SwiftVets.com

[Becky]

"On April 22, 1971, Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. Most controversial is his allegation that American soldiers
were committing war crimes, "not isolated incidents but crimes committed
on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of
command." He spoke of "the 200,000 [Vietnamese] a year who are
murdered by the United States of America."

Kerry did not claim to have witnessed atrocities himself. But he
repeated claims made in the "Winter Soldier Investigation" of three
months earlier. Kerry had been a sponsor of that national conference,
which took testimony from a number of witnesses. It later developed that
some witnesses had never been to Vietnam at all, and others
subsequently recanted their charges.

Kerry's campaign has argued that in his Senate testimony,
Kerry was only reporting charges made by others, but that claim is not
consistent with Kerry's words. Kerry's testimony is a matter of record.
But some questions remain: Why did he testify to war crimes and
atrocities occurring "on a daily basis" if he had no knowledge of such
atrocities? What was his basis for saying that American soldiers murdered
200,000 Vietnamese a year?

Al Hubbard and Kerry appeared on NBC's Meet the Press
on April 18, 1971. Kerry was directly asked if he had committed
any war crimes or atrocities in Vietnam. Kerry said he had:

" There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that yes,
yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as...other soldiers"

Page 153 Unfit for Command


"On May 6, 2004, during the presidential campaign, John Kerry
appeared once again on Meet the Press:

Meet the Press Host Tim Russert replayed for him his April 1971
appearance on the show. The following is their exchange:

Russert: Thirty years later, you stand by that?
Kerry: I don't stand by the genocide....I mean...we've got to
put this war in its proper perspective...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....

Pages 23 and 154 Unfit for Command

The truth:

Kerry tried to avoid service and petitioned his draft board for
a student deferment to study in Paris. When the draft board
refused, Kerry joined the Navy Reserves status "inactive".
Kerry was chairman of the Political Union and his commencement
address in 1966 criticized the foreign policy of President Johnson
and Vietnam.


http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/30544.htm
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/Kerry_1971_Testimony.pdf
Unfit for Command
_________________
“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a
scarce man, and brave, and hated and
scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid
join him, for then it costs nothing to be a
patriot.”
- Mark Twain