SwiftVets.com

[hanna]

Kerry view of Vietnam changed since 70's
1970 appearance on Cavett show at odds with recent comments
By Lisa Myers and the NBC Investigative Unit
NBC News
Updated: 5:37 p.m. ET May 7, 2004
More than three decades ago, a young Vietnam veteran named John Kerry made one of his first national television appearances, and he brought along home movies he took of one of his firefights with the enemy in Vietnam. Kerry’s television appearance has been in mothballs for decades — until now.
In tape of that appearance, obtained by NBC News, Kerry makes statements which appear to be at odds with more recent comments about why he went to Vietnam.
It was Kerry’s first national television appearance and came near the peak of the anti-war movement, days after Richard Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia and college campuses erupted.
Kerry was asked why, if he opposed the war, he agreed to go to Vietnam and fight. He emphasized his reluctance, saying, “I wound up going to Vietnam because in 1965, voicing an objection, as I would have liked to have at that point, would have been, I think, a very futile thing.”
But in 2001, gearing up to run for president, Kerry had a different explanation on NBC’s Meet the Press, where he said, “I believe very deeply that it was a noble effort to begin with. I signed up. I volunteered I wanted to go over there and I wanted to win.”
“I think there’s a difference between those two quotes,” said historian and Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley, explaining, “It’s not my understanding that John Kerry ever thought Vietnam was per se a noble effort.”

Kerry, on the Cavett set, in 1970, in discussing what he was fighting for, said, “I just could never feel that I was there fighting to save that country, to make it safe for democracy. The only feeling you could have was that you were like the Germans, that you were there occupying another country.”
But in 2001, as he was beginning his efforts to run for president, Kerry told Meet the Press, “It was a noble effort to try to make a country democratic, to try to carry our principles and values to another part of the world.”
Asked to explain Kerry’s seemingly different statements, a campaign spokesman said, “Kerry went to Vietnam because he felt a duty to his country. He served with honor and distinction.”

On the Cavett show, Kerry also showed films he shot in Vietnam, explaining the video, saying, saying, “You see a bunker being taken under fire. In fact, we’re under fire at this point and you can see some shots coming out, landing in the water.” He added, “Just after this I put the camera down. I had a feeling we were gonna be ambushed… and sure enough up ahead we were. And you’ll see it.”
Brinkley says Kerry compiled material to bolster his case against the war, telling Cavett, “I took these pictures in a moment of confusion,” explaining, “There you see the huts burning, and this, this is the enemy, so to speak, in South Vietnam.”
Kerry told Cavett, “I was constantly struck by the juxtaposition of those of us running around with guns and the body lying there in the field. There you see the huts burning.”
Why the change in his comments? Critics say that in 1970, sharp criticism of the war was fashionable, while decades later, a presidential candidate would need to bolster credentials to be commander in chief.
A recent NBC News poll found that even 71% of Republicans agree that Kerry served honorably. It also found that voters say what they like least about Kerry is him “straddling both sides of issues.”
Lisa Myers is NBC News’ Senior Investigative Correspondent
© 2004 MSNBC Interactive
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4926018/

[Bob Chamberlain]

I found this on:

http://www.usorthem.org/current-events/john_kerry_%20voting_record.html

Kerry Took BOTH Sides In First Gulf War In Separate Letters To Same Constituent. “Rather than take a side--albeit the one he thought was most expedient--Kerry actually stood on both sides of the first Gulf war, much like he did this time around. Consider this ‘Notebook’ item from TNR’s March 25, 1991 issue, which ran under the headline ‘Same Senator, Same Constituent’:

ü ‘Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition ... to the early use of military force by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns. On January 11, I voted in favor of a resolution that would have insisted that economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a resolution giving the president the immediate authority to go to war.’ --letter from Senator John Kerry to Wallace Carter of Newton Centre, Massachusetts, dated January 22 [1991]

ü ‘Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush’s response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf.’ --Senator Kerry to Wallace Carter, January 31 [1991]” (Noam Scheiber, “Noam Scheiber’s Daily Journal of Politics, The New Republic Online, 1/28/04)

Pretty despicable, I would say.

[hanna]

Should send that to Rush.

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Rush has already covered this several times - he has the full text of both letters in his John Kerry Stack of Stuff.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[RocketFett]

Yeah one more thing with kerry that he says both sides of the same issue. So like he said in regards to the Iraq war "I voted FOR the war before I voted against it". Similarly, in regards to Vietnam, he supported the war before he opposed it. Typical kerry. I swear this guy is a pathological liar. God help us all if he is elected.