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JOHN
KERRY AND OTHER WAR / ANTI-WAR RELATED ISSUES
(includes claims in fraudulent anti-Kerry film "Stolen
Honor" and the Swift Vet ads)
SUMMARY
FACTS
(For detailed proof, scroll down or click here)
-
Note that Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth morphed into a new group calling itself
Swift Vets and POWs for Truth. People in this group are behind
the fraudulent anti-Kerry book "Unfit For Command" and
the fraudulent anti-Kerry film "Stolen Honor". For
convenience, I use the term SBV to refer to anyone who is part of
any of these groups - since they are
closely linked to each other.
-
SBV's egregious claims
about Kerry making movies of himself in Vietnam for the purpose of
future political campaigns is blatantly false garbage that has
been debunked a while ago.
- SBV's claim that they have 19 of 23
officers "who served with Kerry" blatantly misleading.
Only one of the officers in SBV (Steve Gardner) actually served
with Kerry on his boat and that too very briefly - and even he did
not serve with Kerry on the boat on which Kerry won his most
prestigious awards, the Bronze Star and the Silver Star.
Regardless, his criticism of Kerry has been refuted by all of
Kerry's other crew members.
- SBV's claim that "every
C.O." Kerry served under is part of SBV (unverified) and
thinks him "unfit" to be commander-in-chief must be
juxtaposed by the fact that some of these same C.O.s had lots of
praise for Kerry during the Vietnam era and even as recently as
1996 - so it is more than reasonable to assume that they have a
problem with the truth now. This is substantiated also by swift
boat commanders who recently came out to support Kerry; in
particular, Rich Baker pointed out that he recalled a 1995 reunion
of Swift boat crews in Washington at which praise for Kerry's
service in Vietnam was unanimous.
- SBV claims that Kerry's war crime
charges are false and that he implicated them and all other
soldiers in his anti-war days. Perhaps SBV do not read articles
that are not to their liking - like those talking about the My Lai
massacres, the Tiger Force massacres and the Thanh Phong massacres
(among many others which are cited in classified military
documents). Moreover, Kerry never named any names when he
spoke of war crimes committed in Vietnam. Kerry never stated that all
American soldiers were war criminals. Indeed, he laid responsibility
for the Vietnam mess on the command chain not the veterans
themselves. Indeed, Senators of both parties praised Kerry's
speech at that time. One wonders what part of their
service taught these SBV members and Stolen Honor producer Carlton
Sherwood to lie this blatantly.
- SBV member Roy "Latch"
Hoffman's criticism of Kerry's anti-war-crime speech is belied by
the fact that other Vietnam veterans independent of the Kerry
campaign have come forward to point out a known fact - that
Hoffman himself did not hesitate to order that a war crime be
committed (shooting of unarmed fishermen)
- SBV and its
members like Lonsdale are apparently so
enraged with Kerry, that Kerry "lost the war" for them and
"grossly and knowingly distorted the conduct of American
soldiers..."; then, how come they happily and forcefully supported Kerry back in 1996?
SBV also says that "For more than
thirty years, most Vietnam veterans kept silent as we were
maligned as misfits, addicts, and baby killers. Now
that a key creator of that poisonous image is seeking the
Presidency we have resolved to end our silence." Well, this is absurdly false. Some of them DID speak out in
1996, in favor of Kerry!
- SBV's ad makes it appear as if Kerry
personally witnessed certain atrocities that he narrated. This is
grossly misleading because Kerry was quoting others who had
testified about committing atrocities. Moreover, Kerry was
not blaming the veterans themselves but the top leadership for
letting things go out of hand. (Regardless, the fact that war
crimes and atrocities took place is not disputed by the historical
record.) "Incidentally" Ken Cordier
and Paul Gallanti - who appear in the corresponding anti-Kerry ad
are part of the Bush campaign or administration. Moreover, Ken
Cordier's biography has no Swift Boat experience listed (he was in
the Air Force). Why is he a "Swift Boat Veteran for
Truth"?
- SBV's ad makes it appear as if
Kerry's testimony was used against them (when they were POWs).
There is no evidence that Kerry's testimony was used by Vietnamese
captors against POWs. Indeed, SBV member Ken Cordier who appears
in that very ad said later that his captors did not use Kerry's
testimony! Other Swift Boat officers, one of whom was a POW,
refuted SBV's claims about Kerry's
testimony having been used against them as POWs. Senator John
McCain has said the same thing. Dozens of POWs who had spent years in
Vietnamese POW camps had never heard Kerry's name mentioned
there.
- 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.
- The producer of the anti-Kerry film
"Stolen Honor" Carlton Sherwood and some 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.
- 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 and 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.
- 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.
- SBV claim 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.
- SBV claim 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.
- 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.
- 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"?
- 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.
- SBV member Roy Hoffman's claims that
he knew Kerry well are contradicted by his past statements saying
the opposite.
DETAILED
FACTS
1. SBV claim
on Kerry's video recordings of "himself" in Vietnam
2. SBV claim
about Kerry's "crewmates" and commanders criticizing him
3.
SBV claim on Kerry's so-called "false" charges about war
crimes in Vietnam and having "lost the war" for them because
of this
3.1 SBV
claim that Kerry's charges of war crimes are false because such crimes
would never have been tolerated by these principled men
4. SBV chief
Hoffman's claim of "knowing" Kerry "well" and
therefore being in a position to criticize his record
5. SBV ad
that makes it appear as if Kerry personally witnessed certain
atrocities he was referring to
6. SBV ad
that makes it appear as if Kerry's testimony was used against them by
the enemy
6.1 SBV
claims that they stayed longer in Vietnam because of Kerry's anti-war
activities
7. SBV claim
that Kerry "secretly" met "in an undisclosed location
in Paris with a top enemy diplomat" [from Vietnam]
8. SBV claims
on the Winter Soldier investigation
9. SBV
attempt to link John Kerry with Jane Fonda
10. SBV
claims about Kerry's photograph in Ho Chi Minh City
11. SBV
claim that Kerry "killed" a small child
12. SBV
claim about Kerry's "exaggeration" about capturing two Viet
Cong
13. SBV
claim that Kerry said Ho Chi Minh was like George Washington
1. SBV CLAIM
ON KERRY'S VIDEO RECORDINGS OF "HIMSELF" IN VIETNAM:
[via Drudge, excerpt from SBV book
"UNFIT for Command"]: "Kerry
carried a home movie camera to record his exploits for later
viewing," charges a naval officer in the upcoming book UNFIT
FOR COMMAND.
"Kerry would revisit ambush locations for reenacting combat
scenes where he would portray the hero, catching it all on
film. Kerry would take movies of himself walking around in
combat gear, sometimes dressed as an infantryman walking resolutely
through the terrain. He even filmed mock interviews of himself
narrating his exploits. A joke circulated among Swiftees was
that Kerry left Vietnam early not because he received three Purple
Hearts, but because he had recorded enough film of himself to take
home for his planned political campaigns."
FACT
Blatantly false garbage that has already been debunked previously.
REFERENCES
Media
Matters:
Drudge cited a 1996 Boston
Globe article and two books by known Kerry-bashers: retired Air
Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert
"Buzz" Patterson and anti-Kerry group Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth founder John
O'Neill.
On September 7, 2002,
The New York Times' current executive editor and then-columnist
Bill Keller took up the issue of Kerry's wartime films and debunked
the reenactment charge, which he wrote
that he believed at first: "[R]elying on a report in the
usually dependable Boston Globe, I mocked him for pulling out
a movie camera after a shootout in the Mekong Delta and re-enacting
the exploit, as if preening for campaign commercials to come."
Simply not true,
Keller found after sitting through 40 minutes of footage in Kerry's
office. Contrary to Drudge's assertion -- which apparently quoted
O'Neill's upcoming book -- that Kerry would "reenact combat
scenes where he would portray the hero," Keller wrote:
The first thing
to be said is that the senator's movies are not self-aggrandizing.
Mr. Kerry is hardly in the film, and never strikes so much as a
heroic pose. These are the souvenirs of a 25-year-old guy sent to
an exotic place on an otherworldly mission, who bought an
8-millimeter camera in the PX and shot a few hours of travelogue,
most of it pretty boring if you didn't live through it.
Keller also wrote
that, according to the Swift
Boat Sailors Association, "a group of veterans who
manned" the kind of riverboat that Kerry commanded, "lots
of enlisted men did the same." Former Senator Max Cleland
(D-GA), a strong Kerry supporter who lost three limbs in Vietnam,
told Keller that he has hours of film from his service in Vietnam,
which, Keller wrote, "he has had edited into a three minute
meet-the-senator video."
As Media Matters
for America has noted, both Patterson and O'Neill have a history
of issuing false claims about Kerry. Patterson, author of the new
book Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undermine Our
Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopardize Our National
Security (Regnery Publishing, 2004), severely
distorted Kerry's record on defense spending, intelligence
spending, and veterans' pay in two recent appearances on the FOX
News Channel. Patterson also asserts in his book that "every
terrorist" is "hoping" the Democrats win the upcoming
U.S. election.
2.
SBV CLAIM
ON KERRY'S " CREWMATES" AND COMMANDERS CRITICIZING HIM:
[Nixon patsy John O'Neill]: We
have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every
commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter
that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief.
FACT
(i) The claim that they have 19 of 23 officers "who served with
Kerry" blatantly misleading. Only one of the officers in SBV
actually served with Kerry (on his boat), very briefly - and even
he did not serve with Kerry on the boat on which Kerry won his most
prestigious awards - the Bronze Star and the Silver Star.
Regardless, his criticism of Kerry has been refuted by all of Kerry's
other crew members.
(ii) Moreover, it is unclear if indeed "every C.O." he
served under is part of SBV - even if that is true, his C.O.s had
lots of praise for Kerry during the Vietnam era and even as recently
as 1996 - so it is more than reasonable to assume that they have a
problem with the truth now.
(iii) This is substantiated also by swift boat commanders who
recently came out to support Kerry; in particular, Rich Baker pointed
out that he recalled a 1995 reunion
of Swift boat crews in Washington at which praise for Kerry's service
in Vietnam was unanimous.
REFERENCES
Jesse
Taylor, Pandagon:
Somewhere in there, I
thought they'd have actual people who served with Kerry. You know,
to add some shred of credibility to the obscenely partisan attack on
his record. Via the Boston
Herald:
The only of
Kerry's crewmates to criticize him,
Steve Gardner, yesterday said Kerry "made indecisive moves''
that put their boat in jeopardy.
But Kerry crewmate
Drew Whitlow called that charge "totally false.''
"They're entitled to their opinions, (but) I served alongside
him,'' Whitlow said.
Yes, of the people to
actually serve with Kerry, a single one is now criticizing him. Of
the people who had direct knowledge of his actions and activities,
only one is speaking out against him. Out of two hundred people plus
in this group, only one actually served with Kerry. That, to me,
says more about this entire enterprise than anything else.
Hesiod:
Stephen M. Gardner, according
to Time, served with Kerry on Patrol Craft Fast 44 (PCF
44).
Kerry earned both his Silver Star and his Bronze Star while
serving as the commander of PCF 94.
...
Therefore Gardner provides no direct contradiction for any of
Kerry's heroism claims, so who cares what he thinks about Kerry's
personality? In fact, Gardner even admits Kerry "changed"
when he was no longer commanding PCF-44!
Milan
Simonich, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
via reader JL (bold text is eRiposte emphasis):
For 35 years, Rich
Baker seldom talked about Vietnam, Swift boats or John Kerry's
ability as a young naval officer.
But now, with
Republican partisans challenging Kerry's wartime record, Baker said
he feels compelled to strike back.
"Every Swift
boat officer gave his all in Vietnam, but Kerry stood above the rest
of us," said Baker, 61, of Scott, a former Navy lieutenant and
Swift boat commander. "He was number one as far as
courageousness and aggressiveness. He set the tone."
Campaign aides to
Kerry, the Democratic candidate for president, yesterday asked Baker
to speak out publicly to counter television ads attacking Kerry's
military record.
Baker, who ran a
bakery after coming home from Vietnam, complied. He granted a
handful of interviews and agreed to appear today at a Pittsburgh
news conference organized by the Kerry campaign.
A registered
Democrat, Baker voted for Republican George W. Bush for president in
2000. But this time, Baker said, he is supporting Kerry for two
reasons.
For one, Baker said,
he considers Kerry better qualified than Bush to be commander in
chief.
Second, Baker said,
he is perturbed that Kerry is being criticized for his service in
Vietnam while Bush's activities during wartime receive almost no
scrutiny.
"George Bush has
two silver dental fillings in his teeth to show what he did during
the Vietnam War," Baker said. "John Kerry has a Silver
Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts."
Bush was in the Air
National Guard during the Vietnam era, an assignment that kept him
stateside.
Baker, who grew up in
Crafton, graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1965, then
enlisted for Swift boat duty. He arrived in Vietnam in 1968, just
before Kerry.
Kerry served about
four months in Vietnam, and, Baker said, he made a habit of putting
himself in harm's way.
"You wouldn't
want to be there for four hours or four minutes," Baker said.
"John Kerry went above and beyond the call of duty, sticking
his nose into enemy fire. Not everybody liked that because some were
just intent on survival. But until recently, nobody ever said he did
not serve honorably."
Attacks on Kerry's
war record have come from a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans
For Truth.
But, Baker said,
these men never criticized Kerry until he became the Democratic
presidential nominee. Baker specifically recalled a 1995 reunion of
Swift boat crews in Washington at which praise for Kerry's service
in Vietnam was unanimous. Kerry then was the pride of the group as a
U.S. senator from Massachusetts.
Snopes.com:
Although the men quoted
above are often identified as "John Kerry's shipmates,"
only one of them, Steven Gardner, actually served under Lt.
Kerry's command on a Swift boat. The other men who served
under Kerry's command continue to speak positively of him:
"In 1969, I was
Sen. Kerry's gun mate atop of the Swift boat in Vietnam. And I
just wanted to let everyone know that, contrary to all the rumors
that you might hear from the other side, Sen. Kerry's
blood is red, not blue. I know, I've seen it.
