SwiftVets.com

[95 bxl]

What Corporate Media don't want you to Remember...

What Kerry dosen't want you to Know/Remember...
Portion of John Kerry remarks on NBC's "Meet the Press" May 6, 2001:


MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned you're a military guy. There's been a lot of
discussion about Bob Kerrey, your former Democratic colleague in the
Senate, about his talking about his anguish about what happened in Vietnam. You were on this program 30 years ago as a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. And we went back and have an audiotape of that and some still photos. And your comments are particularly timely in this overall discussion of Bob Kerrey. And I'd like for you to listen to those with our audience and then try to put that war into some context:


(Audiotape, April 18, 1971):


MR. CROSBY NOYES (Washington Evening Star): Mr. Kerry, you said at one time or another that you think our policies in Vietnam are tantamount to genocide and that the responsibility lies at all chains of command over there. Do you consider that you personally as a Naval officer committed atrocities in Vietnam or crimes punishable by law in this country?


KERRY: There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals.

[sparky]

I have to say I admire his candor. It was virtually impossible to survive in a free-fire zone without committing some kind of moral wrong.

He did the honorable thing, however, in coming back to oppose the war. Those men who committed similar wrongs who remained silent and obedient probably have a great deal of pent-up unreleased and unhealthy emotion not dealt with.

And considering the kinds of brutality committed by Tiger Force, Kerry had a duty to come back and report the crimes they committed.

[scotty61]

Says alot about a man who doesn't seem to care that his words were used to try to break the moral of US POWs in Hanoi, but then he hasn't shown any concern about Osama repeating his and Ted Kennedy's statements either.

[JasonBinPNW]

[sparky]

I spent as much time in Vietnam as all of the following conservative leaders and pundits combined:

Dick Cheney Karl Rove Elliott Abrams Paul Wolfowitz Richard Perle John Ashcroft Newt Gingrich Bill Bennett Sean Hannity Katherine Harris Lynne Cheney Ann Coulter Rush Limbaugh Bill O'Reilly Brit Hume Roger Ailes Ari Fleischer Phil Gramm Ted Olson Tom DeLay Bob Barr Jeb Bush Bob Dornan Trent Lott Kenn Starr Ken Adelman Saxby Chambliss John Bolton Andrew Card Don Evans Michael Ledeen Roy Blunt Antonin Scalia Steve Forbes Dennis Hastert Tim Hutchinson Mitch McConnell Don Nickles Tony Snow Mark Souder Pat Robertson P.J. O'Rourke George Will Clarence Thomas Gary Bauer Ted Nugent Michael Weiner Dan Quayle Bob Ney & Walter Jones Alan Keyes Jerry Falwell Matt Drudge

And, actually, Kerry DID stop one crime. By the only critic who served on the boat WITH Kerry. From the Boston Globe about Steven Michael Gardner:

As Gardner recalls it, he was in the "tub" above the pilot house with the twin machine guns, and Kerry was in command, when the Navy swift boat came upon a sampan in the darkness. Gardner flashed a searchlight and ordered the craft to stop. Then, he said, he saw a figure rise up over the gunwale with a semiautomatic weapon. Spotting tracers in the sky and fearing an attack, Gardner said, he laced the sampan with bullets, and other crew members fired as well. Gardner recalls a man in the sampan falling overboard, presumably dead.

After the shooting had stopped and Kerry had ordered a cease-fire, Gardner said, the crew found a woman in the sampan who was alive. There was also the boy, dead in the bottom of the boat. Gardner said there is no way to know which crewmate fired the shots that killed the boy, but he said Kerry was in the pilot house and did not fire. Kerry was livid when he emerged, Gardner said.

"Kerry threatened me with a court-martial, screaming at the top of his lungs: `What the hell do you think you're doing? I ought to have you court-martialed,' " Gardner recalled. "Thankfully, the whole crew was there in the middle of it . . . they verified there were weapons being shot at us. That was the end of it."

---- snip ----

Frankly, I'm surprised that Gardner didn't frag Kerry. He sounds like he was blood-thirsty.

[sparky]

I forgot the most important name on that list above, George Bush.

[95 bxl]

All of which is completely besides the point, except for one thing: Kerry is a self-admitted war criminal, and you people support him. Really isn't that much different then supporting any other war criminal.

[eecee]

[JasonBinPNW]

[Me#1You#10]

[sparky]

But in addition to Kerry never calling himself a "war criminal" (like any war criminal ever calls themselves that<gr>), Kerry never said he did any of the above things (Killing civilians deliberately. Destroying innocent villages, disfiguring or mutilating a corpse, torturing prisoners)

Unfortunately, there are times when things are ambiguous and you're not sure whether you were dealing with combatants or civilians, which particular group fired upon you, whether you can be certain that the village you're treating as supportive of the enemy actually is with 100% certainty. There are a million other similar ambiguities.

In light of that ambiguity, Kerry was honest enough to publicly question whether he'd committed wrongs. I don't believe he did, but I appreciate his soul-searching.

But he never called himself a "war criminal." You guys are SOOOO dramatic!

[95 bxl]

[sparky]

[eecee]

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