to prevent them? Were they common or rare in your unit? Were the atrocities war crimes, or the non-war-crime that Kerry considers a war crime - the use of .50 cal against humans? Is there a reason we should believe you in a world where phony Vietnam Vets are a dime a dozen?
As for the argument that only a combat veteran can lead the country in a war, then presumably you consider FDR to have been a bad leader. It is a specious argument. Being a combat veteran is a very wide swath, from people in the thick of hand-to-hand to a pilot who took AAA fire. How about a policeman? Should you have had command of a large unit, or been a frontline grunt? Why do so many combat veterans oppose Kerry?
Why did we not hear this when Clinton ran for president? He ran against a decorated war hero in 1992 and 1996. They didn't go around spouting off about it either. And Bush Senior, after being shot down, refused a two week leave and made it back to his ship where he was shot down again. In between times he was depth charged. Did you, a professed combat veteran, vote for him? Do you criticize Bush's service after having not critized Clintons dishonest manner of ducking it entirely?
Does anyone on here?
Consistency seems to be a bit weak here.
It is a fact that we committed atrocities in Vietnam. More atrocities were committed than reported. It is also a fact that all wars have some number of atrocities.
The important question about American atrocities is were they policy, were there attempts to prevent them, and was the number unusually high for a western power. The answer is that that they were against policy, commanders tried to prevent them and about 200 Americans were convicted of war crimes by the military, and the number was not at all unusual for a civilized army.
Kerry's accusations, and this applies to the press since it is now trying to shore them up, were sweeping. His 1971 presentation and other activities were meant to give the message that America at war was evil, more evil than the enemy (whom, you will note, he ignores on this isue), and that therefore we should surrender. That is the gist of it. In doing so, he made many sweeping generalizations that, while supposedly resulting from the Winter Soldier investigation, were clearly aimed at much broader applicability. "A monster of millions..." - that applies to everyone who was ever in Vietnam. It can be read no other way.
not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
What does that say? There is no way Winter Soldier could produce that information. And by the way, I hear arguments on press think about American journalistic standards and how high they are, and how low is the credibility of the attackers. How many of those same people accept Winter Soldier as a meaningful event? What kinds of standards are these?
Another point that is almost never heard, and most Americans don't know, is that the enemy committed atrocities on a wide scale as a matter of policy. It was how they maintained control of villages - the village chief does the wrong thing, and his kids are killed in front of him, his wife dismeboweled, and then he is killed. That was what they did, that was their policy, and I defy anyone to make a case that the United States had any sort of policy like that. Tens of thousands were killed just by this particular policy.
We heard about the fallacy of limited vision. That applies to those claimining widespread American atrocities also. If David claims his experience is typical, he would be wrong. But he has no first hand way to know that.
Jon Koppenhoefer
I do not follow this 'logic'. I'm also aware that Sinclair and Sherwood do not clarify that Kerry was reporting to the Senate what he was told during the Winter Soldier hearings, rather than making accusations of his own.
Sorry if this is repetitious... but it is needed to answer this. First - the high level. Kerry was not reporting, he was giving a propaganda speech. The wording is highly loaded and the speech is structure to cause maximum damage, not simply supply information. Second, the idea that because there were American atrocities in Vietnam that Kerry's speech is correct (something that not only you but the MSM is starting to try to sell) is incorrect, and reading the speech shows that - he grossly exaggerates the situation, makes atrocities out to be a matter of policy by the way he describes who failed to act on atrocities, and also interjects other false information (the creation of a monster - read the link below to see it). That many Americans chose to believe what he said caused great problems for a lot of Vietnam vets. See Stolen Valor (Burkett) for that (author name is coincidental - no connection to RatherGate). Also, his many speeches matched North Vietnamese propaganda closely, to the point his speech is still being used today y the North Vietnamese today.