"If it weren't for Sen. John Kerry, on the 28th of February
1969, the day he won the Silver Star . . . you and I
would not be having this conversation. My name would be on a long,
black wall in Washington, D.C. I saw this man save my life."3
— Fred Short
"I can still see him now, standing in the doorway of the
pilothouse, firing his M-16, shouting orders through
the smoke and chaos . . . Even wounded, or
confronting sights no man should ever have to see, he never lost
his cool.
I had to sit on my hands [after a firefight], I was shaking so hard
. . . He went to every man on that boat and put his arm
around them and asked them how they're doing. I've never had an
officer do that before or since. That's the mettle of the man,
John Kerry."3
— David Alston
"What I saw back then [in Vietnam] was a guy with genuine
caring and leadership ability who was aggressive when he had to
be. What I see now is a guy who's not afraid to tackle tough
issues. And he knows what the consequences are of putting people's
kids in harm's way."2
— James Wasser
Matt
Gunn (via Disinfopedia):
How in the world
could "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" read the following
descriptions from Kerry's C.O.'s as "unfit"?
October 19, 1967, evaluation from Captain Allen W. Slifer:
A top notch officer in every measurable trait. Intelligent,
mature, and rich in educational background and experience, ENS Kerry
is one of the finest young officers I have ever met and without
question one of the most promising.
September 3, 1968, evaluation from Captain E.W. Harper, Jr.:
LTJG KERRY is an intelligent and competent young naval officer
who has performed his duties in an excellent to outstanding manner.
December 18, 1969, evaluation from LCDR George M. Elliott:
In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive
action LTJG Kerry was unsurpassed. He constantly reviewed tactics
and lessons learned in river operations and applied his experience
at every opportunity. On one occasion while in tactical command of a
three boat operation his units were taken under fire from ambush.
LTJG Kerry rapidly assessed the situation and ordered his units to
turn directly into the ambush. This decision resulted in routing the
attackers with several enemy KIA.
LTJG Kerry emerges as the acknowledged leader in his peer group. His
bearing and appearance are above reproach. He has of his own
volition learned the Vietnamese language and is instrumental in the
successful Vietnamese training program.
During the period of this report LTJG Kerry has been awarded the
Silver Star medal, the Bronze Star medal, the Purple Heart medal
(2nd and 3rd awards).
Evaluation co-signed by Joseph Streuli and George M. Elliott on
January 28, 1969, and March 17, 1969, respectively:
... exhibited all of the traits of an officer in a combat
environment. He frequently exhibited a high sense of imagination and
judgment in planning operations against the enemy in the Mekong
Delta.
March 2, 1970 evaluation from Admiral Walter F. Schlech:
... one of the finest young officers with whom I have served in a
long naval career.
I could continue with more positive evaluations of Kerry's service,
but quite frankly all the excellence is boring me a bit.
There aren't any negative descriptions. None.
...
Perhaps more important than Kerry's C.O. evaluations are the
evaluations of the men under his command. From USA
Today...
Interviews
with 18 officers and enlisted sailors who served with Kerry in
Vietnam mostly portray a young leader with an aggressive command
style. Many recall a warm, compassionate officer who cared deeply
about his working-class crew. They also remember a warrior who
ferried pregnant women and hungry villagers down river for medical
care and food.
They recall how he initiated water-balloon fights to break the
tension. How he asked his crew to call him "John" on the
river and "sir" back at base. And how he listened to their
problems in a way that foretold a career in politics.
"His concern for us was overwhelming," says Fred Short, a
PCF-94 gunner's mate who would get the shakes when the adrenaline of
battle wore off. "He would come around then and put his hand on
your shoulder and ask if you're all right," says Short, 56, of
North Little Rock "I never had another officer do that."
Even those soldiers who
didn't like Kerry had respect for him:
"John was a master at looking out for John," says Larry
Thurlow, a fellow boat commander. "John has never been bashful
about saying, 'Man, I'm a war hero.' "
Yet, except for one crewmate, even those who felt betrayed by Kerry
for later leading Vietnam Veterans Against the War and who call
themselves Bush supporters acknowledge that he showed courage under
fire. "He was extremely brave, and I wouldn't argue that
point," Thurlow says.
...
4.
Okay, so who's behind "Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth"? Two really terrific guys. Meet...
Roy Hoffman
...
Months ago, Hoffman told The
Boston Globe that Kerry was a problem and asked to get more
specific he said:
"He was just going off on excursions that were not part of
the plan at the time." But Hoffman said those problems were
corrected and that he admired the gutsy way Kerry later went after
the enemy.
It sounds like Hoffman values ingenuity less than gutsiness, and
perhaps discretion least of all.
Media
Matters:
Not only does their
criticism conflict with what The New York Times described in
an April 22 article
as Kerry's "uniformly positive" evaluations included in
his military records, but, as Cameron also reported, their criticism
is inconsistent with statements previously made by many of the Swift
Boat Vets themselves. [Fox News' Carl] Cameron reported that in
1968, Kerry critic Grant W. Hibbard,
a lieutenant commander in Vietnam during Kerry's tour:
... described Kerry
in various favorable ways, as quote, "One of the top few in
his willingness to seek and accept responsibility." Captain
George Elliot, who served in Vietnam at the same time Kerry did,
condemns Kerry now for touting his service in a war that Kerry
later protested. ... But in '96, Elliot and other critics of
today, praised him for going after the enemy.
Beyond pointing out
the inconsistent statements by some of Kerry's critics, Cameron also
reported that Democrats say that "many of them ... have become
Republicans ... who have supported the Bush campaigns in Texas, have
been close friends of the Bush family both in politics and
business." Cameron stated on Special Report with Brit Hume,
"The GOP says it's not involved with the veterans criticizing
Kerry, but many of them are Republicans who have contributed to and
backed various Bush campaigns and causes over the decades."
On FOX News Channel's
Hannity & Colmes, co-host Alan Colmes challenged the
credibility of the Swift Boat Vets. Colmes noted that Swift Boat
Vets leader O'Neill did not serve in Vietnam with Kerry; rather, as
O'Neill told Colmes, "I actually took his boat over, but about
two months after he [Kerry] left." Colmes also draws attention
to the flip-flopping nature of the comments made about Kerry by
several group members. Colmes questioned O'Neill who appeared on the
show:
Here is what Grant
Hubbard [sic], who's now part of your group, here's what he had to
say back then about John Kerry. And he signed -- let's put it up
on the screen -- a report on Kerry. He said on initiative, one of
the top few. Cooperation, one of the top few. Personal behavior,
one of the top few. Why would he say that then and now be
supporting you now?
Colmes further
probed:
Let me show you the
report of George Elliott, who also graded John Kerry in Vietnam.
Here's what was said. Here's what he said. "In a combat
environment often requiring independent, decisive action,
Lieutenant Junior Grade Kerry was unsurpassed. LTJG Kerry emerges
as the acknowledged leader in his peer group. His bearing and
appearance are above reproach." That's a report of officer
fitness from 1969 by George Elliott, who also graded Kerry. How do
you account for that? Do you want to claim that everybody now is
saying what you're saying? It's clearly not true.
Colmes went on to say
to O'Neill, "You haven't explained to me how the very people
who you claim are supporting you now had these superlative things to
say about John Kerry back in the day when he was serving in Vietnam.
I don't understand the discrepancy. Maybe you could explain
it."
O'Neill answered by
saying, "Sure. They were hardly superlative. If you look at
John Kerry rated ... as a member of a group, you'll find that
virtually everybody in the group got the same ones. Commander
Hibbard, related generally, graded John Kerry as not observed. So
you take that two or three items and ignored the not observed item
on there."
Colmes replied,
"[E]verything he did observe him on he was superlative."
O'Neill responded:
"Yes, and mostly it was not observed."
Martin
Lewis, Salon.com:
Respected historian
Douglas Brinkley, author of "Tour of Duty," has studied
Kerry's Vietnam record exhaustively. "These are malicious
fabrications in the heat of the election," Brinkley says. He
adds that O'Neill; Adm. Roy Hoffman, his main source; and the other
Swift Boat Veterans "are simply malcontents who have never
forgiven Kerry for his actions in speaking out against the war. They
seek retribution by fabricating stories to destroy him. Hoffman, in
particular, lacks credibility. His claims against Kerry have changed
frequently. And John O'Neill has zero credibility. He was -- and
still is -- Richard Nixon's patsy."
FactCheck.org:
Sen. John
McCain -- who has publicly endorsed Bush and
even appealed for donations to the President's campaign -- came
to Kerry's defense on this. McCain didn't witness the
events in question, of course. But he told the Associated
Press in an August 5 interview:
McCain
: I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is none
of these individuals [in the ad (eRiposte note)] served on
the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crewmates have testified
to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served
honorably in Vietnam.
DailyKos:
McCain is now angry
at an anti-Kerry ad campaign criticizing his military services as
"dishonest and dishonorable".
"It was the
same kind of deal that was pulled on me," McCain said in an
interview with The Associated Press, referring to his bitter
Republican primary fight with President Bush.
...
Asked if the White House knew about the ad or helped find
financing for it, McCain said, "I hope not, but I don't know.
But I think the Bush campaign should specifically condemn the
ad."
The ad is beyond the
bounds of common decency -- to attack the highly-decorated Kerry,
who volunteered for combat duty while AWOL Bush played pool
volleyball with ambitious secretaries in Texas. And the ad doesn't
feature a single vet who served on Kerry's swiftboat.
But why is McCain
acting all shocked? The Bush machine pulled the same smear crap
against him in 2000, as he himself notes. Yet McCain has campaigned
with Bush and allowed his image on Bush ads.
If McCain wants to
campaign against the politics of personal destruction, then he needs
to cast his lot elsewhere or remain neutral.
3.
SBV CLAIMS
ON KERRY'S SO-CALLED "FALSE" CHARGES ABOUT WAR CRIMES IN
VIETNAM, ABOUT HAVING "LOST THE WAR" FOR THEM BECAUSE OF
THIS, ABOUT HAVING BRANDED ALL AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN VIETNAM WAR
CRIMINALS
[Nixon patsy John O'Neill]: We
resent very deeply the false war crimes charges he made coming back
from Vietnam in 1971 and repeated in the book "Tour of
Duty." We think those cast an aspersion on all those living and
dead, from our unit and other units in Vietnam. We think that he
knew he was lying when he made the charges, and we think that
they're unsupportable.
[Other
SBV claims mentioned in the Los Angeles Times]: In
his affidavit, Elliott said that when Kerry returned from Vietnam,
he was "comparing his other commanders and me to Lt. Calley of
My Lai, comparing the American armed forces to the army of Genghis
Khan, and making similar misstatements."
Joe Ponder, a Swift boat crewman who did not serve on either of
Kerry's two boats, says in the ad that Kerry "dishonored his
country." In his affidavit, Ponder says he was badly wounded in
an ambush in Vietnam. But "the greatest wounds I have ever
suffered were from John F. Kerry, who dishonored my country, my
honor and my friends by falsely charging the United States Army
Forces with war crimes, claiming that all of us, living and dead,
were war criminals."
[Adrian
Lonsdale via TAPPED]: As
Mr. Lonsdale explained it: "We won the battle. Kerry went home
and lost the war for us. "He
called us rapers and killers and that's not true," he
continued. "If he expects our loyalty, we should expect loyalty
from him."
[SBV
letter to Kerry via Disinfopedia]: It is
our collective judgment that, upon your return from Vietnam, you
grossly and knowingly distorted the conduct of the American
soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen of that war (including a
betrayal of many of us, without regard for the danger your actions
caused us.)
...[also this]...
For more than thirty years, most Vietnam veterans kept silent as we
were maligned as misfits, addicts, and baby killers. Now that a key
creator of that poisonous image is seeking the Presidency we have
resolved to end our silence.
[the
Bakersfield California, via reader PF]: Roy
F. "Latch" Hoffman, one of the co-founders of the
pro-George W. Bush group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, had publicly
criticized Kerry, a former Swift boat commander, for having brought
back stories about alleged war crimes by U.S. forces -- often
carried out, Kerry said in 1971, "with the full awareness of
officers at all levels."
[via
Media Matters]: CARLTON
SHERWOOD (Stolen Honor producer): "Wait a second,"
I asked myself. "Did I hear that right?" Was I, or my
fellow Marines, being accused of the same atrocities that
John Kerry had committed? [...] To the average American combatant,
having been branded by Kerry as a demon and a murderer,
getting out of Vietnam alive was a high-risk adventure.
RON WEBB (former
POW): To have former military people actually come up and testify
against our activities in Vietnam and to accuse us of being war
criminals was devastating.
JAMES WARNER (former
POW): He [Kerry] was saying we had done these things. He was saying
things that he knew to be false, and knew would harm us. That means
he abandoned his comrades.
FACT
(i) Mr. O'Neill perhaps does not read articles that are not to his liking.
He appears to have forgotten the My Lai massacres, the Tiger Force
massacres and the Thanh Phong massacres (among others which are cited
in classified military documents - see below). Facts can be
unpleasant things to compassionate conservatives like O'Neill.
(ii) Kerry never named any names when he
spoke of war crimes committed in Vietnam. Kerry never stated that all
American soldiers were war criminals. Indeed, he laid responsibility
for the Vietnam mess on the command chain not the veterans themselves.
Indeed, Senators of both parties praised Kerry's speech at that time. One wonders what part of their
service taught these SBV members and Sherwood to lie this blatantly.
(iii) If SBV and its members like Lonsdale were so
enraged with Kerry, and if Kerry "lost the war" for them and
"grossly and knowingly distorted the conduct of American
soldiers...",
how come they happily and forcefully supported Kerry back in 1996? And
they certainly did not keep silent for more than thirty years! They
spoke in favor of John Kerry in 1996.
(iv) SBV member Roy
"Latch" Hoffman's criticism of Kerry's anti-war-crime speech
is belied by the fact that other Vietnam veterans independent of the
Kerry campaign have come forward to point out a known fact - that
Hoffman himself did not hesitate to order that a war crime be
committed (shooting of unarmed fishermen).
REFERENCES
Doug
Linder, UMKC:
Two tragedies took
place in 1968 in Viet Nam. One was the massacre by United
States soldiers of as many as 500 unarmed civilians-- old men,
women, children-- in My Lai on the morning of March 16. The
other was the cover-up of that massacre.
