SwiftVets.com

[Bob Chamberlain]

There is no doubt that many Vietnamese civilians died at the hands of US troops - as innocent civilians have died at the hands of soldiers in every Army in every war that ever took place. I have never heard anyone deny this fact - especially about Vietnam. Where John Kerry's statements become a lie, is in his insistence that the VERY ISOLATED acts he describes were committed on a day-to-day basis with the full knowledge and support of the entire chain of command. This charge is so patently false on its face that anyone who claims to believe it has lost all objectivity and is simply searching for "evidence" that America is morally corrupt.

This following is (one small art of) John Kerry's damning testimony of lies before the US Senate on April 22, 1971. He repeated these charges in media appearances at every opportunity over the following months. And he had to have known that the words he spoke were very questionable and, in many cases, outright lies.

"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.

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped 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 countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

After these statements were made before Congress, an official investigation into these charges was opened - an investigation that John Kerry and the VVAW demanded in public, while actively seeking to block it in private. They instructed the "veterans" who had testified at Winter Soldier (the "testimony" that John Kerry was so fond of repeating as fact) not to cooperate with the investigators. Since the investigators were denied the opportunity to question the "veterans" directly, they used the published testimony as the starting point for their investigation. They were never able to confirm that even one of the incidents described had ever taken place. Not a single one. They were able to verify that many of the "veterans" had never served in Vietnam or that their units were not in the locations described at the times the supposed atrocities took place. They also discovered that many of the "veterans" were total imposters, using the names of real veterans who could prove that they had not been in Detroit at the time of the Winter Soldier investigation.

John Kerry was fully aware that this Winter Soldier testimony was highly questionable and in many cases downright false. The VVAW shot film footage at Winter Soldier, copies of which are still available. This film footage shows the VVAW leadership, including John Kerry, coaching the witnesses on the "testimony" they will present in public. One of the witnesses was Steve Pitkin, who rode to Detroit with John Kerry. Steve Pitkin has signed an affidavit telling of his experiences at Winter Soldier.

Excerpt from the affidavit:

"In January of 1971, I rode in a van with John Kerry, a national leader of the VVAW, and others from Washington D.C. to Detroit to attend the Winter Soldier Investigation, a conference intended to publicize alleged American war crimes in Vietnam. Having no knowledge of such war crimes, I did not intend to speak at the event.

During the Winter Soldier Investigation, John Kerry and other leaders of that event pressured me to testify about American war crimes, despite my repeated statements that I could not honestly do so. One event leader strongly implied that I would not be provided transportation back to my home in Baltimore, Maryland, if I failed to comply. Kerry and other leaders of the event instructed me to publicly state that I had witnessed incidents of rape, brutality, atrocities and racism, knowing that such statements would necessarily be untrue."

John Kerry is shown conducting a pre-interview with Steve Pitkin in the VVAW film.

I served as an Infantry platoon leader with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade (Separate) in Vietnam. In this unit, each replacement (officers included) spent the first two weeks in-country being schooled in the conduct of combat operations. A key part of this training was devoted to the rules of engagement. We were very clearly instructed about the requirements of the Geneva Conventions and sternly warned that any violations of these conventions would be severely prosecuted. For the most part, the specific acts of horror that John Kerry claimed the American soldiers in Vietnam perpetrated on a daily basis (cutting off heads, arms, ears etc.) were not specifically mentioned. We were simply informed that the Geneva Conventions requried that we secure (and PROTECT) enemy personnel and civilians that came under our control. But we were specifically informed that the multilation of bodies (most specifically the cutting off of ears as "souvenirs") absolutely would not be tolerated and any such acts would result in an immediate court martial. Obviously, such acts of mutilation must have occurred sometime, someplace, or the 199th Light Infantry would not have felt the need to mention this one act so specifically. But our leadership made it absolutely clear that any such future acts would not be tolerated at all. And I can tell you with 100% certainly that they did not happen in my unit.

