loki wrote:
Were you even alive in those days?
Yes I was, and in fact I well remember Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony.
Here is the deal. It will never be settled. It wasn't settled back then
and it won't be settled now. For the next several elections, the candidates
will all have been on the wrong side of the argument according to some
folks.
I'm not interested in whether or not it is "being settled." You're right
- the Vietnam conflict never will "be settled". The issue, to me, is not
"settling" Vietnam.
I can respect someone who is totally anti-war. They have their opinion,
I have mine, and we live in a land where the First Amendment gives us
both the right to have and publically state that opinion...
But I abhore someone who tries to fence sit and take conflicting stands
on an issue, any issue, much less one as important as the military.
Kerry, IMHO, is trying to be on both sides of the issue.
Trying to run as a combat vet and on your war record, and then being
involved in serious protests against not only the war but against the
military and its soldiers (read Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony and
see what he says about American soldiers) is trying to work both sides
of the issue.
I'd rather have a politician who disagrees with me, but who is at least
consistent in their views, than one who will change their beliefs at the
drop of a hat depending on what their political consultants and
pollsters tell them. And that applies equally to both the Republicans
and the Democrats.
Bottom line is: we all took our stands at the time, all were flawed by a
system that was inherently flawed and there were no winners.
Just let it go.
When politicians become consistent, I will. Of course, porcines may need
FAA clearance before then, but I can always hope.
Loki
"Stop SPAM" wrote in message
...
Apparently John Kerry co-authored a book in 1971 called "The New
Soldier." There seems to be varying differences of opinion about how
much of it he actually wrote (other than his US Senate testimony during
the "Winter Soldier" hearings), but his name is certainly prominently
displayed on the cover (see
http://www.newsmax.com/images/headli...NewSoldier.jpg or
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjoh...newsol_cov.jpg).
Copies are apparently going for several hundreds of dollars on eBay;
talk of a cover-up and the liberal Democrats trying to destroy all
copies seem far-fetched (try finding copies of any obscure book from
1971), although there are rumours that both copies are currently
'unavailable' at the Library of Congress.
Has anyone with military service actually read "The New Soldier" and can
comment on it contents?
His "Winter Soldier" testimony apparently quoted in the book is
certainly still controversial:
"Much of Kerry's speech before Congress painted his fellow GIs as so
brutal that, today, they could easily be mistaken for Saddam Hussein's
Fedayeen killers.
He reported to Congress that U.S. soldiers 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, shot cattle and dogs for
fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of
South Vietnam."
There's a NGO link quoting some of Kerry's testimony at:
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjoh...er_sfrc_71.htm.
There are also discussions of the accuracy of the testimony, such as:
"After Senator Mark O. Hatfield read the Winter Soldier testimony into
the Congressional Record, he asked for an official investigation. When
the Naval Investigate Service did just that, many of the veterans
refused to cooperate (despite protections against self-incrimination).
One soldier admitted that his testimony had been coached by members of
the Nation of Islam; exact details of the atrocity he'd seen now escaped
his memory. Several veterans hunted down by Naval investigators swore
they had never been to Detroit and couldn't imagine who would have used
their identities. (Somehow this episode was left out of the "Winter
Soldier" chapter of Brinkley's book, but the details can be found in
Guenter Lewy's "America in Vietnam" and in Mackubin Thomas Owens's
account in the latest National Review.)"
-
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...ljiby.asp?pg=2
Lots of conflicting stories, such as:
- http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/k/kerry.htm
- http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/...0402130943.asp
- http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...0/131219.shtml