Toledo
Blade:
Known as Tiger Force,
the platoon was created by a U.S. Army engaged in a new kind of war
- one defined by ambushes, booby traps, and a nearly invisible
enemy.
Promising victory to an anxious American public, military leaders in
1967 sent a task force - including Tiger Force - to fight the enemy
in one of the most highly contested areas of South Vietnam: the
Central Highlands.
But the platoon's mission did not go as planned, with some soldiers
breaking the rules of war.
Women and children
were intentionally blown up in underground bunkers. Elderly farmers
were shot as they toiled in the fields. Prisoners were tortured and
executed - their ears and scalps severed for souvenirs. One soldier
kicked out the teeth of executed civilians for their gold fillings.
Two soldiers tried to stop the killings, but their pleas were
ignored by commanders. The Army launched an investigation in 1971
that lasted 41/2 years - the longest-known war-crime investigation
of the Vietnam conflict.
The case reached the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Nixon
White House.
Investigators concluded that 18 soldiers committed war crimes
ranging from murder and assault to dereliction of duty. But no one
was charged.
Since the war ended, the American public has been fed a dose of
movies fictionalizing the excesses of U.S. units in Vietnam, such as
Apocalypse Now and Platoon. But in reality, most war-crime cases
focused on a single event, like the My Lai massacre.
The Tiger Force case is different. The atrocities took place over
seven months, leaving an untold number dead - possibly several
hundred civilians, former soldiers and villagers now say.
Joe
Conason, Salon.com:
Until now, Hoffmann
has been best known as the commanding officer whose obsession with
body counts and "scorekeeping" may have provoked the
February 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at Thanh Phong by a
unit led by Bob Kerrey -- the Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg
in Nam, became a U.S. senator from Nebraska and now sits on the 9/11
commission.
After journalist
Gregory Vistica exposed the Thanh Phong massacre and the surrounding
circumstances in the New York Times magazine three years ago,
conservative columnist Christopher Caldwell took particular note of
the cameo role played by Kerrey's C.O., who had warned his men not
to return from missions without enough kills. "One of the myths
due to die as a result of Vistica's article is that which holds the
war could have been won sensibly and cleanly if the 'suits' back in
Washington had merely left the military men to their own
devices," Caldwell wrote. "In this light, one of the great
merits of Vistica's article is its portrait of the Kurtz-like
psychopath who commanded Kerrey's Navy task force, Capt. Roy
Hoffmann."
Maria
L. La Ganga and Stephen Braun (Los Angeles Times):
Although these are
powerful statements [from SBV members Elliott and Ponder], they are
not entirely accurate.
In his Senate testimony, Kerry did liken some American actions to
Genghis Khan's. But he did not mention Elliott by name, nor did he
mention his Navy superiors. And he did not claim that every soldier
was a war criminal. Rather, he cited atrocities described by
veterans who opposed the war.
...
During the war, Elliott gave Kerry high marks in fitness reports and
recommended Kerry for the Silver Star and the Bronze Star.
"John was one of 50 young officers who performed extremely
well," Elliott said in an interview in May. "I wrote his
fitness report, and I stand by that."
Information
via JohnKerry.com:
* Gen Tommy
Franks: Certain that activities described by Kerry did take place: “I
think we had a lot of problems in Vietnam...He was a young officer
over there, and I'm not sure that -- that activities like that
didn't take place. In fact, quite the contrary. I'm sure that they
did. … I wouldn't say that the things that Senator Kerry said are
undeniable about activities in Vietnam. I think that things didn't
go right in Vietnam.” [Hannity and Colmes, 8/3/2004]
Nick
Turse (History News Network) via reader PT:
The Toledo Blade
articles represent some of the best reporting on a Vietnam War crime
by any newspaper, during or since the end of the conflict.
Unfortunately, the articles tell a story that was all too common. As
a historian writing his dissertation on U.S. war crimes and
atrocities during the Vietnam War, I have been immersed in just the
sort of archival materials the Toledo Blade used in its
pieces, but not simply for one incident but hundreds if not
thousands of analogous events. I can safely, and sadly, say that the
"Tiger Force" atrocities are merely the tip of the iceberg
in regard to U.S.-perpetrated war crimes in Vietnam. However, much
of the mainstream historical literature dealing with Vietnam War
atrocities (and accompanying cover-ups and/or sham investigations),
has been marginalized to a great extent -- aside from obligatory
remarks concerning the My Lai massacre, which is, itself, often
treated as an isolated event. Unfortunately, the otherwise excellent
reporting of the Toledo Blade draws upon and feeds off this
exceptionalist argument to a certain extent. As such, the true scope
of U.S.-perpetrated atrocities is never fully addressed in the
articles. The men of the "Tiger Force" are labeled as
"Rogue GIs" and the authors simply mention the that Army
"conducted 242 war-crimes investigations in Vietnam, [that] a
third were substantiated, leading to 21 convictions... according to
a review of records at the National Archives" – facts of
dubious value that obscure the scope and number of war crimes
perpetrated in Vietnam and feed the exceptionalist argument.
Even an accompanying Blade
piece on "Other
Vietnam Atrocities," tends to decontextualize the
"Tiger Force" incidents, treating them as fairly
extraordinary events by listing only three other relatively well
known atrocity incidents: former Senator, presidential candidate and
Navy SEAL Bob Kerrey's raid on the hamlet of Thang Phong; the
massacre at Son Thang -- sometimes referred to as the "Marine
Corps' My Lai"; and the war crimes allegations of Lt. Col.
Anthony Herbert -- most famously chronicled in his memoir Soldier.
This short list, however, doesn't even hint at the scope and number
of similar criminal acts.
...
According to formerly classified Army documents, an investigation
disclosed that from at least March 1968 through October 1969,
"Vietnamese [civilian] detainees were subjected to
maltreatment" by no less than twenty-three separate
interrogators of the 172d Military Intelligence (MI) Detachment. The
inquiry found that, in addition to using "electrical shock by
means of a field telephone," an all too commonly used method of
torture by Americans during the war, MI personnel also struck
detainees with their fists, sticks and boards and employed a form of
water torture which impaired prisoners' ability to breath.
...
Military records demonstrate that the "Tiger Force"
atrocities are only the tip of a vast submerged history of
atrocities in Vietnam. In fact, while most atrocities were likely
never chronicled or reported, the archival record is still rife with
incidents analogous to those profiled in the Blade articles,
including the following atrocities chronicled in formerly classified
Army documents:
- A November 1966
incident in which an officer in the Army's Fourth Infantry
Division, severed an ear from a Vietnamese corpse and affixed it
to the radio antenna of a jeep as an ornament. The officer was
given a non-judicial punishment and a letter of reprimand.
- An August 1967
atrocity in which a 13-year-old Vietnamese child was raped by
American MI interrogator of the Army's 196th Infantry Brigade.
The soldier was convicted only of indecent acts with a child and
assault. He served seven months and sixteen days for his crime.
- A September 1967
incident in which an American sergeant killed two Vietnamese
children -- executing one at point blank range with a bullet to
the head. Tried by general court martial in 1970, the sergeant
pleaded guilty to, and was found guilty of, unpremeditated
murder. He was, however, sentenced to no punishment.
- An atrocity that
took place on February 4, 1968, just over a month before the My
Lai massacre, in the same province by a man from the same
division (Americal). The soldier admitted to his commanding
officer and other men of his unit that he gunned down three
civilians as they worked in a field. A CID investigation
substantiated his confession and charges of premeditated murder
were preferred against him. The soldier requested a discharge,
which was granted by the commanding general of the Americal
Division, in lieu of court martial proceedings.
- A series of
atrocities similar to, and occurring the same year as, the
"Tiger Force" war crimes in which one unit allegedly
engaged in an orgy of murder, rape and mutilation, over the
course of several months.
While not yielding
the high-end body count estimate of the "Tiger Force"
series of atrocities, the above incidents begin to demonstrate the
ubiquity of the commission of atrocities on the part of American
forces during the Vietnam War. Certainly, war crimes, such as
murder, rape and mutilation were not an everyday affair for American
combat soldiers in Vietnam, however, such acts were also by no means
as exceptional as often portrayed in recent historical literature or
as tacitly alluded to in the Blade articles.
Also
see Todd Gitlin in Salon.com
Media
Matters:
As MMFA has
repeatedly noted,
in his 1971 Senate testimony, Kerry was simply relating the personal
experiences of other Vietnam veterans who had come forward and told
their stories; Kerry focused blame on the leaders at that time, not
the soldiers, for the atrocities they claimed to have committed or
witnessed.
Maria
L. La Ganga and Matea Gold, Los Angeles Times (bold text is
eRiposte emphasis):
Kerry's war record
wasn't an issue in his reelection campaign in 1990. And during his
reelection bid in 1996, his Republican opponent, then-Gov. Bill
Weld, went out of his way to praise Kerry for his service.
But a Boston Globe reporter who was a Vietnam veteran, David Warsh,
wrote several columns critical of Kerry, including one that
questioned the actions that led to Kerry's Silver Star.
...
Nine days before the election, Warsh questioned whether Kerry's
shooting of the fleeing enemy soldier constituted "a war crime
nevertheless, and hardly the basis for a Silver Star."
From that moment on, recalls Thomas Vallely, a former Marine and
longtime Kerry friend, "Bill Weld might as well not have been
in the race."
Kerry called a news conference to renounce the charge. With him
in Boston was retired Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., who said the column
was "such a terrible insult, such an absolutely outrageous
interpretation of the facts, that I felt it was important to be
here."
Also at his side, to stand up for his leadership and courage under
fire, were two of Kerry's immediate commanders during his time in
Vietnam, former Navy Lt. Cmdr. George Elliott and Area Commander
Adrian Lonsdale. Kerry won the race and later credited the Vietnam
brass for helping him pull it off.
Today, Elliott and Lonsdale have joined Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth; both appeared in group's first ad, which attacked Kerry's
military record and his leadership.
Information
at JohnKerry.com:
Kerry Stated
That He Was Reporting on What Others Had Seen in Vietnam.
In his testimony, Kerry stated: “ 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. It is impossible to describe to
you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room,
the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in
Vietnam , but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what
this country, in a sense, made them do.” [Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Testimony, 4/22/71]
Kerry's
Testimony Was an Indictment of America's Political Leadership—Not
Fellow Veterans. “We are also here to ask, and we are
here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where
is the leadership? We are here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow,
Bundy, Gilpatric and so many others. Where are they now that we, the
men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders
who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime
in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The
Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left
all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public
rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputation
bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.” – John Kerry
[Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony, 4/22/71]
Kerry
Believed Responsibility Did Not Lie With Veterans . “My
feeling, Senator, on Lieutenant Calley is what he did quite
obviously was a horrible, horrible, horrible thing and I have no
bone to pick with the fact that he was prosecuted. But I think that
in this question you have to separate guilt from responsibility, and
I think clearly the responsibility for what has happened there lies
elsewhere. I think it lies with the men who designed free fire
zones. I think it lies with the men who encourage body counts.”
[Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony, 4/22/71]
Senators
Praised Kerry for his Courage. After his testimony, Kerry
was praised by Senators of both parties on the Committee including
Democratic Senators Pell and Fulbright and Republican Senators Case
and Javits. [Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony, 4/22/71]
Robert
Price, The Bakersfield California, via reader PF:
Bill Means needed to
talk to me, he said. Right away.
...
Thirty-five years ago, as a Navy seaman, Means had patrolled the
southern coastline of the South China Sea and the mangrove-dense
rivers of the country's interior -- 12 months in all, mostly spent in
the pilot house of one of those 55-foot, aluminum-hulled Navy fighting
boats.
...
It bothered him, seeing Vietnam brought back into play as a political
game piece. The left had done it to war veterans three decades ago.
Returning servicemen had been vilified -- spat upon, in fact, as if
they'd been the architects of U.S. foreign policy rather than just the
young men and women obligated by law and duty to carry it out.
Now the right had seized upon the Vietnam War, too -- specifically the
role, in uniform and out, of Sen. John Kerry. And to Means, it seemed
just as wrong.
Means, a 55-year-old investigator for several Bakersfield law firms,
was particularly annoyed by the words of one retired admiral. Roy F.
"Latch" Hoffman, one of the co-founders of the pro-George W.
Bush group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, had publicly criticized
Kerry, a former Swift boat commander, for having brought back stories
about alleged war crimes by U.S. forces -- often carried out, Kerry
said in 1971, "with the full awareness of officers at all
levels."
Seemed to him, Means said, his own Swift boat crew had come close to
committing a war crime themselves one day. A senior officer, hitching
a ride up the coast aboard their Swift boat, had ordered the crew to
fire on a small group of unarmed Vietnamese fishermen working their
nets in unrestricted waters, Means said. The boat's commanding officer
had refused to comply.
Was that the way the boat's commander remembered the incident too, all
these years later? Means had to know.
So he got on the Internet and hunted down Thomas W.L. "Tad"
McCall, the retired Navy captain who'd commanded Means' boat, PCF 88,
as a newly minted ensign. Means called him.
Not only did McCall remember the day in question, and that
confrontation off the coast of South Vietnam, he remembered the name
of the officer who had given the command to shoot: "Latch"
Hoffman himself, then a Navy captain in charge of the entire Swift
boat task force in Vietnam.
The next morning Means told me the whole story. Then I called McCall
myself.
McCall, now 60, remembers March 14, 1969, because it was his 25th
birthday. He'd only been running a Swift boat for a few weeks, having
arrived in Vietnam in January 1969, the same month as Means.
At the time, McCall said, the Navy was having trouble finding
qualified officers to command those hazardous-duty patrol boats;
lieutenant j.g.'s were in increasingly short supply. McCall, the son
of Oregon's sitting governor, Republican Tom McCall, was only an
ensign. That, the Navy was beginning to realize, would have to do.
"I was really green," said McCall, who joined the Navy as an
enlisted man in 1967 and retired in March 1992 as a captain and a JAG,
or military attorney.
McCall's crew was supposed to be off duty that day. But McCall was
told Hoffman needed a ride up the coast to the base at Nha Trang to
visit a seriously wounded Navy SEAL.
