Yep you lied, and you better suck it up, retract, and be done with it. Bullshitting can only get you so far.
John Kerry talked about the confessed acts of 150 individuals and what they said their superiors knew about that. Out of those 150 men (it should be clear to anyone not into the habit of faking an infantile level of understanding when convenient) some had confessed rape, some had confessed cutting off heads, and some had confessed taking part in razing villages, and maybe some confessed to several of those things.
About that last beaviour John Kerry (or one of those soldiers) made the analogy that it was “reminiscent of the armies of Genghis Khan”, and that analogy was told by John Kerry before congress.
You flatly stated that John Kerry, himself, had asserted at some moment that “the US Army” (understood as “the US Army in general”) during the vietnam war, were generally behaving like Genghis Khan, raping and pillaging the countryside. If that were the case, every single US serviceman that ever went to Vietnam would be implicated and accused. By reading John Kerrys statement anyone can see that they clearly were not.
So yeah, you lied about what John Kerry said. Or you repeated the swifties lie. But that’s a distinction that I do not giving flying fuck about because the full text is available through the small investment of a couple of seconds worth of googling. If you didn’t take the time to find out for yourself it was because you did not wan’t to.
Now, in the second part of your post you try your, by now well-known, strategy of try-diversion-when-caught-with-pants-down. Instead of addressing the subject, where you have been proven wrong, you make a new set of unproven assertions, hoping this will shift attention from you failure to stand by your original claim. One might then wonder why anyone should feel obliged to take your word for this new set of information you provide, given that the last one proved so untrustworthy?
Your three new unproven assertions, neatly packaged:
The confessions of the vets in Detroit were largely bullshit.
Many of the claimed decorated veterans turned out to not even have been in in Vietnam.
John Kerry and/or those organizing the meeting in Detroit didn’t bother checking that out.
Prove them, or retract. Also, please retract your earlier lie about John Kerrys statements before congress.
Nice try Sam, but I will disregard this new diversion attempt of 6 paragraphs (including your insights on everything from swift boat battle tactics to Abu Ghraib and Jane Fonda) until you retract your first lie that I called you on.
I note, though that you, for some unfathomable reason chose to repeat it here:
Don’t you have any fucking decency? You know that this is a lie, it has been proven to you and still you keep on parroting it.
You know, Guin, even though I strongly disagree with almost everything you believe, I have never, ever, personally insulted you. You might want to take that ‘shrill fuck’ comment, turn it around, and engage in a little introspection. Especially after that little blast.
John Fowles: Differences in interpretation do not equal LIES. I happen to believe that Kerry’s unquestioning repeating of wild accusations in official settings amounts to a tacit endorsement of those accusations. You want to pick nits with my phrasing, fine. But your accusation that this makes me a LIAR is way over the top.
There will be no retraction. Just a sad shaking of the head at how spittle-flying-mad some of you have become.
Oh, no doubt he’ll find SOME way to excuse it, dismiss it, or spin it.
Sam, I don’t care how polite you are. When you start actively participating in this kind of shit, despite evidence to the contrary, you betray the very purpose of this board-to fight ignorance. Spreading lies and libeling a good man does NOT fight ignorance.
The “war phony” is a pretty wide spread phenomenon. The guys in the VVAW were aware of it, and embarassed to have to deal with it. But by no stretch of the imagination was the fake veteran exclusive to the anti-war movement. You aver without proof that these peoples motivations were political, you overlook the possibility that their motives were pathetic.
Secondly, its disingenuous of you to use Wikipedia as a cite without informing the unsuspecting reader that Wikipedia is a “free encyclopedia”, and does not, so far as I know, makes claims to substantiate contributor’s efforts. You should at least note that the author, Mr. O’Daniel, has an entirely apparent political axe to grind as regards Sen Kerry. A bit less than kosher, Sam.
But your focus on whether or not the reports are exaggerated buggers the question. You flail Kerry for claiming that these “misconducts” were commonplace, but refuse to declare your definition, or his. If Kerry were lying about these things being “commonplace” then mustn’t you define “commonplace” in order to prove your point?
If it were an “everyday” occurance, that would be 365 victims a year. Is that an exaggeration, Sam? How do you know? Is “everyday” the same as “commonplace”?
Of the 150 soldiers, how many were lying, Sam? You insist that some were lying, OK, for the sake of arguments, lets stipulate “some”. Not all? Half? Most?
