"The New Soldier" by John Kerry et al

On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:08:30 -0500, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:

He wants to be considered a Vietnam war hero, yet he condemned the
US soldiers, airmen, and sailors who fought there as being war criminals

Yup, he's said that some were war criminals. That wasn 't the case?

he wants to claim his undying dedication to all things military, yet his voting
record in regards to military programs says otherwise;

Support for the military means you have to vote for every dumb-ass
proposal that comes along, like Star Wars? Shut your eyes, suspend
your critical facilities and vote 'yes'?

and he wants to pillory Bush for alleged special treatment in
getting into and out of the Guard, yet he himself secured early release from
both Vietnam duty and an early release from his own active duty committment.

Of course, he actually made it to Vietnam. No one's actually sure that
the Dauphin made it as far as Alabama, except to have his teeth
done...

Sounds like a pretty proficient fence sitter to me...

As opposed, for example, to those net.folks who are always very
vociferous in support of vets... as long as those vets are not
Democrats in an election year?

Scott

"Scott MacEachern" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:08:30 -0500, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:

He wants to be considered a Vietnam war hero, yet he condemned the
US soldiers, airmen, and sailors who fought there as being war criminals

Yup, he's said that some were war criminals. That wasn 't the case?

His indictment went well beyond "some". From his 18 APR 1971 appearance on
"Meet the Press":

"...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."

He lumps the use of .50 cal weapons as anti-personnel weapons and the
conduct of search and destroy missions as firther examples of "atrocities".
He claims that "the men who ordered us" were guilty of war crimes--so anyone
outranking Lt(jg) Kerry are, in his words, war criminals. By his definition,
anyone who participated in a search and destroy mission (which is a
legitimate tactic in and of itself) was a war criminal. I'd think these
categories includes quite a bit more than "some", wouldn't you?


he wants to claim his undying dedication to all things military, yet his
voting
record in regards to military programs says otherwise;

Support for the military means you have to vote for every dumb-ass
proposal that comes along, like Star Wars? Shut your eyes, suspend
your critical facilities and vote 'yes'?

No, but you ought to be able to show where you voted for aq goodly portion
of them. Kerry liked to be on the side of the typical, "It's a waste of
money, it won't work as advertised" crowd; expereince has shown us that the
vast majority of our weapons systems have indeed though worked quite well,
and saved quite a few US (and likely enemy, by virtue of reducing the
lengths of the conflicts we have fought to date) lives.

"Even after the first World Trade Center bombing, Senator Kerry voted to gut
intelligence spending by $1.5 billion for the five years prior to 2001. In
1996, he voted to slash defense spending by $6.5 billion. Both bills were so
reckless that neither had any co-sponsors willing to endorse his plans."

washingtontimes.com/national/20040130-105141-8706r.htm

Running For Senate In 1984, Kerry Called For Cancellation Of At Least 27
Weapons Systems And Reductions In 18 Other Systems. "[Kerry] recommended
cancellation of 27 weapons systems including the B1 bomber, the cruise
missile, MX missile, Trident submarine, Patriot air defense missile, F15
fighter plane, Sparrow missile, stealth bomber and Pershing II missile. He
recommended reductions in 18 other systems including the joint tactical air
system, the Bradley fighting vehicle, the M1 Abrams tank and the F16 fighter
plane."
- Upon Entering Senate, Kerry's First Floor Speech Was In Opposition To
Critical Missile Program And He Introduced Comprehensive Nuclear Freeze
Bill. Kerry introduced: "A bill to provide for a comprehensive bilateral and
verifiable freeze between the United States and the Soviet Union on the
testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons systems." The bill
had no co-sponsors, and never made it to the Senate floor for a vote.

- Weapons Kerry Sought To Phase Out Were Vital In Iraq. "[K]erry supported
cancellation of a host of weapons systems that have become the basis of US
military might - the high-tech munitions and delivery systems on display to
the world as they leveled the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in a matter of
weeks."

