Anybody have any evidence Kerry ever said Nam vets were war criminals?

[Merlin]

That's the line the Repugs are now taking on Kerry's antiwar activities.

I know of no VVAW spokesman who ever made any statement even remotely similar to that. They called the war a criminal war, true. But to accuse one's fellow vets of being war criminals would have been outrageous.

So the question is, what's the best way to respond to this line of attack? We can't prove a negative.

[displacedtexan]

1. Here's the deal:

I just posted this in the Xfire thread:

When JK testified before congress after he came back from Vietnam, he quoted stories his fellow soldiers had given him to read during the hearings about the horrors of war.

The repukes have tried to brand JK as a traitor for 35 years by accusing him of calling his comrades war criminals.

Basic spin cycle.

Read JK's book for the particulars.

[jpgray]

2. He sad there "were war crimes in Vietnam." That's true

They're conflating it with "all Vietnam veterans are war criminals".

They did the same thing with his statement on Bush's Guard stint. He said the Guard was a way to avoid going to Vietnam, and he listed other ways, such as deferments, going to Canada, and so on. Then the RW spin machine spat out "Kerry compares NG soldiers draft dodgers!"

You see how this works?

[Cocoa]

6. it's pathetic to see them try this

it's not going to work. Kerry was trying to stop the war, which most people know was the way Kerry described it.

I've seen this awful woman on MSNBC say that Vietnam could have been won , but for the "aid and comfort" the antiwar people gave the enemy, and it's just sad.

[papau]

12. Indeed he was reporting on testimony given by others at a dif meeting!

but never say our media finds a problem with being a little loose in sumarizing an event if the resultant word picture throws a little slime on Dems.

[RichM]

3. Here is something pretty close to that.

You'll have to excuse the fact that JK is quoted here by Wm F Buckley, who is trying to ridicule him. Nonetheless, Buckley's quote is probably accurate.

=============

...In Southeast Asia, he {Kerry} said, he saw "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

A grave charge, but the sensitive listener will instantly assume that Mr. Kerry is using the word "crime" loosely, as in, "He was criminally thoughtless in not writing home more often to his mother." But Mr. Kerry quickly interdicted that line of retreat. He went on to enumerate precisely such crimes as are being committed "on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." He gave tales of torture, of rape, of Americans who "randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravages of war."

==========
http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/wfb200402040837.asp

[jpgray]

4. But, of course, it's true. (nt)

[Merlin]

7. Actually, now that I think about it, what he said is completely true.

A racist mentality was actually cultivated by USARV. The term "gook" is illustrative of this. The consequence was the kind of activity Kerry described. Hootch burning, for example, was mandatory if you took a few sniper rounds from a village. Nobody counseled restraint. There were no consequences.

[papau]

13. Again a National Review lie - Kerry reported on testimony given at another

meeting - adding his own comments

[eileen_d]

5. Kerry's actual words

Here is a link to the text of Kerry's actual testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, which is where a lot of these smears seem to originate from:

http://pages.xtn.net/~wingman/docs/kerryst.htm

It's a personal home page, so not exactly an authoritative source, but I've found the statement reproduced on similar personal pages, so I accept it...

[Merlin]

9. Jesus!

Thanks for posting this, eileen_d. I got into VVAW after the Winter Soldier "Hearings" and never knew about this until now.

His words are eloquent and stirring. And they bring tears. Because what he says is true. So true. So fucking, sadly true:

I would like to talk on behalf of 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....

[DenverDem]

8. War crimes in Iraq?

You wouldn't have to look very hard to find some bad shizzle going down over there now. War, as we fight it, pretty much is a crime completely.

If Kerry said there were war crimes in Viet Nam he would only be guilty of being correct. Does this convict the poor bastards we condemned to go over there and follow orders or, more correctly, does it convict all of us for allowing them to be sent, in our name, in the first place? Same deal for Iraq, although we seem a lot more at ease with our excesses in Iraq than we did with Viet Nam.

[Old and In the Way]

11. Well stated.

IMHO, it was the honest testimonies of the VVAW who returned and told us what was going down in VN that popped the "war is good" bubble in this country. Even back then, we were under the influence of pro-war media propaganda that were creating hero myths (John Wayne in "Green Berets" come to mind) to support and justify the the mindless and ongoing slaughter.

[DenverDem]

14. Man, I miss Pigpen.

Off topic (or is it?) but your avatar touched my heart.

[Old and In the Way]

15. Thanks for noticing!

Your the 1st one to ID him. Your prize is knowing he was one the great country-blues-rockers that made the scene...and left too damn soon.

[Old and In the Way]

17. This is so true.

"War, as we fight it, pretty much is a crime completely"

We've really put the business into killing, haven't we? I mean, a push of the button and 10,000/100,000/1,000,000 - poof! Somehow, I think removing ourselves from the horror of war and waging it in air-conditioned rooms with LCD screens threatens to dehumanize us as a people. Our quest for more technical superiority to wage war comes at a price...our apparent growing appetite to wage it.

Our ability to totally shift the risk of death and carnage to "our enemy", truly frightens me, particularly when you put this machine at the disposal of this "bring 'em on" pResident.

The investments we make in the business of death will eventually bankrupt us, economically and spiritually, I think.

[gottaB]

10. I beleive he did--he also rather retracted that

This is the clip that RW sources are using:

(BEGIN 30 year-old VIDEO CLIP)

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

KERRY: There are all kinds of atrocities. And I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed, in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones; I conducted harassment and interdiction fire; I used 50-caliber machine guns which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people; I took place in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages.

All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare. All of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions. And all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down.

And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RUSSERT: Thirty years later, do you stand by that?

KERRY: I don't stand by the genocide. I think those were the words of an angry young man. We did not try to do that. But I do stand by the description--I don't even believe there was a purpose served in the word ``war criminal.'' I really don't.

But I stand by the rest of what happened over there, Tim. I mean, you know, we've got to put this war in its right perspective and time helps us do that. I believe very deeply that it was a noble effort to begin with. I signed up. I volunteered. I wanted to go over there and I wanted to win.

It was a noble effort to try to make a country democratic, to try to carry our principles and values to another part of the world. But we misjudged history, we misjudged our own country, we misjudged our strategy. And we fell into a dark place, all of us. And I think we learned that over time.

transcript from WP

There's more there. Worth reading the whole thing.

Also see Kerry's testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reproduced here.

[Norquist Nemesis]

16. Dornan called Kerry a war criminal this evening

on Hardball. Couldn't believe it. Dornan said something about page 142 in his book (who's book? Kerry's?). God I really do hate Bob Dornan.

I told my husband Dornan won't be back on Hardball for a while. Matthews does not suffer fools. That's why Coulter hasn't been seen.

[Moderator]

18. Locking.....

8. If you make a highly questionable and inflammatory factual assertion about a candidate, you must provide a link to a reputable source to back up your claim. Rumor-mongering is not allowed. Allegedly "innocent" questions which are actually an underhanded effort to spread rumors are not allowed. If you really need to know the answer to your question, try Google.



DU Moderator