First, the link sevastapol followed is to ‘truthout.org’, a left-wing site, and the ‘cite’ is an editorial. Second, NOTHING in that cite contradicts the SBVT. It’s classic spin. For instance,
The cite doesn’t say what ‘merited further inquiry’ means, but it seems likely that it could mean anything from, "Let’s check out this guy because it sounds like bullshit’, to, “Well, the story is plausible enough that it could possibly be true - we’d better check it out.” Much more interesting would be how many of the 46 were, you know, VERIFIED. And the cite doesn’t say.
Second, it says that 46 of the claims merited further inquiry. Yet, weren’t there something like 150 claims in total? Does that mean 2/3 of them were deemed to be bullshit without even having to do an inquiry?
It then goes on to say,
Hang on. 93 percent OF THE VETERANS THAT MERITED FURTHER INQUIRY. What about the ones who didn’t? So the best of the best stories, the ones that sounded plausible enough to be checked out, were followed up. Of those, three people were identified to be fakes? I assume if the military couldn’t identify them, it’s because they weren’t soldiers.
This is bullshit of the type you often hear from psychics and other hustlers. “I sent my theory of UFO control of the world series to the government, AND THEY NEVER REFUTED IT.” Maybe because they couldn’t stop laughing. Or more likely in the case of Winter Soldier, the military just didn’t want to get involved in a political fight with these people, or the report got buried in bureaucracy, or whatever. The key takeaway is that refusal to respond to a wild accusation does not equal proof that the accusation is true.
And again, I’m disputing that individual atrocities happened. What I’m saying what wrong was for Kerry to collect a few such stories, plus some fake ones, and then present them as evidence of widespread, common behaviour.
For instance, I could say this:
“The American forces in Iraq have been ravaging that country. The soldiers have been throwing people off of bridges, strangling suspects, humiliating prisoners, and blowing up homes and killing children, reminiscent of the armies of Genghis Khan”.
Everything in that sentence is factually true. The impression being put forward by it is wildly off the mark. Anyone saying something like the above is guilty of spinning isolated incidents to make them sound widespread and common in order to trash the military and weaken support for the war at home. THAT is what John Kerry did.
Your cite says that there are ‘hundreds’ of cases of abuse in military files. That wouldn’t surprise me. That war went on for TEN YEARS. Millions of men served. In contrast, less than 200,000 serve in Iraq, and that war is not even two years old, yet we already have half a dozen recorded incidents of variious abuses and even a couple of atrocities. That’s war. But would you characterize the current military as a bunch of out-of-control maniacs raping and pillaging the countryside? That’s how Kerry characterized the soldiers in Vietnam.
It’s all in the eye of the beholder, Guin. For example, we’ve been treated to four years of conspiracy theories about Halliburton, George Bush doing coke, the Guard/AWOL story, ad nauseum. Almost all of it bullshit. I don’t recall you running around swearing at those folks and calling them names. Perhaps because they are saying things you want to hear?
Don’t flatter yourself that you’re a fighter for truth and against ignorance. You rarely add anything to these debates either than an ‘attaboy’ for people saying things you like and abuse hurled at those who don’t. I honestly can’t think of a single meaningful contribution to anything resembling fact you’ve made on these boards, other than your worthwhile contributions to our discussions on the Romanov family several years ago. It’s doubly-annoying for someone like me who is usually outnumbered about 10-1 on this board and spends WAY too much time doing hard research to defend my point of view to have you saunter in and throw around insults, while never doing any heavy lifting yourself.
Mr. Svinlesha can insult me - he’s at least earned the right to take a shot at me because he puts in hard work to refute what he believes to be wrong. You, on the other hand, can go straight to hell.
Bullshit. You’ve been called on this particular point time and time again, and you’re using your standard tactics of melting away when challenged and posting the exact same shit in another thread. It’s pathetic, really.
One more time - Kerry did not accuse the “American forces” as a whole of war crimes. He did not accuse the “chain of command”. He made allegations that there were various incidences of war crimes (not a systematic program) arising from widespread individual acts (ie not the entire army), sanctioned by officers at various levels (ie not the entire chain of command). He highlighted that these were allegations, but that they were from first-person witnesses.
Let’s fix your hypothetical about Iraq:
“Many veterans of the war in Iraq have told me about seeing or participating in war crimes. In some cases, innocent people were arrested, in others wedding parties were destroyed, in others Iraqi prisoners were beaten, forced to perform sex acts with each other and anally raped with a lightstick. The prisons were like the tortures of Saddam Hussein. There are many of these abuses and some have been carried out with the awareness of officers at various levels of command.”