Second, Winter Soldier was fraudulent. To use terms around here, it didn't come up to journalistic standards. Specifically witnesses were coached, many had lied about their Vietnamese experience and could not have witnessed what they claim to have seen. Some were not Vietnam Veterans or even veterans, but were using the names of real vets without their knowledge. If you know anything about how communist guerilla theater and show trials work - that was the way Winter Soldier was run. It was held in Detroit at Jane Fonda's demand and with some of her money. One witness spoke at the Kerry Lied Rally on 9/12. He spoke to apologize to us for the lies he had told, and said he was just a confused kid at the time but with no actual witnessing of atrocities.
Kerry's speech was not a report, it was classic deceptive propaganda - some true, some fabrication, much exaggeration. If some of the facts are false in the Swiftie ads or Stolen Honor, it is not by intent. Certainly not the Swiftie ads - I know some of the people. Having not seen Stolen Honor, and can't say, but knowing that it is a bunch of POWs from Vietnam, it is highly unlikely that any of them would give false information. One thing that kept people going in the Hanoi Hilton was a fierce honor code.
What is truly ironic is that atrocities were the policy and practice of the Viet Cong and NVA, and they did a lot of it. They were unauthorized and illegal acts by our troops. Consider how Lt. Calley was stopped: A passing helicopter pilot saw the slaughter, landed in by the platoon, got out and at gunpoint (him vs. a platoon) ordered it ceased. That was an American pilot, and he was acting on his own initiative.
Kerry strongly implies that our normal practice was atrocities and slaughter of civilians. That is a major lie, but was what the North Vietnamese line was. One of the oddest thing in his report is his way of talking about anti-Vietnamese racism. It is simply incorrect. And assertion that we used weapons on the Vietnamese that we wouldn’t use on Europeans was very, very wrong..
Today, there is a new phenomenon. Long after the attack by the Swifties, members of the MSM are attempting to prove Kerry's statements to be true. They are doing so by collecting anecdotal reports of atrocities, and some larger collection of reports from the Pentagon. The referenced Village Voice is an example of that. It doesn't meet my standards, because part of this campaign involves misrepresenting Kerry's statement to be "there were some atrocities", proving it true, and not dealing with the fact that Kerry was making claims that can only mean a huge number of atrocities as a matter of policy - a disgusting lie.
In computers, we say RTFM. Here, I'll say: read how what he says is meant to be, and was interpreted
But Kerry didn't simply say that a few Americans committed atrocities. Had he done so, everyone would have agreed. Instead, he slandered all of us with the charge, turning a normal (but uncommon) wartime situation into an attack on the very humanity of all of us and of America. Other parts of his "testimony" is structured to support it. For example, he said the war had created a monster composed of millions of veterans, who had been psychologically damaged by what they were forced to do (implying atrocities). First, this destroys the premise that he was merely reporting what he was told, since there was no way the Winter Soldier 'investigations' could have determined that. Second, it is rank nonsense, but it hurt a lot of Vietnam Vets (such as the man who wrote Stolen Valor) because people believed it and were leery of Vietnam vets.
It is factual that Kerry accused essentially all of us. His charges and language were sweeping. The "monster" statement, if you look at the numbers, actually includes more than the total number of combat veterans.
The attacks against Kerry are a result of people reading what he said, and looking at what he did, and seeing it for what it was. The fact that the every single one of Kerry's commanders and the vast majority of his fellow officers pronounce him unfit doesn't come from "outbursts of hysteria" or "bitter complaints". Not when polls have shown that most Vietnam Vets felt good about what they had done and were willing to do it again. There are bitter Vietnam vets, and more people pretending to be bitter vets who aren't Vietnam vets.
To avoid filling up Jay's place with more repetitious assertions, go here for a far less friendly analysis, and for lots of facts and analyses about Kerry during that period, go to Winter Soldier.
Jon, your education on Kerry is just beginning based on your assertions (which as a Vietnam Veteran I find both naive and offensive).
How Sinclair will handle these issues is still an open question..