- Kerry Voted Against At Least Eleven Military Pay Increases.

- As Senator, Kerry Also Pushed To Cut Intelligence Funding By More Than
$2.58 Billion.

Source for the above: www.dgci.net/archives/000139.html

I guess a guy who has access to the Heinz fortune felt that pay increases
for the military were unneeded.


and he wants to pillory Bush for alleged special treatment in
getting into and out of the Guard, yet he himself secured early release
from
both Vietnam duty and an early release from his own active duty
committment.

Of course, he actually made it to Vietnam. No one's actually sure that
the Dauphin made it as far as Alabama, except to have his teeth
done...

Tell me, how do you think a Guardsmen walks into a military clinic and gets
a dental exam without being in a duty status? The claim was that he did not
show up for duty in Alabama--you now have the dental records, and the
account of another officer in the unit who recalls his showing up there for
duty (the gentleman even shared lunch with him on occasion). But you are
still gonna cling to that, "he wasn't there" BS, huh? Now, back to the
subject of THIS thread...Kerry did indeed get an early redeployment,
courtesy of all of those wounds he rec eived that resulted in him missing
how many duty days? Then he did indeed obtain an early release from active
duty--curiously without the normal reserve duty committment for the
remainder of his initial duty obligation?


Sounds like a pretty proficient fence sitter to me...

As opposed, for example, to those net.folks who are always very
vociferous in support of vets... as long as those vets are not
Democrats in an election year?

Huh? Your point would be...?

Brooks


Scott

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 00:37:52 -0500, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:

His indictment went well beyond "some". ...

? Well, no. It didn't, even given what you said yourself. But your
words were "....he condemned the US soldiers, airmen, and sailors who
fought there as being war criminals..." So, all of them?

No, but you ought to be able to show where you voted for aq goodly portion
of them.

How many? What's the proportion that shows that a vet _really_
supports the armed forces? He said in retrospect that he was wrong
about some of this, others -- MX and Star Wars for example, hardly
itty bitty systems -- he stands by.

- Kerry Voted Against At Least Eleven Military Pay Increases.

Given George II's record on hazardous duty pay for troops in
Afghanistan and Iraq, I don't think that you want to go there....

Tell me, how do you think a Guardsmen walks into a military clinic and gets
a dental exam without being in a duty status?

And, it appears, that was about all that he did. Strangely enough, the
dates that guy remembers him being in Alabama don't square with the
Guard's pay records there. Actually, I don't worry too much that Bush
ducked a little during that period: lots of people did it. It does,
however, rather grate to see him being set up as a paragon of
patriotism next to John Kerry during the period. Kerry went to a
dumb-ass war, then opposed it when he got back... both admirable
things and fulfilling the duties of a citizen, I'd say. Bush went into
a Guard very different than that today, and then became the Invisible
Man. Not much different than a lot of other folks, but not especially
commendable, either.

Huh? Your point would be...?

My point would be that you -- and a bunch of other people who should
know better -- are making politically-motivated attacks on a combat
veteran because you're scared that he might win the election this
year. One set of opinion polls and you morph into a Republiflunky. It
ain't pretty.

Scott

"Scott MacEachern" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 00:37:52 -0500, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:

His indictment went well beyond "some". ...

? Well, no. It didn't, even given what you said yourself. But your
words were "....he condemned the US soldiers, airmen, and sailors who
fought there as being war criminals..." So, all of them?

A darned lot more than "some". How many US troops engaged in search and
destroy operations? He said they were war criminals. How many were involved
in conducting H&I fires? He said they were war criminals. How many fired .50
cal weapons at personnel targets? He said they were war criminals. How many
were in positions of greater leadership responsibility than he was, and
directed troops during the above kinfd of activities? he said they were war
criminals. Lots of categories, lots of "war criminals". In his view, that
is.


No, but you ought to be able to show where you voted for aq goodly
portion
of them.