"I was excited, nervous and kind of pleased we were going to get
to take the commander of the task force up the coast, an hour and a
half each way," McCall said. "A beautiful trip, an honor for
us. The crew didn't think it was an honor, though. They thought it was
a pain in the butt."
Hoffman got to the boat at mid-morning, a distinguished-looking
officer in brown camouflage.
From the start, Hoffman made it clear the trip would be no pleasure
cruise. He wanted to search every Vietnamese boat they passed, it
seemed. McCall protested mildly; he knew many of those boats from
having patrolled those same waters almost daily.
Then Hoffman set his attention on a small cluster of fishing boats,
four small vessels with perhaps 10 fishermen, about 1,000 yards
offshore. "We had seen them in the water there many, many
times," McCall said. "They were fishing at a good fishing
place ... in traditional fishing waters. 'Another patrol is coming up
behind us soon,' I told him. 'We're taking you for a ride, not
patrolling.'"
But Hoffman ordered a crewman to hail the fishing boats on a bullhorn.
The fishermen didn't respond. So Hoffman ordered a crewman to fire his
M-16 in their direction, splashing the water around them. The
fishermen, perhaps not understanding what they were supposed to do,
still didn't respond.
"Shoot closer," McCall remembers Hoffman saying.
"I can't shoot closer, sir, I'll hit them," the crewman
said.
"Well, do it," Hoffman said.
The meaning of those words were clear to everyone aboard PCF 88,
McCall said. Hoffman was ordering the fishing party destroyed, the
fishermen killed.
The officers argued policy; McCall realized it was ultimately his
call.
He ordered his men to stand down, leave the fishermen alone and move
on. He sent Hoffman below deck, and the captain, cursing, complied.
"From that day on," said Means, who witnessed the exchange
from his post at the wheel, "McCall was our hero."
When McCall got back to the base at Cam Ranh Bay, he was told he would
receive an administrative punishment -- a 30-day benching known as
being "in hack," for which official records were not kept.
"There was no animosity afterward," McCall said, noting that
when Hoffman left Vietnam, the sailors at Cam Ranh Bay threw him a
party.
"I think, if I remember right, he gave me a hug," McCall
said. "He was a rascal, a colorful guy. We had an amicable
parting of the ways. I just thought his leadership at the time was
misguided."
Hoffman did not return my e-mail message asking for his comment.
After leaving the Navy, McCall served as a deputy assistant secretary
of the Air Force, a civilian post, from 1994 to 2001. Since that time
he has worked as a consultant to the Army on environmental matters.
He has been approached by representatives of the Kerry campaign about
telling his story, he said. He's not particularly political, so he's
not interested.
Means feels the same -- to a point.
"We weren't Republicans and Democrats on those Swift boats,"
he said. "We were (expletive) trying to stay alive. (Things)
happened, but we can't go back and reconstruct it from 35 years
ago."
But if others, whatever their motivation, insist on trying to do so
now, Means is willing to try too. In his view, his commanding officer
did the right thing 35 years ago by speaking up. Speaking up himself,
Bill Means believes, is the least he can do today.
3.1 SBV
CLAIM THAT KERRY'S CHARGES OF WAR CRIMES ARE FALSE BECAUSE SUCH CRIMES
WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN TOLERATED BY THESE PRINCIPLED MEN
[via Daily
Howler]: O’NEILL/CORSI
(page 119):
I served with these guys. I went on missions with them, and these men
served honorably. Up and down the chain of command, there was no
acquiescence to atrocities. It was not condoned; it did not happen, and
it was not reported to me verbally or in writing by any of these men
including Lieutenant (jg) Kerry.
Captain George Elliott, USN (retired)
FACT
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"?
REFERENCES
Daily
Howler:
...the authors devote
their entire Chapter 4 to the gentleman’s [Kerry's] “war
crimes.” Indeed, that’s the title of the chapter. When you thumb
to page 51, it stares you in the face. They use caps:
Four
WAR CRIMES
And no, these aren’t
the war crimes Kerry discussed when he testified to the Senate in
1971. These are the “war crimes” Kerry committed—if you put
your faith in John O’Neill and Jerome Corsi.
...
So Franke tells us “in all candor” that Kerry was a “baby
killer.” But don’t take this on the word of the haunted Franke.
As they start their WAR CRIMES chapter, O’Neill and Corsi widen
the critique. “In reality, Kerry was regarded by his military
peers as reckless with human life,” they assert. On page 52, the
claim is fleshed out; the authors say that they will describe
incidents “reported to the authors by those who witnessed the
ruthlessness of Kerry’s conduct toward the Vietnamese people.”
Yikes! And they extend the portrait one paragraph later: “The
evidence shows that John Kerry was a ruthless operator in the field
with little regard for human life.” And then quickly, they move to
the sampan incident—the incident in which Kerry “killed the
small child,” even though they themselves says he didn’t.
...
Tom Wright, another Swift boat commander, furthers the portrait of
Kerry. Wright is quoted giving “serious reflection to the way
Kerry chose to interpret free-fire zones.” How bad was Kerry?
According to Wright, “John Kerry thought that ‘free-fire’
meant ‘kill anyone you see.’” On page 62, George Bates also
weighs in about Kerry’s CRIMES: “Bates, a retired Navy captain,
believed that Kerry treated the South Vietnamese in an almost
criminal manner.” At this point, the Swift Boat Vets are pouring
it on. Except for that little word: “almost.”
We can’t help
noting that useful word. No, this chapter isn’t called ALMOST WAR
CRIMES, but Bates’ qualifier comes in handy as a reader considers
what the Swift Vets have said. Indeed, an obvious question comes to
mind as one reads this nasty chapter—the chapter in which Kerry is
savaged for killing the child he didn’t kill. That obvious
question would have to be this: If Kerry was committing all these
WAR CRIMES; if he was “regarded as reckless with human life when
the lives in question were Vietnamese;” if he engaged in
“ruthless conduct toward the Vietnamese people;” if he “showed
little regard for human life” and “killed anyone he could
see”—why then did none of these candid men ever file a
complaint about Kerry? How did this guy get away with it?
Indeed, the book’s crackpot quality comes through once again as
its authors juxtapose nasty accounts of Kerry’s WAR CRIMES with
pious accounts in which Swift Boat Vets insist that they’d never
put up with such conduct. As all readers surely know, when Kerry
testified to the Senate in 1971, he described the way some Vietnam
veterans had reported their own misconduct—their own war
crimes—at the “Winter Soldier” event in Detroit. From that day
to this, author O’Neill has boo-hoo-hooed hard, pretending that
Kerry somehow said that he and his colleagues committed such
crimes (more on this topic in a future report). In O’Neill’s
book, as Swifties savage Kerry for this slander—the slander which
he didn’t commit—they insist that atrocities and other war
crimes weren’t tolerated within their own units. We have no reason
to doubt this claim; indeed, we assume that the claim is made in
good faith. But we found ourselves forced to emit mordant chuckles
as these men—candid to a fault—tell us what they would have done
if someone in their unit had dared to engage in such conduct.
Throughout the book,
Swift Boat Vets say that such conduct simply would not have
been tolerated.
...
Indeed, on page 155, O’Neill and Corsi drive the point home as
they engage in a bit of their trademark cracked logic. The
authors’ “reasoning” in this passage is so odd that it would
take several pages to explain. But, to make a long story short, the
pair scold Kerry for failing to report the war crimes he always said
he didn’t witness:
O’NEILL/CORSI (page
155): There is no statute of limitations on murder. If Kerry
witnessed war crimes, then he had a responsibility at that time to
bring the matter forward to authorities so the offense could be
investigated and the responsible parties investigated. If Kerry
did not come forward in either instance, he was guilty of covering
up potentially criminal offenses.
Kerry had a
responsibility to report misconduct, the pair insist.
And that’s where
that little word “almost” comes in. It’s perfectly clear that
the Swift Boat Vets didn’t tolerate criminal conduct. The
question, therefore, leaps off the page—if Kerry engaged in so
many WAR CRIMES, why did none of these principled men ever report
his misconduct? If Kerry “killed anyone he could see;” if he was
“reckless with human life;” if he engaged in “ruthless conduct
toward the Vietnamese people;” if he “showed little regard for
human life”—then why did none of these candid men ever report
this to their superiors? As Elliott states, “there was no
acquiescence to atrocities. It was not condoned.” Why, then,
didn’t the candid Franke tell his superiors about Kerry’s
conduct? Why didn’t these Swifties step forward to haul down the
man who was “killing anyone he could see?”
The obvious answer
suggests itself, especially in a book which would savage its subject
for killing a child he didn’t kill. And that’s where the little
word “almost” comes in. According to the dainty Bates, “Kerry
treated the South Vietnamese in an almost criminal manner.”
Phew! Thank God for that helpful word “almost!” After all, if
Kerry’s conduct had really been “criminal,” Bates would be
“guilty of covering up potentially criminal offenses” if he
hadn’t reported the conduct. And plainly, Bates said nothing at
the time. Neither did any of these loud-mouthed men whose pious
words appear in a chapter which is called, quite simply, WAR CRIMES.
Thank God Kerry’s conduct was only “almost” criminal! Why, if
Kerry had engaged in “criminal” conduct, then by O’Neill and
Corsi’s own statements, these silent men would be convicts
themselves.
4.
SBV CHIEF HOFFMAN'S CLAIM
OF "KNOWING" KERRY "WELL" AND THEREFORE BEING IN A
POSITION TO CRITICIZE HIS RECORD
I knew him well,
because I operated very closely with him...
FACT
Well, well, serial flip-flopper Hoffman has major problems with the
truth.
REFERENCES
Media
Matters:
Retired Adm. Roy
Hoffmann, chairman and co-founder of Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth, has changed his story about whether or
not he actually knew Senator John Kerry in Vietnam.
May 6:
"Hoffman acknowledged he had
no first-hand knowledge to discredit Kerry's claims to valor and
said that although Kerry was under his command, he really
didn't know Kerry much personally." [Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel]
August 4:
"'I knew him well enough to
know him," Hoffman said. 'He's the most vain individual
I've ever met - aloof and arrogant.'" [Scripps
Howard News Service]
August 5:
Hoffman said, "We were on the
same operations, we were operating within 25-50 yards of him all
the time, and for them to suggest we don't know John Kerry is
pure old bull." [The
New York Times]
August 5:
In response to Senator John
McCain's (R-AZ) denunciation of the ad, Hoffman "said they
respected McCain's 'right to express his opinion and we hope he
extends to us the same respect and courtesy, particularly since we
served with John Kerry, we knew him well and Sen. McCain did
not.'" [Associated
Press]
August 5:
Hoffman said, "I knew him
well, because I operated very closely with him and, uh, many
of the operations, uh, most of the operations were-were conducted
with multiple boats" - a dramatic shift from admitting no
personal knowledge of Kerry three months earlier; it went
unchallenged by his host. [ABC Radio's Sean
Hannity Show]
In the Swift Boat
Veterans' ad,
Hoffman states, "John Kerry has not been honest." Well, he
should know.
Media
Matters:
Hannity
and Colmes co-host Alan
Colmes once again confronted
a member of Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth, a group founded to discredit Senator
John Kerry's record during and after his service in Vietnam. This
time, on the May 28 show, Colmes confronted the group's chairperson,
Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann, USN (retired); Colmes noted the group's Republican
ties and questioned Hoffmann's standing to challenge Kerry given
that Hoffmann "had no firsthand knowledge to discredit Kerry's
claims" and "really didn't know Kerry much
personally."
...
COLMES: Well, I
didn't get that from Doug Brinkley's book, but I want to put up on
the screen something that was quoted in the "Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel" [5/6/04] about you just recently.
It said, "Hoffmann,"
meaning you, "acknowledged that he had," meaning you, "had
no firsthand knowledge to discredit Kerry's claims to valor and
said that although Kerry was under his command he really didn't
know Kerry much personally."
Now if that's true,
what gives you any credibility now in the heat of a presidential
campaign to come after him?
HOFFMANN: Well, I
can tell you that I did not know Kerry personally. I didn't ride
the boat with him. But I was on many combat missions with boats in
the same group against the same enemies at the same time, and I
know enough about Kerry to feel very confident that he is not
qualified.
5. SBV AD
THAT MAKES IT APPEAR AS IF KERRY PERSONALLY WITNESSED CERTAIN
ATROCITIES HE WAS REFERRING TO
[Knight
Ridder]: The new commercial by the
Republican-backed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth depicts three former
Vietnam POWs condemning Kerry's April 22, 1971, testimony before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee where he described alleged U.S.
atrocities against the Vietnamese and called for an end to the war...the
ad makes it appear as if Kerry is recounting atrocities he
witnessed..."They had personally raped, cut off heads, cut off
ears," he told senators.
[Statement from
SBV]: As the attached documents
demonstrate, John Kerry helped shape the post-Vietnam debate by
attacking Vietnam Veterans as war criminals before the United States
Senate and on nationally televised news programs. In 1971, he
alleged that American forces engaged in war crimes such as rape,
mutilation, and torture. John Kerry implied that these acts were
perpetrated by the men present at the "Winter Soldier"
meeting in Detroit and others on a regular basis with the full
knowledge of the chain of command. These sweeping, false charges
launched John Kerry's political career, and while political
posturing now compels him to say that some of his statements were
"over the top," the members of SBVT and other veterans to
this day feel the pain and disgrace that John Kerry inflicted on
them by making those statements.
[Text of commercial from
SwiftVets.com site]:
John Kerry: “They had personally raped, cut off ears,
cut off heads. . .”
Joe Ponder: “The accusations that John Kerry made against
the veterans who served in Vietnam was just devastating.”
John Kerry: “. . . randomly shot at civilians. . .”
Joe Ponder: “It hurt me more than any physical wounds I
had.”
John Kerry: “. . . cut off limbs, blown up bodies. . .”
Ken Cordier: “That was part of the torture, was, uh, to
sign a statement that you had committed war crimes.”
John Kerry: “. . . razed villages in a fashion reminiscent
of Ghengis Khan. . .”
Paul Gallanti: “John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I,
and many of my, uh, comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps,
uh, took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us.”
