Swift Vets and POWs for "Truth" v. The Truth
[Formerly Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" v. The Truth]

Acknowledgements

BARF BAG ALERT 12/17/04: Serial fraudster Zell Miller (outgoing Georgia "Democratic" Senator) to present Conservative "award" to SBV [link via Hesiod]! Let's be polite about this: if his fraud at the RNC wasn't sufficient, this alone proves that Miller is worse than the most repugnant pond scum on earth.

LATEST UPDATE - 10/19/04
To send me news/information tips or comments, please click here. 

AN ASIDE: Check out Vote2004.eRiposte.com - dedicated to tracking voting irregularities, vote suppression, vote fraud, voter intimidation and other such acts of compassionate conservatism during Election 2004. 

13. [via David Shuster, MSNBC (via Hesiod)]: Shuster reports that although the film "Stolen Honor" "features former POWs who say John Kerry's name was invoked by north Vietnamese prison guards", they spoke to "dozens of POWs who've spent years in Vietnamese prison camps and they never heard John Kerry's name mentioned once". This is consistent with previous information from other POWs, indicating that these "POWs for Truth" have a major problem with the truth. Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

12. [via David Shuster, MSNBC (via Hesiod)]: Some of the people portrayed in "Stolen Honor" claim that Kerry's anti-war activities led to their being in Vietnam longer. The Vietnam war was not extended because of anti-war demonstrators. Indeed it might be argued that the war may have gone on longer without the anti-war demonstrations. Regardless, the war was stopped when the Nixon administration negotiated an end to it. Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

11. [via Daily Howler]: O'Neill of SBV claims that Kerry said in a speech (reported in his "book") that Ho Chi Minh was like George Washington. However, this a "speech" that he never read and was not in "the book" either. It was a speech that a "crazy, violence-prone," paid FBI-mole and fabricator claimed Kerry made - and there is no proof that Kerry ever said this. Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

10. [via Daily Howler]: SBV claim that Kerry's charges of war crimes are false because such crimes would never have been tolerated by these principled men. Not surprisingly these "honorable" men also claim Kerry committed numerous war crimes which they never bothered to report when they were supposedly committed! In other words, they obviously acquiesced to those (fictitious) war crimes themselves, while claiming they never did! Ever heard the phrase "serial liars"? Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

9. [via Daily Howler]: SBV claim that Kerry exaggerated about capturing two Viet Cong when he only captured a woman and a child. Kerry never claimed he captured two Viet Cong in his report. He said clearly that he captured a woman and a child. Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

8. [via Daily Howler]: SBV claims that Kerry killed a small child. Let me put it plainly and politely. This is another egregious, slanderous lie from these pond scum who are lower than the lowest life form on earth. Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

7. [via Daily Howler]: SBV claims that Kerry was "sickened" by SBV member Roy Hoffmann's conduct during the war (based on the book "Tour of Duty"). Nowhere in "Tour of Duty" does Kerry say he was "sickened" by Hoffmann's conduct. Indeed, the person who does criticize Hoffmann in Tour of Duty is fellow SBV member Larry Thurlow! Details in the Other Lies or B.S. section.

6. [via Knight-Ridder]: SBV claims Kerry "fled" the scene during the incident that led to his Bronze Star. In addition to the fact that the actual facts contradict this, an SBV member Larry Thurlow contradicted himself by stating that he could not say Kerry "fled". Details in the SBV v. SBV page and the Kerry Bronze Star page.

5. [via Daily Howler and Unspun]: SBV claims Kerry was in cahoots with Communist Vietnam based on a photo of his that hangs in a Vietnam War Remnants Museum. This egregious lie is based on the hope that people will ignore these facts:
(a) Kerry's picture in Vietnam relates to his 1993 meetings with Vietnamese leaders on the POW/MIA issue which Congress was pursuing (including Sen. John McCain) - and SBV even acknowledge that meeting to have been "reasonable"! He had no control over what pictures the Vietnamese chose to put in their own museum and how *they* chose to label it! 
(b) Not only that, SBV conveniently ignored the pictures of other Americans (at that time) that are in that same museum - such as the assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and leaders of various Veterans groups. 
As ace journalist Robert Parry has documented, this line of attack - calling Kerry a traitor - is a well known Bush family tactic against their opponents. Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

4. [via Media Matters]: The producer of the anti-Kerry film "Stolen Honor" Carlton Sherwood has also made an egregiously misleading attempt to create a connection between Kerry and actress Jane Fonda that did not exist. Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

3. [via Media Matters]: The producer of the anti-Kerry film "Stolen Honor" Carlton Sherwood claims that everything that came from the Winter Soldiers hearing (and Vietnam Veterans Against the War - VVAW - in that hearing) has been "utterly discredited" through volumes of books. However, there is no published evidence (as opposed to unsubstantiated allegations) that the Winter Soldier testimony from the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) has been discredited - except for the case of one witness who stated he was a captain, when he was really a sergeant. Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