How many? What's the proportion that shows that a vet _really_
supports the armed forces? He said in retrospect that he was wrong
about some of this, others -- MX and Star Wars for example, hardly
itty bitty systems -- he stands by.

I don't want a president who thought that the (F-15, Patriot, B-1B, cruise
missiles, etc. ad nauseum) were *all* wastes of taxpayers' money to develop
and field. Can you name any defense programs he actually *supported*?


- Kerry Voted Against At Least Eleven Military Pay Increases.

Given George II's record on hazardous duty pay for troops in
Afghanistan and Iraq, I don't think that you want to go there....

What utter tripe. A year ago Bush rejected the military pay raise cap
recommended by his own OMB (at 2%) and supported the concept of targeted
increases to get the enlisted pay rates increased even more than what the
more senior personnel are receiving this year. The hazardous duty pay
blather has no legs; revising the limits of areas that are considered worthy
of meriting hazardous duty pay is something that will always change as the
situation changes. Bush has been a big supporter of military pay raises, and
the fact of the matter is that Kerry has not.


Tell me, how do you think a Guardsmen walks into a military clinic and
gets
a dental exam without being in a duty status?

And, it appears, that was about all that he did.

Answer the question!

Strangely enough, the
dates that guy remembers him being in Alabama don't square with the
Guard's pay records there.

Were the dates in the records regarding the dates that pay was authorized,
or the days that he drilled?

Actually, I don't worry too much that Bush
ducked a little during that period: lots of people did it. It does,
however, rather grate to see him being set up as a paragon of
patriotism next to John Kerry during the period.

Compared to Kerry, he *is* a paragon of patriotism.

Kerry went to a
dumb-ass war,

So you say...no surpise in your choice of descriptive terms, given your
bent.

then opposed it when he got back...

While he was still a commissioned officer. When he came out with the crap he
offered up during his congressional testimony and made his later claims on
Meet the Press, they *should* have ordered his sorry butt back to active
duty and told him that, IAW the laws of warfare and the UCMJ, he had to
provide specifics in regards to his allegations of war crimes so that we
could investigate an prosecute any actual criminals, then prosecuted his
sorry ass for making false and unsubstantiated claims and lying under oath.

both admirable
things

You and I have differing views of what makes someone "admirable". I find the
Army aviators who landed at My Lai and placed themselves in between the
perpetrators and some of the soon-to-be victims as being "admirable"; they
dealt with a *real* war crime and took action to stop it. Kerry came home
and started spouting pure horse manure. Big difference.

and fulfilling the duties of a citizen, I'd say. Bush went into
a Guard very different than that today, and then became the Invisible
Man. Not much different than a lot of other folks, but not especially
commendable, either.

Huh? Your point would be...?

My point would be that you -- and a bunch of other people who should
know better -- are making politically-motivated attacks on a combat
veteran

No, my attacks would be conducted against Kerry if he was with *any* party.
I am an independent--I sometimes vote for democrats as well as republicans.
I refuse to give money to either party, and have never worked in any kind of
campaign support role. I *do* find Kerry's actions detestable, and for that
reason I am willing to argue the point. Had you been discussing the Ollie
North senatorial bid with me a few years back, you would have found my
opinion of North not far from the one I hold regarding Kerry. Stop acting as
if everyone who does not approve of Kerry has some kind of political baggage
affecting his/her views. FYI, I have been a bit uneasy with a few of GWB's
policy decisions, and my overall feeling for him has suffered over the last
couple of years. But if Kerry is the best the democrats can offer up to
oppose him, my vote will go to Bush.


because you're scared that he might win the election this
year.

Actually, I am not too afraid of that eventuality; I don't think he can win.
In the end, what may be the decding factor for a lot of folks may be those
images of him defaming the troops who served in Vietnam on one hand, while
puffing his chest out and bragging about those decorations he earlier tossed
over the fence on the other.