John Kerry: “. . . crimes committed on a day to day basis.
. . ”
Ken Cordier: “He betrayed us in the past, how could we be
loyal to him now?”
John Kerry: “. . . ravaged the countryside of South
Vietnam.”
Paul Gallanti: “He dishonored his country, and, uh, more,
more importantly the people he served with. He just sold them
out.”
Announcer : “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is
responsible for the content of this advertisement.”
FACT
Kerry is quoted out of context. He was narrating what others had
previously testified and war crimes committed by others has been
validated in numerous stories. (See text of his 1971 speech below)
"Incidentally" Ken Cordier
and Paul Gallanti are part of the Bush campaign or administration.
Moreover, Ken Cordier's biography has no Swift Boat experience listed
(he was in the Air Force). Why is he a "Swift Boat Veteran for
Truth"?
REFERENCES
Daily
Howler:
[In the Washington
Post] Howard
Kurtz judged that, in the second Swift Boat ad, “Kerry's
testimony is selectively edited in a way that is misleading.” On
Sunday, ombudsman Michael
Getler criticized the Post for waiting so long to make this point.
David
Shuster, MSNBC (via Hesiod):
Stolen Honor"
has several prominent factual errors...
Secondly, part of
John Kerry's original testimony, as depicted in the film, is edited
so that it begins in mid-sentence. This editing makes it seem
that John Kerry was making dramatic and specific eye witness
allegations when in fact he always attributed those allegations to
the testimony of other U.S. soldiers.
James
Kuhnhenn, Knight-Ridder:
Kerry's testimony
before the committee that day 33 years ago put him in the national
spotlight. Though the ad makes it appear as if Kerry is recounting
atrocities he witnessed, he was in fact reciting claims made by
soldiers earlier that year during an anti-war gathering in Detroit.
"They had personally raped, cut off heads, cut off ears,"
he told senators.
Reflecting on those
comments this year, Kerry said they were too harsh. "I think
some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an
anger. ... The words were honest, but on the other hand, they were a
little bit over the top," he said on NBC's "Meet the
Press" in April.
Information
via JohnKerry.com:
* Gen Tommy
Franks: Certain that activities described by Kerry did take place: “I
think we had a lot of problems in Vietnam...He was a young officer
over there, and I'm not sure that -- that activities like that
didn't take place. In fact, quite the contrary. I'm sure that they
did. … I wouldn't say that the things that Senator Kerry said are
undeniable about activities in Vietnam. I think that things didn't
go right in Vietnam.” [Hannity and Colmes, 8/3/2004]
...
In 1971 Kerry
Condemned America’s Political & Military Leadership—Not His
Fellow Veterans
Kerry’s
Testimony Was an Indictment of America’s Political
Leadership—Not Fellow Veterans. “We are also here to ask,
and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our
country? Where is the leadership? We are here to ask where are
McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric and so many others. Where are
they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned?
These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no
more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave
their wounded. The Marines say they never leave even their dead.
These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious
shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their
reputation bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.” –
John Kerry [Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony, 4/22/71]
Kerry Believed
Responsibility Did Not Lie With Veterans. Mr. Kerry: My feeling,
Senator, on Lieutenant Calley is what he did quite obviously was a
horrible, horrible, horrible thing and I have no bone to pick with
the fact that he was prosecuted. But I think that in this question
you have to separate guilt from responsibility, and I think clearly
the responsibility for what has happened there lies elsewhere. I
think it lies with the men who designed free fire zones. I think it
lies with the men who encourage body counts. [Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Testimony, 4/22/71]
Kerry Clearly
Referred to the Political Leadership at the Time. JUDY WOODRUFF:
“They are saying, in effect, you were accusing American troops of
war crimes.” JOHN KERRY: “No, I was accusing American leaders of
abandoning the troops. And if you read what I said, it is very
clearly an indictment of leadership. I said to the Senate, where is
the leadership of our country? And it's the leaders who are
responsible, not the soldiers. I never said that. I've always fought
for the soldiers. In fact, not only did we oppose the war, but we
proudly stood up and fought for the additions to the GI Bill so that
vets would be able to use it. We fought for the V.A. Hospitals. I
wrote the Agent Orange legislation with Tom Daschle. I helped with
the post-Vietnam stress syndrome outreach centers. I'm proud of the
record of fighting for soldiers and for veterans. And the fact is if
we want to redebate the war on Vietnam in 2004, I'm ready for that.
It was a mistake, and I'm proud of having stood up and shared with
America my perceptions of what was happening.” [CNN, Inside
Politics, 2/19/04]
Kerry’s
Testimony Was Well Received and Complimented by Senators of Both
Parties:
I believe they
deserve to be heard and listened to by the Congress and by the
officials in the executive branch and by the public generally. … I
want also to congratulate Mr. Kerry, you, and your associates upon
the restraint that you have shown, certainly in the hearing the
other day when there were a great many of your people here. I think
you conducted yourselves in a most commendable manner throughout
this week. [Senator J. W. Fulbright (D-AR)]
I think that this
committee, and particularly Chairman Fulbright, deserve a huge debt
of gratitude from you and everyone of your men who are here because
when he conducted hearings some years ago when we were fighting in
Vietnam. … Finally, in connection with Lieutenant Calley, which is
a very emotional issue in this country, I was struck by your passing
reference to that incident. Wouldn't you agree with me though that
what he did in herding old men, women and children into a trench and
then shooting them was a little bit beyond the perimeter of even
what has been going on in this war and that that action should be
discouraged. There are other actions not that extreme that have gone
on and have been permitted. If we had not taken action or cognizance
of it, it would have been even worse. It would have indicated we
encouraged this kind of action. [Senator Claiborne Pell (D-RI)]
Mr. Kerry, thank you
too for coming. You have made more than clear something that I think
always has been true: that the war never had any justification in
terms of Indochina itself. [Senator Clifford Case (R-NJ)]
The moral and morale
issues you have raised will have to be finally acted upon by the
committee. I think it always fires us to a deeper sense of emergency
and dedication when we hear from a young man like yourself in what
we know to be the reflection of the attitude of so many others who
have served in a way which the American people so clearly
understand. [Senator Jacob Javitz (R-NY)]
Atrios
(Eschaton):
John Kerry, April 1971
- Thank you very
much, Senator Fulbright, Senator Javits, Senator Symington and
Senator Pell.
I would like to say for the record, and also for the men sitting
behind me who are also wearing the uniforms and their medals,
that my sitting here is really symbolic. I am not here as John
Kerry. I am here as one member of a group of 1,000, which is a
small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in
this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at
this table, they would be here and have the same kind of
testimony. I would simply like to speak in general terms. I
apologize if my statement is general because I received
notification [only] yesterday that you would hear me, and, I am
afraid, because of the injunction I was up most of the night and
haven't had a great deal of chance to prepare.
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. These were not isolated incidents, but crimes
committed on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of
officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe
to you exactly what did happen in Detroit--the emotions in the
room, and the feelings of the men who were reliving their
experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what
this country, in a sense, made them do.
They told stories that, 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 Ghengis 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.
We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The
term "winter soldier" is a play on words of Thomas
Paine's in 1776, when he spoke of the "sunshine
patriots," and "summertime soldiers" who deserted
at Valley Forge because the going was rough.
We who have come here to Washington have come here because we
feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to
this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we
could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel, because of
what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which
we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.
I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result
is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back
from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it has
created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who
have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are
given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men
who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal
which no one has yet grasped.
As a veteran and one who felt this anger, I would like to talk
about it. We are angry because we feel we have been used it the
worst fashion by the administration of this country.
In 1970, at West Point, Vice President Agnew said, "some
glamorize the criminal misfits of society while our best men die
in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedom which most of
those misfits abuse," and this was used as a rallying point
for our effort in Vietnam.
But for us, as boys in Asia whom the country was supposed to
support, his statement is a terrible distortion from which we
can only draw a very deep sense of revulsion. Hence the anger of
some of the men who are here in Washington today. It is a
distortion because we in no way consider ourselves the best men
of this country, because those he calls misfits were standing up
for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to,
because so many who have died would have returned to this
country to join the misfits in their efforts to ask for an
immediate withdrawal from South Vietnam, because so many of
those best men have returned as quadriplegics and amputees, and
they lie forgotten in Veterans' Administration hospitals in this
country which fly the flag which so many have chosen as their
own personal symbol. And we cannot consider ourselves America's
best men when we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on
to do in Southeast Asia.
In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in
South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens
the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss
of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking
such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits
supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and
it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country
apart.
We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people
who had for years been seeking their liberation from any
colonial influence whatsoever, but, also, we found that the
Vietnamese, whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own
image, were hard-put to take up the fight against the threat we
were supposedly saving them from.
We found most people didn't even know the difference between
communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice
paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm
burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They
wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this
foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them
alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding
with whichever military force was present at a particular time,
be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese or American.
We found also that, all too often, American men were dying in
those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw
first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a
corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this
country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag,
and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw
Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search-and-destroy
missions as well as by Viet Cong terrorism, - and yet we
listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on
the Viet Cong.
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We
saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very
coolly a My Lai, and refused to give up the image of American
soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.
We learned the meaning of free-fire zones--shooting anything
that moves--and we watched while America placed a cheapness on
the lives of orientals.
We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in
fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while, month
after month, we were told the back of the enemy was about to
break. We fought using weapons against "oriental human
beings" with quotation marks around that. We fought using
weapons against those people which I do not believe this country
would dream of using, were we fighting in the European theater.
We watched while men charged up hills because a general said
that hill has to be taken, and, after losing one platoon, or two
platoons, they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation
by the North Vietnamese. We watched pride allow the most
unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we
couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't
matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point,
and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and
Fire Base 6s, and so many others.
Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly
while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the
incredible arrogance of "Vietnamizing" the Vietnamese.
Each day, to facilitate the process by which the United States
washes her hands of Vietnam, someone has to give up his life so
that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the
entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have
made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't
be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a
war."
We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you
ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a
man to be the last man to die for a mistake? We are here in
Washington to say that the problem of this war is not just a
question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of
everything that we are trying, as human beings, to communicate
to people in this country--the question of racism, which is
rampant in the military, and so many other questions, such as
the use of weapons: the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the
Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a
continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other
body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of
free-fire zones; harassment-interdiction fire,
search-and-destroy missions; the bombings; the torture of
prisoners; all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam.
That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of
everything.
An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation
of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly: He told me how, as a
boy on an Indian reservation, he had watched television, and he
used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the
Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he
said, "my God, I am doing to these people the very same
thing that was done to my people," and he stopped. And that
is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to
end.
We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are
the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We're here
to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, and so
many others? Where are they now that we, the men they sent off
to war, have returned? These are the commanders who have
deserted their troops. And there is no more serious crime in the
laws of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The
Marines say they never even leave their dead. These men have
left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of
public rectitude. They've left the real stuff of their
reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country....
We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of
that service as easily as this administration has wiped away
their memories of us. But all that they have done, and all that
they can do by this denial, is to make more clear than ever our
own determination to undertake one last mission: To search out
and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war; to pacify our
own hearts; to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this
country these last ten years and more. And more. And so, when,
thirty years from now, our brothers go down the street without a
leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will
be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a
filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally
turned, and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.
FactCheck.org:
Some atrocities by US
forces have been documented beyond question. Kerry's 1971
testimony came less than one month after Army Lt. William Calley had
been convicted in a highly publicized military trial of
the murder of the murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai hamlet on
March 16 1968, when upwards of 300 unarmed men, women and children
were killed by the inexperienced soldiers of the Americal Division's
Charley Company.
And since Kerry
testified, ample evidence of other atrocities has come to light:
-
Son Thang:
In
1998, for example, Marine Corps veteran Gary D. Solis
published the book Son Thang: An American War Crime
describing the court-martial of four US Marines for the
apparently unprovoked killing 16 women and children on the
night of February 19, 1970 in a hamlet about 20 miles south of
Danang. The four Marines testified that they were
under orders by their patrol leader to shoot the villagers. A
young Oliver North appeared as a character witness and helped
acquit the leader of all charges, but three were convicted.
-
Tiger Force:
The
Toledo Blade won a Pulitzer Prize this year for
a series published in October, 2003 reporting that atrocities
were committed by an elite US Army "Tiger
Force" unit that the Blade said killed unarmed
civilians and children during a seven-month rampage in 1967.
"Elderly farmers were shot as they toiled in the fields.
Prisoners were tortured and executed - their ears and scalps
severed for souvenirs. One soldier kicked out the teeth of
executed civilians for their gold fillings," the Blade
reported. "Investigators concluded that 18 soldiers
committed war crimes ranging from murder and assault to
dereliction of duty. But no one was charged."
-
"Hundreds" of others:
In December 2003 The New York Times quoted Nicholas Turse, a doctoral
candidate at Columbia University who has been studying
government archives, as saying the records are filled
with accounts of atrocities similar to those described by
the Toledo Blade series. "I stumbled across the
incidents The Blade reported," Turse was quoted
as saying. "I read through that case a year, year and a
half ago, and it really didn't stand out. There was nothing
that made it stand out from anything else. That's the scary
thing. It was just one of hundreds."
-
"Exact
Same Stories": Keith Nolan, author of 10
published books on Vietnam, says he's heard many veterans
describe atrocities just like those Kerry recounted from the
Winter Soldier event. Nolan told FactCheck.org that since 1978 he's
interviewed roughly 1,000 veterans in depth for his books, and
spoken to thousands of others. "I have heard the exact
same stories dozens if not hundreds of times over," he
said. "Wars produce atrocities. Frustrating
guerrilla wars produce a particularly horrific number of
atrocities. That some individual soldiers and certain
units responded with excessive brutality in Vietnam shouldn't
really surprise anyone."
ADDENDUM
Ken
Cordier, was part of George Bush's 2004 Steering Committee on Veterans
until his role in this ad was revealed.
Paul
Galanti, was appointed in 2003 by Bush's Secretary of Veterans Affairs
to serve on the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Former Prisoners of
War, is an avowed Kerry hater.
