Well since Kerry didn’t do any of that crap, I guess he’s in the clear.
Now quit sliming war heroes.
Victory was never an option, Scylla, and our military presence was doing the South Vietnamese people much more harm than it could ever do them good. The war was an evil and it was an evil the U.S. was perpetrating. We should’ve pulled out in 1968 when all of those things became obvious.
And I’d like to see a cite for that “millions.” That would put the Vietnamese Communists in the same class as the Khmer Rouge, a comparison I have never heard made by their worst enemies.
You claim “influence” as self-evident, a matter of faith, unless you can demonstrate influence. Did the NV suddenly alter their negotiating position as a result of skullduggery with Kerry? Got a memorandum from Uncle Ho to the AK-47 factory, telling them to cut back production, peace is at hand? What influence can you demonstrate?
Not his choice. Bobby Kennedy was prominently anti-war at the time of his death. If a POW were confronted with that at the Hanoi Hilton, does that make Bobby a traitor?
You can, of course, prove this. Being a temperate and reasonable man, you would not slander another without proof. Proof that the NV and VC were on the verge of surrender? They were just about to throw up thier hands and take up knitting, but then Kerry came along? You gotta be kidding.
And the POWs undoubtely know a great deal about misery and brutality. Why you offer that as proof of expertise in the strategic thinking of the NV escapes me. What authority do they bring to your argument?
Right about the point where you try to indict Kerry for Viet Nam’s long standing hostility with the Montagnards and other indigenous tribes, you take One Step Beyond. I can’t defend a charge so surreal.
You must be joking. We could not have failed to win had we been committed to doing so. Vietnam is a third world country. The Tet offensive was a huge failure in which an entire generation was lost. The North Vietnamese were fighting us with kids and old people. We had the weapons, the money, the personell, the indistrialized society. All we lacked was the will.
I don’t see how you can possibly justify that. You ever hear the term “boat people?” They weren’t coming to us because they thought we were doing them harm. Seeing as millions were killed in the purges after we left, I cannot see how you can reasonably suggest that they were better off dead or enslaved than they were when we were helping them.
War is evil. War is bad. You seem to have that as an article of faith. I suppose it was an evil for the North to fight to free the slaves. I suppose you think it was an evil for us to get involved in WWII.
Your argument is ridiculous.
See lines 635 through 668
Huh, and here I thought it was all about the right to secede.
No, those were justified. The Cold War (and Vietnam was just one theater of operations in the Cold War) was never justified, it was always bullshit. International Communism was never the threat to America that Truman, Eisenhower, et al., made it out to be, and the Domino Theory in Southeast Asia was, in particular, total stinking bullshit.
I also don’t see how a government that was propping up all kinds of brutal dictatorships all over the world, just because they were anticommunist or otherwise useful to U.S. interests, could justify something like the Vietnam War on the grounds it was trying to “help” or “protect” people. In Indonesia in 1965-66, our friend Sukarno’s government murdered at least half a million Communists and suspected Communists and might-once-have-met-a-Communists. And don’t get me started on what the CIA did to Chile. That was a true day of shame for America.
I clicked on that but I see nothing but some rows of faint, tiny squiggles running down the left side of the screen – doesn’t look like text at all.
He was able to argue the North Vietnamese negotiating stance to the lawmakers who set policy, and certainly caused Nixon to take notice. That would be influence.
Can you give me a cite for where Bobby Kennedy said the Americans were committing genocide, and that war crimes were committed on a day to day basis with the knowledge and cooperation of officers at all levels of command?
Can you show me a cite where Bobby betrayed his fellow Veterans and said their mission was to fire on Sampans and villages and kill innocent people?
Can you give me a cite where Bobby Kennedy met with the N. Vietnamese without official sanction?
If you can than I guess he’s a traitor, too. Otherwise it’s just another example of elucilogic, an invalid comparison.
I’ve produced the cites previously from former POWS and General Giopp (sp?) of the N. Vietnamese.
Interrogation is a two-way street. Kerry’s testimony was used as a justification for their torture. They were told.
Your inability to mount a defense is hardly a point in your favor. More Elucilogic.
Logically, a simple assertion requires only a counterassertion to refute it:
You are wrong.
Probably that simple assertion is as unsatisfying to you as yours are to me, so I’ll suggest you ask the Dominos instead:
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=5138
I don’t see how anything this country does can be any good since we stole it from the Indians.
That’s weird. The same thing just happened to me when I clicked it. I found that if I moved the mouse down to the bottom left a little box appeared that looked like a picture frame with arrows. When I clicked it, the table came up and the squiggles disapeared.
Please try it again and see if you can get a result.
I wonder if the military took some sort of action against Kerry in the 1970’s? According to this paper, there are a lot of irregularities around Kerry’s discharge:
The document is dated 1978.