Brooks

One set of opinion polls and you morph into a Republiflunky. It
ain't pretty.

Scott

"Kevin Brooks" wrote...

A darned lot more than "some".

And a darn lot less than 'all'. In some cases... the uses of
unobserved harassmment and interdiction fires in populated areas, for
example... he's probably right, as well. take a look at Protocol 1
Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977, Article 57.

Can you name any defense programs he actually *supported*?

Sure, that's easy. Go to
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/leg...sers/votes.htm
and actually look at his voting record. It's fairly straightforward --
I just searched for 'defense' and then looked at the voting records.
You'll see a variety of (a) defense appropriation bills and (b)
specific programme appropriation bills that he voted for.

Answer the question!

I think that I did. He got his teeth done: what else did he do? From
what people are saying about Guard service at that time, it appears to
have been quite possible to be on duty and not actually be doing very
much of anything at all... especially if one was the son of a senator.
And teh record dates involved were, apparently, the dates that he
drilled.

Compared to Kerry, he *is* a paragon of patriotism.

How so? Kerry asks questions, he doesn't? Kerry expressed doubts about
American actions, he didn't? What makes George II a patriot, but not
John Kerry?

So you say...no surpise in your choice of descriptive terms, given your
bent.

You betcha. I don't make the assumption that every time the USA goes
to war it's Saving the World. There were probably 1.5 million - 2
million people killed in that war, which is considerably out of
proportion to anything that it accomplished.

they *should* have ordered his sorry butt back to active
duty and told him that, IAW the laws of warfare and the UCMJ, he had to
provide specifics in regards to his allegations of war crimes so that we
could investigate an prosecute any actual criminals

Nah, unlikely at that point. After all, what if he'd done so?

You and I have differing views of what makes someone "admirable". I find the
Army aviators who landed at My Lai and placed themselves in between the
perpetrators and some of the soon-to-be victims as being "admirable"...

Actually, I find that admirable as well. You don't like what Kerry
said after a war that, AFAIK, he was in and you (and I) weren't? Fine,
but that's hardly a reason to condemn him, in my book. He'd decided
that he'd participated in a stupid and costly war, and he spoke up
about it... using the language of a young man, maybe, but what he said
was very far from being horse manure. If anything, I think that the
pointlessness of that war backs up a lot of hwat he said.

No, my attacks would be conducted against Kerry if he was with *any* party.

(Shrug) If you say so. Usenet is never the measure of anyone, but your
posts look as reliably right-wing as mine do leftie.

Scott

"Scott MacEachern" wrote:
"Kevin Brooks" wrote...

A darned lot more than "some".

And a darn lot less than 'all'. In some cases... the uses of
unobserved harassmment and interdiction fires in populated areas, for
example... he's probably right, as well. take a look at Protocol 1
Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977, Article 57.

What year did Kerry claim the events occurred?

(Scott MacEachern) wrote:

:"Kevin Brooks" wrote...
:
: A darned lot more than "some".
:
:And a darn lot less than 'all'. In some cases... the uses of
:unobserved harassmment and interdiction fires in populated areas, for
:example... he's probably right, as well. take a look at Protocol 1
:Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977, Article 57.

You mean the one the US isn't a signatory to and that was enacted some
years AFTER the remarks of Mr Kerry? Talk about your revisionist
history, Scott! Vietnam was BEFORE that.

: Can you name any defense programs he actually *supported*?
:
:Sure, that's easy. Go to
:http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/leg...sers/votes.htm
:and actually look at his voting record. It's fairly straightforward --
:I just searched for 'defense' and then looked at the voting records.
:You'll see a variety of (a) defense appropriation bills and (b)
:specific programme appropriation bills that he voted for.

And what programs were those? 'If you go hunt you can find some'
isn't exactly a defense of your position. Neither is "well, he
eventually voted for a Defense Appropriations Bill".