Cordier
not only lied about not being part of the Bush campaign, but his
biography shows no Swift Boat duty.
6. SBV AD
THAT MAKES IT APPEAR AS IF KERRY'S TESTIMONY WAS USED AGAINST THEM BY
THE ENEMY
[Text of commercial from
SwiftVets.com site]:
John Kerry: “They had personally raped, cut off ears,
cut off heads. . .”
Joe Ponder: “The accusations that John Kerry made against
the veterans who served in Vietnam was just devastating.”
John Kerry: “. . . randomly shot at civilians. . .”
Joe Ponder: “It hurt me more than any physical wounds I
had.”
John Kerry: “. . . cut off limbs, blown up bodies. . .”
Ken Cordier: “That was part of the torture, was, uh, to
sign a statement that you had committed war crimes.”
John Kerry: “. . . razed villages in a fashion reminiscent
of Ghengis Khan. . .”
Paul Gallanti: “John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I,
and many of my, uh, comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps,
uh, took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us.”
John Kerry: “. . . crimes committed on a day to day basis.
. . ”
Ken Cordier: “He betrayed us in the past, how could we be
loyal to him now?”
John Kerry: “. . . ravaged the countryside of South
Vietnam.”
Paul Gallanti: “He dishonored his country, and, uh, more,
more importantly the people he served with. He just sold them
out.”
Announcer : “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is
responsible for the content of this advertisement.”
FACT
There is no evidence that Kerry's testimony was used by Vietnamese
captors against POWs - only unsubstantiated, wild allegations. Indeed Ken Cordier himself said his captors did
not use Kerry's testimony! Other Swift Boat officers, one of whom was a POW,
refuted SBV's claims about Kerry's
testimony having been used against them as POWs. Senator John
McCain has said the same thing. Dozens of POWs who had spent years in
Vietnamese POW camps had never heard Kerry's name mentioned
there.
REFERENCES
David
Shuster, MSNBC (via Hesiod):
[The film] "Stolen
Honor" has several prominent factual errors...
Third, the film only features former POWs who say John Kerry's name
was invoked by north Vietnamese prison guards. But we've
spoken to dozens of POWs who've spent years in Vietnamese prison
camps and they never heard John Kerry's name mentioned once.
Lois
Romano and Dana Milbank, Washington Post:
In a conference call
with reporters arranged by the Kerry campaign, three Navy Swift boat
officers who served with Kerry 35 years ago but who said they have not
been in touch with him for years defended his service and his bravery.
Rich McCann, Jim Russell and Rich Baker said Kerry served honorably
and took issue with questions raised by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
about his commendations.
...
Phil Butler, a POW for eight years in Vietnam, took issue with the
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth allegation that Kerry's anti-war
protests caused POWs to be treated badly. "I lived with two of
the POWs who are now in that group ... and I am telling you, they are
full of it. We never heard a blooming thing about John Kerry while we
were there."
David
Corn, The Nation (via
Corrente):
Miller's libel of Kerry
was swiftly denounced by John McCain, who pronounced Kerry fit to
serve. (Earlier in the day, McCain met with editors of The New York
Times and told them that when he was a Vietnam POW his captors never
used Kerry's congressional testimony to taunt or pressure him. This
undermined yet another claim of the Swift Vets.)
Matt
Kelley, Associated Press:
Cordier said he doesn't
remember his Vietnamese captors specifically mentioning Kerry but he
does remember them playing a tape of an address by anti-war activist
Jane Fonda.
6.1 SBV
CLAIMS THAT THEY STAYED LONGER IN VIETNAM BECAUSE OF KERRY'S ANTI-WAR
ACTIVITIES
[via David
Shuster, MSNBC]: [Quote from "Stolen Honor"]
We stayed two more years because of the demonstrators like Fonda and
Kerry... I figure they owe us two years.
FACT
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.
REFERENCES
David
Shuster, MSNBC (via Hesiod):
Stolen Honor" has
several prominent factual errors: First, former American POWs
are quoted on camera as saying, "we stayed two more years because
of the demonstrators like Fonda and Kerry... I figure they owe us two
years." I have no doubt that some POW's feel that way.
Others, however do not. And they are not included in the film.
The film also disregards historical facts— the war stopped when the
Nixon administration, in 1973, negotiated an end. History shows
it was the lack of a settlement before then, not any protests, that
kept the North Vietnamese fighting.
7. SBV
CLAIM THAT KERRY "SECRETLY" MET "in an undisclosed
location in Paris with a top enemy diplomat" [FROM VIETNAM]
[via
Media Matters]: From Stolen Honor:
SHERWOOD: Little
did the American prisoners of war imagine that halfway around the
world events were conspiring to make their precarious situation
even more desperate: That an American Naval lieutenant, after a
four-month tour of duty in Vietnam, was meeting secretly in an
undisclosed location in Paris with a top enemy diplomat.
A Swift Boat Vets
attack ad released in September also claimed that Kerry "secretly
met with enemy leaders in Paris."
FACT
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.
REFERENCES
Media
Matters:
But as MMFA
and The
Washington Post noted at the time, the meeting was not a
secret. Kerry spoke about his meeting with Nguyen Thi Binh
(then-foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government and
a top negotiator at the Paris Peace talks) in his 1971 public
testimony before the Senate.
Media
Matters:
On September 22, the
discredited anti-Kerry group Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth released for television a spurious new
attack ad.
FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes (on September 21) and
FOX & Friends First (on September 22) both aired the ad, but
neither show reported on the ad's inaccuracies. The new ad claims
that Senator John Kerry "secretly met with enemy leaders in
Paris," and it repeats the group's previous false
charge that Kerry "accused American troops of committing
war crimes on a daily basis."
While the ad claims
that Kerry "secretly met with enemy leaders," the Paris
meeting to which the ad refers was not a secret, as The
Washington Post noted on September 22 and as text in the ad
indicates (words at bottom of screen: "John Kerry's Senate
Testimony: United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
April 22, 1971"). The ad is referring to the meeting that Kerry
described in his 1971 public
testimony before the Senate: "I have been to Paris. I have
talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary
Government."
Kerry's visit to
Paris was not to formally participate in negotiations with Communist
leaders. According to the Post, the Kerry-Edwards '04
campaign said earlier this year that Kerry met with Nguyen Thi Binh,
who was then foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary
Government and a top negotiator at the talks. The Post went
on to say that, "Kerry acknowledged ... that even going to the
peace talks as a private citizen was at the 'borderline' of what was
permissible under U.S. law, which forbids citizens from negotiating
treaties with foreign governments. But the campaign said he never
engaged in negotiations or attended any formal sessions of the
talks." And as the Los Angeles Times reported on March
22, Kerry never supported formal meetings between North Vietnamese
officials and American anti-war protesters: "Kerry recalled his
opposition to VVAW [Vietnam Veterans Against the War] leaders
meeting with North Vietnamese officials. 'I thought that would be
disastrous to the credibility of the organization,' he said, 'to the
people we were trying to convince about the war.'"
While FOX News
Channel gave the ad free airtime without mentioning that its claims
were false, CNN had not aired the ad in its entirety as of this
writing. On the September 22 edition of CNN's American Morning,
scenes from the ad were shown without audio while co-host Kelly
Wallace reported that the "ad claims Kerry met with 'enemy
leaders' during a 1970 trip to Paris." Wallace reported that
the Kerry-Edwards '04 campaign responded to the new ad by pointing
to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's lack of credibility and by
stating that Kerry "went to Paris on a mission to get American
prisoners of war released and to end the war." As of noon on
September 22, MSNBC had neither aired nor reported on the ad.
8. SBV
CLAIMS ON THE WINTER SOLDIER INVESTIGATION
[via Media
Matters]: From Stolen
Honor:
SHERWOOD: [Kerry]
was the spokesman for the so-called Vietnam Veterans Against
the War, many of whom would later be discovered as frauds, men
who had never set foot on the battlefield or left the comfort of
the states, or ever served in uniform except in mock contempt of
the military. Their lurid fantasies of butchery in Vietnam were
seized upon by John Kerry to help him organize the so-called
Winter Soldiers Investigation, the template he would use to brand
all Vietnam veterans. Never mind many of the horror stories seemed
made up on the spot.
[via Media
Matters]:
SHERWOOD:
...everything that came from the Winter Soldiers hearing has been
utterly discredited through volumes and volumes of books...
FACT
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.
REFERENCES
Media
Matters:
In fact, research
by Media Matters for America has uncovered no evidence that
any witness testifying in the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation in
Detroit has had his story discredited.
Sherwood was
disputing claims by VVAW member and Winter Soldier witness Kenneth
J. Campbell on the September 9 edition of MSNBC's Hardball
with Chris Matthews. Campbell said that testimony by him and
other Winter Soldier witnesses formed the factual basis for Senator
John Kerry's 1971 testimony
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When Sherwood
attempted to discredit the Winter Soldier investigation, Campbell
defended himself and the other veterans who testified:
SHERWOOD: And as
far as what Ken said, everything that came from the Winter
Soldiers hearing has been utterly discredited through volumes and
volumes of books and not one...
CAMPBELL: That's
untrue.
[...]
There was only one
person in the Vietnam Vets Against the War that was uncovered as
having been a sergeant when he said he was a captain. Otherwise,
the rest of the folks, we all brought our DD-214s [a document
issued to military members upon separation from active service]
that day. I brought mine today, in case you challenged my
credibility. And we were not frauds. And we did do or see or
participate in what we said we did.
As MMFA has
previously documented,
conservative historian Guenter Lewy claimed in his 1978 book, America
in Vietnam, that a Naval Investigative Service report into
the Winter Soldier allegations had discredited many of the witnesses
and accounts, and in some cases impostors had assumed the identities
of real veterans who were not present at the investigation. But
Naval Criminal Investigative Service public affairs specialist Paul
O'Donnell told
(registration required) the Chicago Tribune: "We have
not been able to confirm the existence of this report, but it's also
possible that such records could have been destroyed or
misplaced." And Lewy himself admitted
to The Baltimore Sun that "he does not recall if he saw
a copy of the naval investigative report or was briefed on its
contents." Apart from Lewy's allegations, a search by MMFA
turned up no other reports of evidence that any Winter Soldier
witness was an impostor.
9. SBV
ATTEMPT TO LINK JOHN KERRY TO JANE FONDA
[via Media
Matters]: From Stolen Honor:
SHERWOOD: [T]his
same Lieutenant [Kerry] had joined forces with Jane Fonda's
anti-war efforts.
FACT
This is an egregiously misleading attempt to create a connection that
did not exist.
REFERENCES
Media
Matters:
As MMFA has documented,
the frequently used right-wing tactic of seeking to link Kerry to
Fonda has even involved the doctoring
of a photograph to make it appear that Kerry stood alongside Fonda
while speaking at an antiwar protest.
Media
Matters:
Although Kerry and
Fonda did both appear at an 1970 antiwar rally in Valley Forge,
Pennsylvania, CNN noted
that the Kerry campaign "stressed that Kerry and Fonda were only
acquaintances, and the meeting took place two years before Fonda took
a controversial trip behind enemy lines and posed for pictures on a
North Vietnam army anti-aircraft gun which prompted her angry
detractors to dub her 'Hanoi Jane.'" CNN noted that "Kerry
aides said he did not support Fonda's trip to Vietnam," and Fonda
"said that she does not recall meeting Kerry during the antiwar
movement." For her part, Fonda remarked: "Any attempts to
link Kerry to me and make him look bad with that connection is
completely false. We were at a rally for veterans at the same time. I
spoke, Donald Sutherland spoke, John Kerry spoke at the end. I don't
even think we shook hands."
10. SBV
CLAIMS ABOUT KERRY'S PHOTOGRAPH IN HO CHI MINH CITY
[via Daily
Howler]:
O’NEILL/CORSI (page
167): In the Vietnamese Communist War Remnants Museum (formerly
known as the War Crimes Museum) in Ho Chi Minh City, a photograph of
John Kerry hangs in a room titled “The World Supports Vietnam in its
Resistance.” The photograph shows Senator John Kerry being greeted
by the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Comrade Do
Muoi. The story broke over the 2004 Memorial Day weekend. Jeffrey M.
Epstein of the Vietnam Vets for the Truth acquired the photograph in
response to a request for photographs and records detailing Kerry’s
activities on behalf of the enemy.
...
O’NEILL/CORSI (page
174): Looking at John Kerry’s record in the U.S. Senate since
1984, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find any position he
took regarding Vietnam that the Communists would not favor.
FACT
(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.
REFERENCES
Daily
Howler:
“Kerry’s
activities on behalf of the enemy?” In fact, that photograph was
taken in 1993, when Kerry went to Vietnam as part of an official
U.S. delegation pursuing the POW/MIA issue. After several pages of
dime-novel clowning designed to make this visit sound like a
mystery, O’Neill and Corsi even concede this. Kerry’s presence
in Nam was “reasonable.” But then they explain the Big Problem:
O’NEILL/CORSI
(page 172): Thus, the existence of photographs showing
Senator Kerry meeting with General Secretary Do Muoi is not in
question. In the course of pursuing the POW and MIA issue, it is
reasonable that Senator Kerry would seek to meet with leaders of
Communist Vietnam. The critical issue here is that the Vietnamese
Communists have chosen to honor Senator Kerry in their War
Remnants Museum for his assistance in helping them achieve victory
over the United States.
It isn’t wrong that
Kerry was there. The problem turns out to be the way the Commies
have chosen to caption that photo! And soon after that, it gets
worse for Kerry. We’re told that “[c]ontroversy continues over
John Kerry’s role in chairing the Senate Select Committee on
POW/MIA affairs,” and, of course, that Kerry never took any
position in the Senate “that the Communists would not favor.”
Let’s be frank—these are the same kooky men who pursued John
McCain on these matters during Campaign 2000.
Unspun:
To prove my point,
Paula, a Republican, emails me about John Kerry’s photo, which is
said to hang in the Hanoi War Remnants Museum (sometimes
deliberately and misleadingly reported by Republicans as being the
Hanoi War Crimes Museum).