My question is, if Kerry negotiated with the North Vietnamese while still an officer of the U.S. military, did he violate the UCMJ? The article thinks it is possible that Kerry got a bad conduct discharge in 1972 due to his anti-war activities, and then in 1978 when a friendly President was in the White House and Vietnam was over, he managed to get his BCD reviewed and converted into an honorable discharge.
Does this sound plausible?
This would also explain why Kerry refuses to sign his Form 180 and release all his military records.
No.
Gee, thanks. Another sterling contribution.
It’s your theory. Prove it. If you can’t prove it then your just wasting everyone’s time with pointless insinuations.
That cite says nothing that goes to my main point, which is that the Cold War, on America’s part, was not justified.
I found the table but it’s hard to read. There’s three “estimated dead” columns labeled “Low,” “Mid” and “High” – not clear what that means. Also says “000” implying, but not very clearly, that all figures in the column must be multiplied by 1,000. At any rate, if I’m reading this right, the figures for “Democide by Vietnam 1975-87” seem trivial compared to the figures for democide by the South Vietnamese government, Diem and post-Diem. The figures labeled “U.S. War Crimes” are also pretty disturbing. And there’s also figures for democide by Koreans, which makes no sense at all. Where did this table come from, anyway?
From the Wikipedia (generally a pretty thorough and impartial source) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Vietnam:
Nothing about genocide or anything close.
Now, this is from the article about Cambodia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cambodia:
Note, the number of dead is mentioned, as precisely as it is possible to say. Now, if anything close to that scale had happened in postwar Vietnam, I think the Wikipedia would have mentioned it.
In short, I ain’t buyin’ it.
BTW, Scyllla: Rightly or wrongly, most Americans – about 2/3, according to Gallup polls – believe the Vietnam War was both immoral and a mistake, and that has been the case pretty consistently ever since 1968. From “Long Division,” by Michael Tomasky, in The American Prospect, October 2004 – http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8539:
If the execs at Sinclair Broadcasting are expecting that airing Stolen Honors on their stations is going to cost Kerry any votes, they are going to be unpleasantly suprised.
Its this simple, Sam. Kerry has stated that he was not negotiating. You have no proof otherwise. I put it to you that a charge as serious as you are leveling requires rather more.
An interesting thing, though, a breaking story from the New York Sun. Of course, the liberal media are ignoring this blockbuster, which would tear the Kerry campaign apart, if it got any attention. Then perhaps the Sun might have a Puliltzer Prize to add to its bountiful collection of journalistic accolades, as it clambers for a place of respectability next to the Moonie News.
What, they hadn’t heard about it? Kerry treacherously revealed the NV negotiating position to the innocent and untainted lawmakers? Surely they already knew? Just as surely, they were aware of Sen Kerry’s position on the war before his trip to Paris, as well as the opinions of many others. So any of them who expressed such an opinion, in an effort to influence lawmakers, they are treacherous as well? What about all this “redress of grievances” stuff? Chuck it out because Dick Nixon says so?
Why are we to believe that former POW’s have some special insight into the NV Politburo, and thier deliberations? While I certainly respect and regret thier suffering, it doesn’t make them experts in the inner working of the ruling councils of NVietNam anymore than it qualifies them as neurosurgeons. As to Gen. Giap, you tried to present that “cite” before, it’s somewhere between tenuous and bogus. Surely you remember? Amazon.com? The Swiss?
I’ve tried to track that story down, without success, only hearing other hearsay of a different slant, to the effect that the picture of Kerry hangs next to a picture of McCain, honoring thier efforts on behalf of recognition and reconciliation.
But my hearsay is no better than yours, unless, of course, your citation is simply another sworn statement from the freepers or the swifities.
Good luck with that. Scyllagism is better. Scansion, my boy, scansion!
elucidator, if you and DTC would stop jerking your knees for a minute, you might notice that I did not offer that link as an assertion, or make any claim about its accuracy. I asked a QUESTION. I used the link as background material. I don’t know the paper, I have no idea if it’s reputable. The information in the link seems interesting enough for debate. I don’t know if it’s true. But hey, I don’t want to spoil a good bluster, so go ahead.
Kneejerking? Now simply saying “No” is kneejerking?
Going back to the original question, I presume there is a statute of limitations on a treason charge? If so, Kerry is in the clear.
We couldn’t have have won the war without occupying North Vietnam. And that was impossible; if we had tried China (and maybe the Soviet Union) would have almost certainly sent their own troops in to fight us. This is the same reason the Korean War ended in a stalemate.
Once again you’re inventing things. Saying one particular war was evil is not the same as saying every war is evil. If it was, I could say that you calling a Presidential candidate a traitor is the same as saying every Presidential candidate is a traitor. And if so, I’m offended by you calling great Americans like Washington, Jackson, Clay, Lincoln, Grant, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Michael Dukakis a pack of traitors.
When people speak of “the killing fields,” they are referring to Cambodia.