This statement is closer to the statement of Kerry on Vietnam - widespread individual acts, awareness of various officers, referring to proved events. This statement is factually true and the impressions being put forward by it are right on the money.
It comes closer to establishing the Stone Quotient, the degree and severity of “misconduct” that can be reasonably expected and shrugged off as part of the ordinary moral depravity of war. Shit happens to indigenous personnel.
“Hundreds” over a “TEN YEAR” period. You are aghast that anyone wants to make a Big Hairy Ass Deal about this piddling number.
So now, at least, we are groping blindly towards quanitification. Roughly, a hundred per year? Call that a 1.0 SQ?
But what assurance have we that such is, in fact, an adequate approximation? We are given to understand that these numbers are cases investigated and acted upon. Do we have any reason to believe that all, or even most, of the incidents of misconduct were investigated and filed away? What might be the ratio between crimes committed and accountability satisfied? Might not the true number reach an SQ factor of 3.5? Or 7.0?
I have no idea. You don’t either. Kerry said it was “commonplace”. If the true number is 10.5 SQ, is that “commonplace”? You swear it wasn’t “commonplace”, that Kerry is a traitor and a liar. Serious charges, to be sure. We are entitled to know, don’t you agree, just exactly how you define “commonplace”, if we are to agree or disagree with your assertions as to Kerry’s vile mendacity.
Remember the White House was hostile to Kerry and together with the Military they had an obvious and strong incentive to rebut the Winter Soldiers claims.
Secondly Sam makes an open but in my mind incorrect protest that a mere 43 or so witnesses merited investigation. There are many other factors besides reliability that tend to disqualify complaints from investigation.
Lastly Sam also protests my cite, unfairly in my view. I followed a link from his own cite. Moreover it is the first and most prominent link that I saw there. I can hardly be accused of hunting for a left wing source. As it happens I am completely unfamiliar with the source. However it does appear that it makes meritorious factual claims. Accordingly its reputation does not seem material to me.
I think it does credit to Wikipedia (not a resource I use really) that they include a diversity of links. Plainly in this case the main entry does benefit from links to alternative viewpoints.
I re-read the link. The journalist identifies himself as coming from the Village Voice. Again, a source I’m not familiar with.
I think this sums up the point of contention.
As I follow it, Sam et Swiftvets are more, ‘isolated incident’ men. Kerry etc dispute this.
Plainly there were many. How you wish to categorize those incidents is a matter of opinion. It seems to me the argument concerns a matter of degree: How do you properly categorise what went on?
First off, with regard to your statement (which I’ve bolded), I see nothing off the mark at all. Consider, for example, the following, taken from two soldier’s letters:
Sounds pretty Genghis Khanish to me. I mean tell me, Sam: what do you think war really is? A bunch of noble soldiers dressed up in camouflage, bravely protecting the women and children, and only shooting when they see the whites of their opponents eyeballs? If so, you are incredibly naïve; although that might explain in part your unwavering support for the Iraqi Invasion Disaster.
Secondly, the support for the Vietnam war needed to be weakened at home, because the war was, in and of itself, wrong. The US had no business involving itself militarily in the struggle of an indigenous people for state autonomy on the other side of the globe. And as became abundantly clear after the US lost, the Domino Effect turned out to be just so much hooey. The same is true in this case. The basis for the war, as claimed by the administration, has turned out to be just so much bullshit, as I tried to warn you, over and over again, prior to the invasion. Now that they’ve gone and done it anyway, and it has turned out that I was correct, why should I support it, or the people who have promoted it?
The Village Voice is a New York paper. Be careful when you use it as a sole reference though. The Voice is (or was) considered to be a left wing liberal and antiwar paper, and had a definite bias in its reporting and editorials. That said, My Lai did happen. It was not an isolated incident, it was only the best known and most publicized. It was also covered in the right wing conservtive pro-war papers. Take away the spin that both sides put on it, and you are left with the simple fact that these things were happening.
So this is a matter of interpretation, huh? Guess what, I started this thread just for you, where you can show us just how you interpret John Kerrys House Foreign Committee testimony to read “the US military in vietnam was like the army of Genghis Khan, raping and pilaging the countryside”. I look forward to an interesting excercise in reading comprehension.