Ms. Paula tells me,
in an email whose “Subject” line states, “You are as BLIND as
the mainstream media . . .”,
The picture DOES exist
and if you haven’t been there (in Hanoi) you don’t know crap. Email
from Ms. Paula, who either doesn’t know, or wouldn’t provide,
her last name.
She also provides a
link to a website with more pictures, which I’ll discuss in detail
below.
Now I have to assume
that what inspired Ms. Paula to write to me is that she has
read at least one article on this topic on my website. In order to
justify my belief that only half the rocks on this planet
are smarter than Ms. Paula, I’m going to assume she read this
article. In that article, I point out that there is no “war
crimes room” in the Hanoi museum. I did not in that article, deny
that the picture exists. In fact, I noted that
[T]he picture was
taken when Kerry was part of a delegation of veterans’ groups
visiting Vietnam partly to find out what happened to soldiers still
listed as “missing in action[.]” Rick
Horowitz, Hanoi
War Crimes Museum, Unspun™,
¶ 4, (August 21, 2004).
So Ms. Paula’s
assertion that “[t]he picture DOES exist” is, apparently, either
a non sequitur or meant to indicate she’s too stupid to
read. Which fits my theory about the rocks.
Similarly, although
I’ve never been to Hanoi, I know quite a few things. Another non
sequitur? Since she’s a Republican, it could have just been a
spontaneous expression of gas.
The link Ms. Paula
sends me to prove that the picture which I already had said in
August existed existed is interesting in and of itself. To
fully appreciate the rock-like intellectual capabilities of
Republicans like Ms. Paula, you’ll want to spend some time looking
at the
page at the end of that link.
Personally, I love
that page. It provides even more substantiation for other articles
I’ve written, such as The
Failure of Intelligent Political Discourse, in which I
noted that the Republican “political leaders create a lie and the
marketing arm of the party drills it into the people” or Pestilence:
We Can Do Better, in which I noted that “Adherence to the
truth is irrelevant to the Bush Administration” and pointed out
that “Not only has Bush routinely lied to the American people . .
. he has also worked to re-write history.” The fact is that the
only thing not rock-like about Republicans is their
integrity. It’s as solid as the vapor coming off dry ice.
The article Ms. Paula
pointed me to — as those of you who took my advice and viewed it
will recognize — is an attempt to show that a) the Kerry
photo much argued over actually exists and b) the
Communists placed that photo where they placed that photo
in order to “honor” Kerry for succor he allegedly gave to them
by (again, allegedly) working on their behalf.
The web page appears
to go to great and truly impressive lengths to document these
“facts.”
The first point, of
course, is irrelevant. Not only have I never denied the existence of
the Kerry photo, I’ve actually written about it in more than one
blog article. So the only potentially-interesting point is that the
photo, or perhaps the placement of the photo, is intended by the
Communist Vietnamese to honor Kerry.
So what evidence is
offered on this web page to prove that point?
First, we have a
picture proving the photo exists. But, as they would say in a court
room, we’ve already stipulated to that. Next, we are shown via
translation of the placard beneath the photo that “Mr. Do Muoi,
Secretary General of the Vietnam Communist Party met with
Congressmen and Veterans Delegation in Vietnam (July 15-18, 1993)”
— remember those dates. But, again, it not only was never denied
(by Unspun™, anyway!) that this was how the photograph came into
existence, we’ve actually written about that more than once!
So far no proof of
either Kerry’s providing succor to the Communists, or of his being
honored for so doing. This photo, however, will be a
significant factor in this interesting mess of Republican
dishonesty. So, if you haven’t already done so, please
do go look at it!
Next, we have a photo
of Jane Fonda displayed in “the Women’s Museum” in Saigon.
Apparently, George Bush isn’t the only Republican who is
geographically-challenged. I mean, weren’t we looking at
photographs of Kerry in the Hanoi museum? Maybe it’s a
typographical error. Maybe they’re just confused trying to figure
how they’re going to spin this story into another convincing
Republican lie. So are we really in Hanoi? And are “the Women’s
Museum” and “the Hanoi War Remnants Museum” the same museum?
An uninteresting
problem, really. Let’s pretend for the moment that Jane’s photo
is in the Hanoi War Remnants Museum. Somewhere. Maybe even in the
same “room” as John’s photo. (It’s not clear, though, that
there really are individual “rooms,” even though the
KerryLied.com makes a big deal out of the fact that all the photos
presented are purportedly in “the same room.” From what shows in
these photos, it looks like the entire museum might be one large
room, like in a warehouse or gymnasium or even a quonset hut with
display boards scattered throughout which may indicate some
sectioning. Perhaps Kent will tell us — oh, yeah, you might want
to remember that name, too. So now you’re keeping track
of the first Kerry picture on the KerryLied.com page and Kent’s
name.)
After Jane, we get a
string of photos showing anti-war posters from various countries and
war protesters burning draft cards. Photos 5, 6 and 7 are
deliberately intended to show the layout of the “room” where
Kerry’s picture purportedly hangs. Sadly, they do not show —
although they state — where Kerry’s photo is in
relation to them. Not that it matters much. It just seems that since
they make such a big deal of providing photographic proof
for their allegations, they’d want to photographically demonstrate
proximity, rather than just leave us to take their word for it. I
mean, they do indicate that the purpose of the page is to
destroy the view that they’ve made much ado about nothing by showing
that all they’ve said is true. Instead, we are told that these
photos are “on the opposite side of the room,” which, from
appearances is the same as saying “on the other side of the
building.”
That’s not what
really got my attention, though. And I hope I’m not the only one
who caught this.
On September 4, 2004,
I wrote an article titled Kerry
“Honored” by Hanoi War Crimes Museum. In that article,
I quoted one of our readers, Kent (yep!), when he said,
I have seen the
contents of the exhibit in question. Right next to the picture in
question is a picture of Lt. General Michael Ryan, assistant to
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the time and member of the
delegation. On the other side of that picture is a picture that
has all 4 leading members of the Veterans Groups were on this very
trip. Rick
Horowitz, Kerry
“Honored” by Hanoi War Crimes Museum Unspun™,
¶ 6, (September 4, 2004).
...
Well, I’ll be
danged! You think there’s a reason that after all the trouble they
went to over at KerryLied.com, they forgot to show us what was on
the other side of the Kerry photo? How about maybe the Republicans
are lying again and they realize if you see all the photos it will
prove that? (Now you know why I made the kind assumption that Ms.
Paula read the other article and not the one with Kent’s
comment!)
And why didn’t they
show the translation of the placard beneath the General Giap photo
that they do show next to Kerry’s photo? Are those Americans
on either side of General Giap? (They appear to be.) Are they
AmericansWhoAreNotJohnKerry? Could they be AmericansWhoAreNotJohnKerryAndAreNotCommunistSuccorProviders?
If they are these things, what does that do to the KerryLied.com
argument?
Robert
Parry, Consortium News:
The
assaults on Sen. John Kerry’s patriotism – first from the Swift
boat ads and now from an attack-video to be aired nationally before
the Nov. 2 election – look to be part of a Bush family pattern,
which also was on display in 1992 when the elder George H.W. Bush
instigated a smear campaign against Bill Clinton for alleged
disloyalty.
In
1992, the Bush reelection plan was to disqualify Clinton with the
voters by publicizing bogus allegations that Clinton had tried to
renounce his U.S. citizenship during the Vietnam War. The first
President Bush and his allies also pushed rumors that Clinton had
treasonous contacts with Soviet-bloc communists during a student
trip to Eastern Europe in the 1970s.
Today,
Bush supporters are hurling similar disloyalty allegations at Kerry
– that he lied about his combat experience in Vietnam and that he
betrayed his country in his anti-war activism upon his return.
George W. Bush’s campaign insists that it’s not behind these
charges. But there were similar denials in 1992 and the
now-available documentary record shows that George H.W. Bush was at
least the sparkplug behind the attacks on Clinton’s loyalty.
It’s
also important to remember that the 1992 scheme might well have
succeeded in destroying Clinton, except it was countered by a few
alert Democrats on Capitol Hill. [More below]
Mysterious
Contacts
In
both 1992 and 2004, there also were elements of the Republican
operations that remain a mystery. In 1992, there were calls from
Bush campaign officials to Czechoslovakia in what appears to have
been an effort to dig up dirt on Clinton or to plant damaging news
articles there that would blow back to the United States.
This
year, there is the strange story about an anti-Kerry Swift boat
veteran showing up at a remote Vietnamese village where Kerry earned
his Silver Star in a 1969 firefight. That disclosure was part of an
ABC’s Nightline report on Oct. 14, 2004, based on interviews with
Vietnamese in the villages of Tran Thoi and Nha Vi on the Bay Hap
River.
The
main point of the Nightline report was that the villagers confirmed
the wartime accounts from Kerry, his crew and the official U.S.
records – that there had been heavy firing in the clash between
Kerry’s Swift boats and Vietcong cadre on Feb. 28, 1969. The
villagers also debunked a central claim by anti-Kerry Swift boat
veteran John O’Neill that the only Vietcong fighter was a
youngster in a loin cloth who was wounded and fleeing when Kerry
shot him in the back.
Contradicting
O’Neill’s best-selling book Unfit for Command, the
villagers identified the dead Vietcong as Ba Thanh, a man in his
mid-20s who was dressed in the Vietcong’s characteristic black
pajamas. He had been sent to the village by headquarters with a B-40
rocket launcher as part of a special 12-man unit targeting Swift
boats, the villagers said.
But
a curious part of the Nightline report was a statement by one
villager, Nguyen Van Khoai, who said two men – an American calling
himself a Swift boat veteran and a cameraman – had interviewed him
about the incident about six months earlier.
Nguyen
remembered that the two visitors had mentioned that another Swift
boat veteran was running for U.S. President and they said he
“didn’t do anything to deserve the medal” won for his actions
during the 1969 battle. Nguyen said he declined to discuss whether
Kerry had deserved his medal, and the two men went back down river.
Nightline
said it couldn’t identify the two men, but their appearance at a
remote Vietnamese village – when Nightline had to overcome
government resistance to travel there – suggests that allies of
the Bush campaign may be going to extraordinary lengths to discredit
Kerry. It also begs the question of whether the U.S. Embassy in
Vietnam has played any role.
Those
questions might seem overly suspicious, except that George W. Bush
has refused to specifically condemn the anti-Kerry charges. (Bush
has only urged an end to all independent political ads, including
those that have reported accurately about his dubious Texas Air
National Guard record.) There’s also the history of the Bush
family’s ruthless political style. [For details on how the Bushes
do politics, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]
Passportgate
In
1992, for instance, George H.W. Bush’s White House pulled strings
at the State Department and at U.S. embassies in Europe to uncover
and to disseminate derogatory information about Bill Clinton in the
final weeks of the campaign.
The
Bush assault on Clinton’s patriotism moved into high gear on the
night of Sept. 30, 1992, when assistant secretary of state Elizabeth
Tamposi – under pressure from the White House – ordered three
aides to pore through Clinton’s passport files in search of a
purported letter in which Clinton supposedly sought to renounce his
citizenship.
Though
no letter was found, Tamposi still injected the suspicions into the
campaign by citing a small tear in the corner of Clinton’s
passport application as evidence that someone might have tampered
with the file, presumably to remove the supposed letter. She
fashioned that speculation into a criminal referral to the FBI.
Within
hours, someone from the Bush camp leaked word about the confidential
FBI investigation to reporters at Newsweek magazine. The Newsweek
story about the tampering investigation hit the newsstands on Oct.
4. The article suggested that a Clinton backer might have removed
incriminating material from Clinton’s passport file, precisely the
spin that the Bush people wanted.
Immediately,
President George H.W. Bush took the offensive, using the press
frenzy over the tampering story to attack Clinton’s patriotism on
a variety of fronts, including his student trip to Moscow in 1970.
With his patriotism challenged, Clinton saw his once-formidable lead
shrink. Panic spread through the Clinton campaign.
The Bush camp put out
another suspicion, that Clinton might have been a KGB “agent of
influence.” Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times headlined
that allegation on Oct. 5, 1992, a story that attracted President
Bush’s personal interest. “Now there are stories that Clinton
… may have gone to Moscow as [a] guest of the KGB,” Bush wrote
in his diary that day.
The suspicions about
Clinton’s patriotism might have doomed Clinton’s election,
except that Spencer Oliver, then chief counsel on the
Democratic-controlled House International Affairs Committee,
suspected a dirty trick.
“I
said you can’t go into someone’s passport file,” Oliver told
me in an interview. “That’s a violation of the law, only in
pursuit of a criminal indictment or something. But without his
permission, you can’t examine his passport file. It’s a
violation of the Privacy Act.”
After
consulting with House committee chairman Dante Fascell and a
colleague on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Oliver
dispatched a couple of investigators to the National Archives
warehouse in Suitland. The brief congressional check discovered that
State Department political appointees had gone out to Suitland at
night to search through Clinton’s records and those of his mother.
Oliver’s
assistants also found that the administration’s tampering
allegation rested on a very weak premise, the slight tear in the
passport application. The circumstances of the late-night search
soon found their way into an article in the Washington Post, causing
embarrassment to the Bush campaign.
Not
Letting Go
Yet still sensing
that the loyalty theme could hurt Clinton, President Bush kept
stoking the fire. On CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Oct. 7, 1992,
Bush suggested anew that there was something sinister about a
possible Clinton friend allegedly tampering with Clinton’s
passport file.
“Why in the world
would anybody want to tamper with his files, you know, to support
the man?” Bush wondered before a national TV audience. “I mean,
I don’t understand that. What would exonerate him – put it that
way – in the files?”
The next day, in his
diary, Bush ruminated suspiciously about Clinton’s Moscow trip:
“All kinds of rumors as to who his hosts were in Russia, something
he can’t remember anything about.”
But the GOP attack on
Clinton’s loyalty prompted some Democrats to liken Bush to Sen.
Joseph McCarthy, who built a political career in the early days of
the Cold War challenging people’s loyalties without offering
proof. On Oct. 9, the FBI complicated Bush’s strategy further by
rejecting the criminal referral. The FBI concluded that there was no
evidence that anyone had removed anything from Clinton’s passport
file.
At that point, Bush
began backpedaling: “If he’s told all there is to tell on
Moscow, fine,” Bush said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“I’m not suggesting that there’s anything unpatriotic about
that. A lot of people went to Moscow, and so that’s the end of
that one.”