John Kerry also often referred to "free fire zones" as being a violation of the Geneva Conventions. He paints an image of a "free fire" zone as an area in which American forces killed anything that moved. This is a lie. In Vietnam, we operated under three basic sets of rules of engagement, dependent upon the degree to which we could expect to encounter civilians engaged in legitimate (non-military) activities. In all cases, we were strongly encouraged to take prisoners whenever we could, if for no other reason than to provide intelligence resources. In all cases, we were allowed to engage any obvious enemy personnel (a man running down a street carrying an AK, for instance), capturing him if possibe, shooting him if not. In populated areas (cities, villages, etc.) the baisc rule was "don't fire unless fired upon". In the case of a man with an AK, we were not allowed to shoot if the risk to civilian personel was too great, unless he fired on us first. In rural (agricultural areas), the same basic rule was in effect, except that we could almost always enage "a man with an AK" even if he didn't fire on us, because there were so many fewer civilians around to worry about. Then there were the more remote "free fire" zones - the jungles, mostly. These were areas (we called them "Indian country") where there should be no civilians engaged in legitimate activities. In fact, civilians were specifically warned to stay out of these areas. But even there, we were specifically instructed not to shoot first and asked questions later, if at all possible. But if we observed a group of people moving (particualrly at night) we were allowed to fire on them before they fired on us, even if we did not observe weapons before opening fire. We were still encouraged to take prisoners where possible, but a group of people moving at night through the jungle was assumed to be an enemy force and thus "fair game". And I don't see one damn thing wrong with such rules of engagement. John Kerry seems to think this is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and an "atrocity". I have read through the Geneva Conventions and I can't find a single word in them that would prohibit such rules of engagement. But there are a lot of "Geneva Conventions". Look for yourself.

http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/auoy.htm

In any case, this appears to me to be another case where John Kerry plays fast and loose with the truth, reading words into the Geneva Conventions that aren't there and painting an image of our actions and rules of engagement that is false.

On the other side of the coin, the Viet Cong engaged in a deliberate and planned campaign of terrorism agains the civilian population of Vietnam that exacted a cost in human life and suffering that far exceeded anything the Americans might have done as illegal individual acts. The Viet Cong struck at the administrators of smaller villages and even regional centers to undermine the authority of the Saigon government. They murdered the local village chiefs and mayors and even their whole families. They would force an entire village to gather to witness the torture, rape and murder of a man's family, before his eyes, before murdering him and planting his head on a stake. They extorted rice "taxes" on the villagers to feed their forces in the field. They strapped booby traps on the bodies of little children and sent them, innocent and unknowing, into a group of US soldiers to kill as many as possible. The littany of Viet Cong atrocities against their own people is long and well documented. Such acts designed to bring down the government of South Vietnam is one of the reasons the US sent forces to Vietnam in the first place. We were trying to stop such terror acts and protect the civilian population of Vietnam. But John Kerry chose to ignore and forgive this systematic campaign of Communist terrorism - while deeply condeming and exaggerating the isolated incidents of US criminal acts.

In the book "A War Remembered" (published in 1986 by Boston Publishing Company as part of a series called The Vietnam Experience), John Kerry wrote the following on page 114:

"It seemed to me that you had a classic insurgency in Vietnam in which the Communists were exercising governmental functions within the villages like taxation and so forth, a situation where the chief's head would appear on a stake and then a couple of days later if other people hadn't come on board they would start disappearing."

Joh Kerry seems to feel that it is OK for Communists to murder local officials in order to coerce the population into paying taxes. He seems to feel that this is a legitimate governmental function of a classic insurgency. Right.

Why did John Kerry choose to ignore such commonplace and deliberate acts of Communist atrocities and terrorism, while grossly exaggerating the rare incidents of US criminal behavior? Why does he ignore this planned Communist campaign of terror, while falsely accusing our own chain of command with supporting the commission of atrocities? The answer is clear. John Kerry is not an honest man.
_________________
Bob

Useful anti-Kerry campaign material at:
http://www.betrayed-vietnam-vet.info

[Anker-Klanker]

Thanks for that excellent and succinct reminder. It is, of course, old news to many of us who have been visiting these forums for many weeks or even months. But there are a lot of new members who have signed on only very recently that this kind of recap will greatly help.

[Islander]

Thank you Bob, very well said. Concise, complete and true.
_________________
1st Cavalry (airmobile)
Vietnam, 1971-1972

[CTW]

Why? Because Kerry was presenting the communist plan for the US surrender. He met with them and they knew they could play on the American's feelings about our troops dying. Kerry used those feelings for his own personal gain. He used the POWs as pawns for his personal gain. He was a spokesman for VVAW as an a opportunist. The FBI files record that the Viet Cong would release one POW to the VVAW "to demonstrate the VVAW had power". The American people would see a POW come home and support the VVAW. Kerry and Hubbard negotiated that with the enemy. One dirty hand dirtying another dirty hand. He was collaborating with the enemy. Funding for the VVAW was from communists and Viet Cong directly so the VVAW would do the work for them: to deliver the American sympathy and support for the communist take over of S. Vietnam. John Kerry was and still is a traitor. He will be charged and tried for treason in my lifetime. CTW

Never Ever Kerry

[angelnoel]

PLEASE, is there a moderator in this room? Have a comment on "Not Fit to Lead" and do not where to post it. TYVM

Admin note: This forum will do nicely. Thanks