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

Fred J. McCall wrote:

You mean the one the US isn't a signatory to and that was enacted some
years AFTER the remarks of Mr Kerry? Talk about your revisionist
history, Scott! Vietnam was BEFORE that.

(Shrug) Fair enough. then take a look at Convention IV of the Hague
1907 treaties, which limits th emeans of carrying out attacks --
especially Articles 24 and 25. Take a look as well at the discussion
of the 1977 Conventions, and especially the discussion of Article 51,
which prohibits indiscriminate attacks, at
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/1a13044f...1?OpenDocument

"...1923 Article 51 is one of the most important articles in the
Protocol. It explicitly confirms the customary rule that innocent
civilians must be kept outside hostilities as far as possible and
enjoy general protection against danger arising from hostilities..."

And what programs were those? 'If you go hunt you can find some'
isn't exactly a defense of your position. Neither is "well, he
eventually voted for a Defense Appropriations Bill".

Why not, in either case? If he were as reflexively anti-military as
some people are making out, neither would be the case -- he wouldn't
be voting appropriations nor would he be supporting particular bills.
And why not go looking? So far, what I see is a cut 'n pasted list
from conservative magazines of some programmes he voted against at one
point, identical down to the commas. If I were trying to assemble a
picture of how he actually voted, I would go to the source, wouldn't
you? And you can take a look at
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LI...1&vote =00143
and
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LI...1&vote =00263
for a couple of the cases I'm talking about.

Scott

Warning For All Overly-Sensative B-1 Crew and supporters...This is only a
joke

I don't want a president who thought that the (F-15, Patriot, B-1B, cruise
missiles, etc. ad nauseum) were *all* wastes of taxpayers' money

Damn and I would never have thought I was in agreement with Kerry on anything,
but 1 out of 4 ain't bad

Joke Over

Kerry's voting record will be his worst enemy when the election gets into full
swing.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

In article ,
(BUFDRVR) wrote:

Warning For All Overly-Sensative B-1 Crew and supporters...This is only a
joke

I don't want a president who thought that the (F-15, Patriot, B-1B, cruise
missiles, etc. ad nauseum) were *all* wastes of taxpayers' money

Kerry's voting record will be his worst enemy when the election gets into full
swing.


It's never been surprising how active duty types tend to support
presidents or presidential candidates who they perceive as being
friendly ($$) to the military or willing to use it at the drop of a hat.
It almost follows suit that many vets will be of the same mindset.

What I don't understand is how any vet, particularly those such as
yourself who served their country in combat, can have such a hard-on for
the person now running this country...and worse yet...or consider him a
patriot.

A true patriot would not constantly take money and services away from
people who wore a uniform for their country. The Bush II excuse for an
administration has hacked away at the VA budget since day 1. There are
some 230,000 disbaled vets having to wait over 6 months just to get
their first VA doctor visit...and yet the Bush admin is still closing 7
VA hospitals, proposed doubling the cost of prescription drugs for
disabled vets (a proposal nixed by a _Democratic_ ammendment), and
announcing it would cut health care benefits to over 163,000 disabled
veterans because the Bush admin thinks they aren't poor enough to
deserve it. I guess getting permanently disabled for your country isn't
reason enough to merit benefits from chickenhawk politicians who use our
blood to fight their little vendettas but are quick to discard us like
trash when it comes time to actually help the people who wielded the
sword.

It no longer surprises me to see presidents doing this. Bush's daddy did
it to us as well...when he made it three times harder for disabled vets
to get Ch. 31 Voc Rehab benefits (increasing the eligibility
requirements from 10% to 20%$ and then 30% disability). Nope, no
surprise at all. What does surprise me is that so many people can
consider people like him and administrations like his as "patriotic."


I guess the definition of patriotism means being willing to kick-ass
anywhere in the world. And if one isn't willing to do it themselves,
they can just go hide out in the ANG or wherever...as long as they're
still willing and eager to let others fight.




--Mike