But the documents I
obtained years later at the National Archives revealed that
privately Bush was not so ready to surrender the disloyalty theme.
The day before the first presidential debate on Oct. 11, Bush
prepped himself with one-liners designed to spotlight doubts about
Clinton’s loyalty if the right opening presented itself.
“It’s hard to
visit foreign countries with a torn-up passport,” read one of the
scripted lines. Another zinger read: “Contrary to what the
Governor’s been saying, most young men his age did not try to duck
the draft. … A few did go to Canada. A couple went to England.
Only one I know went to Russia.” If Clinton had criticized
Bush’s use of a Houston hotel room as a legal residence, Bush was
ready to hit back with another Russian reference: “Where is your
legal residence, Little Rock or Leningrad?”
Debate Stumble
But the Oct. 11
presidential debate – which also involved Reform Party candidate
Ross Perot – did not go as Bush had hoped. Bush did raise the
loyalty issue in response to an early question about character, but
the incumbent’s message was lost in a cascade of inarticulate
sentence fragments.
“I said something
the other day where I was accused of being like Joe McCarthy because
I question – I’ll put it this way, I think it’s wrong to
demonstrate against your own country or organize demonstrations
against your own country in foreign soil,” Bush said. “I just
think it’s wrong. I – that – maybe – they say, ‘well, it
was a youthful indiscretion.’ I was 19 or 20 flying off an
aircraft carrier and that shaped me to be commander-in-chief of the
armed forces, and – I’m sorry but demonstrating – it’s not a
question of patriotism, it’s a question of character and
judgment.”
Clinton countered by
challenging Bush directly. “You have questioned my
patriotism,” the Democrat shot back. Clinton then unloaded his own
zinger: “When Joe McCarthy went around this country attacking
people’s patriotism, he was wrong. He was wrong, and a senator
from Connecticut stood up to him, named Prescott Bush. Your father
was right to stand up to Joe McCarthy. You were wrong to attack my
patriotism.”
Many observers rated
Clinton’s negative comparison of Bush to his father as Bush’s
worst moment in the debate. An unsettled Bush didn’t regain the
initiative for the remainder of the evening.
The search of
Clinton’s passport file had other repercussions. Eventually, the
State Department’s inspector general sought a special prosecutor
investigation for a scandal that became known as Passportgate.
In the end, however,
Bush escaped any legal consequences from the passport gambit in
large part because a Republican attorney, Joseph diGenova, was named
to serve as special prosecutor. DiGenova’s investigation cleared
Bush and his administration of any wrongdoing. DiGenova said he
“found no evidence that President Bush was involved in this
matter.”
FBI Notes
FBI documents that I
found in the National Archives, however, presented a more
complicated picture. Speaking to diGenova and his investigators in
fall 1993, George H.W. Bush said he had encouraged White House chief
of staff James Baker and other aides to investigate Clinton and to
make sure the information got out.
“Although he
[Bush] did not recall tasking Baker to research any particular
matter, he may have asked why the campaign did not know more about
Clinton’s demonstrating,” said the FBI interview report, dated
Oct. 23, 1993. “The President advised that … he probably would
have said, ‘Hooray, somebody’s going to finally do something
about this.’ If he had learned that the Washington Times was
planning to publish an article, he would have said, ‘That’s
good, it’s about time.’ …
...
Czech-ing
on Bill
In
January 1994, the curious Czech trip stories took another turn. The
Czech news media reported that former Czech intelligence officials
were saying that in 1992, the Czech secret police, the Federal
Security and Information Service (FBIS), had collaborated with the
Bush reelection campaign to dig up dirt on Clinton.
...
The
Czech stories suggested that the first Bush administration would go
so far as to collaborate with a foreign secret police agency to
undermine a political opponent. So this year’s attacks on
Kerry’s patriotism do not stand alone.
Indeed,
the accusations from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the
anti-Kerry video “Stolen Honor” to be aired by the pro-Bush
Sinclair Broadcasting Group seem to fit a pattern of how the Bushes
deconstruct those who challenge the family’s hold on government
power.
11. SBV
CLAIM THAT KERRY "KILLED" A SMALL CHILD
[via Daily
Howler]: O’NEILL/CORSI
(page 58): Despite Kerry’s written report, rumors of the
incident circulated for years. The vivid memory of the small bloody
sampan haunts Silver Star winner Bill Franke, a veteran of many
battles. A boat officer of Coastal Division 11..., Jack Chenoweth
has recently written that “[t]he only atrocity I ever knew or
heard about was Kerry killing the small child in the junk.”
[via Daily
Howler]: O’NEILL/CORSI (page 51):
“Kerry seemed to believe that there were no rules in a free-fire
zone and you were supposed to kill everyone. I didn’t see it that
way. I will tell you in all candor that the only baby killer I
knew in Vietnam was John F. Kerry.”
WILLIAM FRANKE
Swift Boat Veteran, Coastal Division 11
FACT
Let me put it plainly and politely. This is another egregious,
slanderous lie from pond scum who are lower than the lowest life form
on earth.
REFERENCES
Daily
Howler:
Wow!
Kerry committed “the only atrocity” Chenoweth knew of? Kerry
“killed a small child in a junk?” Well, actually, no, he
didn’t do that—except, of course, in the fevered prose O’Neill
and Corsi put in their nasty, inexcusable book. Even in O’Neill
and Corsi’s telling, the accidental killing of a 12-year-old child
on this sampan resulted from fire by Kerry gunner Steve Gardner, who
“opened up” when he thought he “had seen weapons on the
sampan,” the authors say. According to Swift Boat Veteran Gardner,
Kerry was below deck—wasn’t physically present—when
this event occurred. Although O’Neill’s account of this incident
is typically murky, even Gardner has never said that Kerry actually
did any shooting; indeed, he has repeatedly said just the opposite.
But so what? As soon as O’Neill and Corsi finish their murky
account of the incident, they open fire with statements from men
like Chenoweth—men who make it sound like Kerry “kill[ed]
the small child,” thereby committing an “atrocity.” This is
political prose as vile as it gets. But somehow, this nasty section
of Unfit for Command has escaped the notice of the mainstream
press corps—lords and ladies who are much too fine to tackle such
vile, uncouth prose.
Indeed, Chenoweth
isn’t the only Swift Boat Vet who implies that Kerry committed
this killing. Vile insinuation is O’Neill/Corsi’s stock in
trade—and on page 59, the shelling continues. “Numerous Coastal
Division 11 Swiftees recall the Cua Lon River sampan debacle with
true distaste for Kerry,” the dissembling authors write. As
O’Neill and Corsi’s rumination continues, Swift Boat Veteran
William Franke meditates for half a page about the proper way to
search a sampan. “Absent clear indications of danger, Swift Boat
vets simply did not open fire upon such boats,” the haunted Silver
Star winner writes. And then, the nasty lambasting of Kerry
continues. So does the ugly jumbling of fact in which
O’Neill/Corsi seem to revel:
O’NEILL/CORSI
(page 60): Kerry chose not to honor this code. Rather, when
encountering a fishing boat returning up the river to a nearby
village, Kerry’s boat opened fire on the vessel. Whether one
believes Kerry’s or Gardner’s version, Kerry’s boat was
ultimately responsible.
Kerry “chose
not to honor this code?” According to Swift Boat Veteran Gardner, Gardner
opened fire when he thought he saw a man on the sampan reach for
a weapon. Kerry was below deck at the time. But so what? Somehow,
we’re told that Kerry “chose not to honor this code”
when Gardner, feeling himself under threat, opened fire without
Kerry’s knowledge or permission. For the record, Kerry’s
recollection of this incident is slightly different. But in neither
version did Kerry fire on the boat or order Gardner to do so.
But that’s the way
O’Neill and Corsi function throughout this nasty book. Gardner fires
on a sampan when he thinks he sees someone reach for a gun. But a
few pages later, we’re told that Kerry “killed a small
child” in the incident, that Kerry “chose not to honor
the code,” and that Kerry committed an “atrocity” in
the incident! The crackpot logic of this writing ought to be clear
to any scribe. But have you seen this episode cited when mainstream
scribes discuss this book? Of course not!
Remember William Franke?
Joe
Conason, Salon.com:
On closer inspection,
the ostensibly nonpartisan "Swift Boat Vets" seem to have
another pair of significant sponsors with deep and long-standing
Republican connections in Missouri. Both are officers of Gannon
International, a St. Louis conglomerate that does lots of
overseas business in, of all places, the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam.
Ties to Gannon can be
traced via the Swift Boat Vets Web
site (as an alert reader advised me last week). On April 14, the
site was registered
under the name of Lewis Waterman, Gannon's information technology
manager, at 11301 Olive Boulevard in St. Louis, the firm's
headquarters address. Although Waterman wouldn't discuss why he had
set up the Web site, he didn't deny that his boss, Gannon president
and CEO William
Franke, had asked him to do so.
...
Franke is well
known in Missouri as a longtime Republican Party activist and
financier. In 1976, he managed John Danforth's victorious Senate
campaign; two years later, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress. He
also failed in an attempt to resuscitate the defunct St. Louis
Globe-Democrat (which was, despite its name, a staunchly Republican
newspaper) in 1986. Before the Globe-Democrat finally went under in
1987, Franke had obtained a commitment from the state industrial
development authority -- all of whose members were appointed by then
Gov. John Ashcroft -- to raise $9 million in tax-exempt revenue
bonds to keep the paper afloat.
Last June, Franke
gave the maximum $2,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign, and he has
since donated an additional $2,000 to House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay's political action committee, Americans
for a Republican Majority, and $2,000 more to Keep
Our Majority, the PAC operated by House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
12. SBV
CLAIM ABOUT KERRY'S "EXAGGERATION" ABOUT CAPTURING TWO
VIET CONG
[via Daily
Howler]: O’NEILL/CORSI
(page 57-58): The Commander Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam
(CTF 115) Quarterly Evaluation Report of March 29, 1969, states
“...20 January PCFs 21 and 44 operating in An Xuyen
Province...engaged the enemy with a resultant GDA of one VC KIA (BC)
[body count], four VC KIA (EST) and two VC CIA (VQ 810650/44).” This
is Kerry’s victory—killing five imaginary Viet Cong, capturing
two imaginary Viet Cong in action (an exaggeration of the mother and
baby who were actually rescued from the sampan), and simply
omitting the dead child. It typifies Kerry’s “victories” in
Vietnam—those of a master with a pen and paper and of gaming a
system of naval reporting built on trust. (Ellipses by O’Neill/Corsi)
FACT
Kerry never claimed he captured two Viet Cong in his report. He said
clearly that he captured a woman and a child.
REFERENCES
Daily
Howler:
O’Neill
and Corsi’s crackpot dishonesty shines through loud and clear. In
this passage, they savage Kerry for “gaming the system” because
this March 29 report states that he captured “two imaginary Viet
Cong in action (an exaggeration of the mother and baby who were
actually rescued from the sampan).” But Kerry doesn’t
seem to have written this report, which was filed two weeks after he
left Vietnam. Indeed, two pages earlier, O’Neill and Corsi have
quoted the report which was actually filed on the day of the
incident. And this report, which does seem to have come from Kerry,
does not include the exaggerations which have O’Neill/Corsi
crying and tearing their hair. Did Kerry capture a “mother and
baby,” not “two imaginary Viet Cong? That’s exactly what Kerry’s
report says! The text of the real-time report says that PCF 44,
Kerry’s boat, “took sampan under fire, returned to capture 1
woman and a small child, one enemy KIA.” O’Neill and Corsi
savage Kerry for the embellished March 29 report. But his own report
describes the mother and child for who they actually were.
Yes, Kerry’s report
says “mother and child.” The authors trash Kerry for someone
else’s deception. But then, rank dishonesty pervades this vile
book. As O’Neill and Corsi spread their vile tales, Kerry is
savaged for filing reports he didn’t file—and for killing
children he didn’t kill. Throughout all this rank deception, of
course, the crackpot authors shake their fists at Kerry’s disturbing
dishonesty.
13. SBV
CLAIM THAT KERRY SAID HO CHI MINH WAS LIKE GEORGE WASHINGTON
[via Daily
Howler]:
[CHRIS] MATTHEWS: Do
you think he believed that the North Vietnamese and the V.C. were
the good guys and we were the bad guys? Did he go that far?
O'NEILL: He really
did. That's the sad thing, Chris. When you read his speech where
he says Ho Chi Minh is like George Washington and he wants to impose
a constitution that will be like our Constitution, that's a
speech he gave that's in the book. That's what he actually said.
I don't know how he could believe that. We saw them, Chris. They
were killing people.
FACT
O'Neill cites 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.
REFERENCES
Daily
Howler:
As
usual, Kerry was a traitor. Matthews wet-kissed the slander along,
helping O’Neill frame his language.
But does John
O’Neill ever tell the truth? That speech by Kerry is not
in his book, nor has O’Neill ever read it. All O’Neill has
is a 30-word report by an unnamed FBI informer—a type of report
which is highly unreliable. In the May 23 Los Angeles Times, for
example, historian Gerald Nicosia described other such reports on
the VVAW:
NICOSIA
(5/23/04): Curiously, those two undercover reports don't
jibe...with newspaper accounts also saved by the FBI. They
indicate the conference was well organized, and that Kerry was
well-received. Lemmer, who was exposed two years later as the
principal agent provocateur at the trial of the Gainesville Eight
(eight VVAW members indicted for conspiracy), was often known
to invent reports of VVAW's violent intentions, and his reports
were later found quite unreliable.
According to Nicosia,
Bill Lemmer was a “paid (FBI) informer from Arkansas, a crazy,
violence-prone, washed-out Green Beret vet.”
All O’Neill has is
a brief report. He doesn’t know if it is accurate. There is no
other record of such speeches by Kerry. But so what? O’Neill
almost never tells the truth. So last night, he said that he had read
Kerry’s speech, and he said the speech is in his book. And oh
yes—the speech is “sad;” it shows that Kerry thought we were
the bad guys. Matthews, reinvented, played right along. That’s how
you build ratings on cable.
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