2. [via Media Matters]: The producer of the anti-Kerry film "Stolen Honor" Carlton Sherwood and other SBV members claimed that Kerry "secretly" met "in an undisclosed location in Paris with a top enemy diplomat" [from Vietnam]. This is a false and misleading statement. Kerry's meeting was as a private citizen and was NO SECRET - he spoke about it PUBLICLY in his Senate testimony in 1971. He went to Paris to attend the peace talks aimed at ending the war and to see if there was some way to get American POWs released. Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

1. [via Media Matters]: The producer of the anti-Kerry film "Stolen Honor" Carlton Sherwood and other participants in the film claim that Kerry branded average/all American soldiers in Vietnam war criminals, demons or murderers. This is an old, recycled, egregious, SBV claim that is utterly false. Details in the Kerry - Other War Related page.

ARCHIVES

INTRODUCTION to Swiftvets.eRiposte.Com 
(email: feedback-at-eriposte-dot-com)

Welcome! 

This website (a sub-domain to eRiposte.com) is dedicated to revealing the real truth about the claims from the following bunch of closely linked individuals:

1. Those who are part of (or fund) the so-called "Swift Vets and POWs for Truth" - formerly known as "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth".

2. Those who wrote (or contributed to) the fraudulent, lie-ridden, anti-Kerry book titled "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry"

3. Those who made/produced/contributed to the fraudulent, lie-ridden, anti-Kerry film "Stolen Honor, Wounds That Never Heal" 

For convenience, I use the term SBV to refer to anyone who is part of any of these groups above [they are perhaps more appropriately referred to as Swift Boat Veterans (and POWs) Who Have a Major Problem With The Truth. On the blogosphere you will find other, equally appropriate names for SBV - such as Swift Boat Veteran Flip-Floppers for Bush or Smear Boat Veterans for Bush or Swift Boat Liars for Bush). Pick the name you like. I'll stick with SBV.]

Many media outlets (see below) have been providing a relatively easy opening for SBV (at least until 8/19/04) - sometimes parading these folks before viewers (or readers), often without critically examining the full breadth and depth of their egregiously false charges against Senator John Kerry (some media, "journalists", and serial liars are far worse than others on this). In an attempt to correct the lack of balance in the media's treatment of this group and to refute the false allegations that form the basis of the book and the film, this website explores SBV's charges in detail and shows you the truth behind the so-called "truth". 

What will become clear when you review the material here is that SBV has major ultra-right-wing, partisan, Bush supporters and Kerry haters and GOP slime operators who are merely kicking off Part II of "The Hunting of the President" - while creating the appearance of being an "independent" group.

What is even more remarkable is that SBV's hate-filled mendacity is nothing other than a direct attack on the integrity of the American Armed Forces - something that Republicans like them claim to hold dear. 

As Digby has eloquently noted:

It has struck me lately what a terrible indictment of the military these charges are and how once again the Republicans have absolutely no limits in terms of how fully they are willing to trash the American institutions they allegedly love in order to win. What these people are saying is that the US Navy awarded some of its highest medals for bravery to a coward. The many officers who signed those glowing fitness reports and awarded those citations are either liars or they are incompetent. The word of his shipmates, even the man whose life he saved, are worth nothing. You can't believe military documentary evidence. It was all bullshit, every last piece of it.
And because of this it can now be said that all medals awarded for bravery are suspect. A superior military record is no longer a recommendation. Who can ever believe the government on this issue, now?
...
The conservative attack on the military is, on the other hand, so small minded, so parochial. For puny, partisan reasons they are accusing the military of widespread corruption --- merely to excuse the behavior of their less than stellar candidate.
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Too bad for the men and women who are risking their necks as we speak for Junior's Big Adventure. Any act of bravery on which the military might bestow a medal is now subject to interpretation. Nothing is sacred to these people.

Some veterans agree:

As was shamefully done previously against decorated veterans like John McCain and Max Cleland, extreme right-wing groups such as the so-called 'Swift-Boat Veterans for Truth' are again spreading lies meant to discredit a decorated veteran. A veteran who volunteered for combat, who was brave enough not only to withstand the rigors of battle but then the equally difficult struggle to speak the truth about war's inevitable dark side: savagery, stupidity, recklessness, maiming, and death. These are the truths of every war -- those necessary and those avoidable; those just and those unjust.

"The slander about John Kerry's Purple Hearts and courage in command is fallacious at best and spuriously shameful. More, the attacks against Kerry's post-discharge protest of Vietnam represent a concerted attempt to prevent others from speaking the necessary truth of their experience by those too cowardly to admit their own share in our flawed humanity...
...
If they succeed, hundreds of thousands of young soldiers and Marines will find it that much more difficult to tell their difficult stories -- whether heroic, tragic, barbaric, or all three -- when they return from Iraq and Afghanistan. So that another generation of veterans will not be rent by the difficult choice between living with a lie and feeling shamed for telling the truth, we ask you: do not listen to those who would distort a brave man's struggle.

Please select one of the menu options at the top of this page to see the facts.