Well, thank you for sharing. I am always impressed by any display of clairovoyance, especially one at such a considerable distance in time. Am I correct in my presumption that you were not even born at the time in question? This only underlines your spectacular ability to peer into the mind and heart of another.
Do you know what I’m thinking right now? Ms. Cleo, look out, here comes Milum, the mind-reader!
You know what I like most about Shodan? It’s his marvelous sense of humor.
I love it so much that it makes me able to forgive him for the way he’s hijacked this thread with nothing but a lot of Kerry bashing. I mean, really Shodan, if you’re not going to make a positive contribution to this discussion maybe you should stop being such a hypocrite.
I have respect for all veterans, but I certainly wouldn’t want to impost a veteran’s status litmus test on presidential candidates. I mentioned earlier some war heroes that made poor presidents, and civilians who made great wartime ones.
John Kerry’s wartime service reflects well on him, but is hardly a qualification for office. And I say that as a veteran myself.
I don’t believe, first of all, that trying to defend South Vietnam from being overrun by forces from and supported by the North was a colossal mistake. The only errors in Vietnam were in the execution, not the aim.
Doubt me on this, and I’ll take you over to Eden Center, Northern Virginia’s Little Vietnam. You’ll actually run into boat people and reeducation camp survivors there. You’ll come away a changed man, I promise you.
I also don’t think all of the actions Kerry took while working to end the war reflect well on his character. He told some rather slanderous lies, basically accusing the same soldiers of atrocities that he’s now calling his band of brothers.
The first things you mentioned were things in favor of Kerry personally. These are in favor of Kerry politically. Suffice to say, reasonable people can hold the opposite sides in a debate, and large swaths of America hold the opposite side as Kerry.
Assuming, of course, you’re inclined to be reasonable. :rolleyes:
Yeah, and I’m also the OP. If I hadn’t done my part to keep this thing moving along, I’d be accused of a drive-by.
It shows a strak contrast in character between him and his opponent. It’s not a decisive point, just a cumulative one.
I’ve already met boat people and refugees, so spare the sanctimony, please. I didn’t know anybody still tried to defend the Vietnam War. Even Robert McNamera doesn’t bother to defend it any more. Have you seen The Fog of War? Check it out.
There is not a truthful sentence in this entire paragraph. Kerry told the truth about atrocities committed by US soldiers in Vietnam (and if you’re going to deny that US soldiers committed atrocities you are either stunningly ignorant or in some truly profound denial. Do you know what a “double veteran” was? Ask anyone who was in Nam) . None of those attrocities were committed by anyone in the Band of Brothers. Get your facts straight and quit sliming war heros.
Yes the latter things are political. That is what people should vote on, is it not? Issues of policy.
It’s rather amusing to have my “reasonability” questioned by a person who thinks that keeping combat medals in a drawer is an unpardonable crime while stampeding the country into an illegal war under false pretenses is the cat’s meow.
I never claimed nor implied that it was an unpardonable crime, Diogenes, and for you to imply so is to argue in very bad faith.
Since you can’t argue on the merits on the topic at hand, I’m hardly surprised. You have ignored my citations, and have made yourself look like an idiot by doing so. I have had to point you to the same references several times, finally quoting them at length rather than simply linking to them in order to get you to actually look at the damn things.
The citations show, quite clearly, that John Kerry improperly, according to the rules in place at the time, even as a civilian, threw his medals, thus showing disrespect to the country that thanked him for his service by giving them to him. He later, apparantly after a change of heart but no public explanation or apology, shined up his medals and put them on public display. Even if they aren’t currently physically hanging in his office, as they were until recently, they’re boasted about on his his website, and that’s the same thing, in my book.
All I have ever said is that an explanation was warranted, an assertion that is enough to drive the usual suspects into fits of unbelievable apoplexy.
I almost feel foolish for saying this again, since it has been said so many times in this thread and never acknowledged.
John Kerry threw the ribbons in a protest.
The logical conclusion is that he thought the protest was important enough to justify throwing the ribbons.
The illogical conclusion is that he hated the ribbons, and was no longer proud of them or the lives he saved.
Still having his medals, and being proud of them, is completely in line with the logical conclusion, and is in fact further evidence in favor of the already vastly more likely conclusion.
It is not in line with the illogical conclusion, and is further evidence against the already incredibly unlikely conclusion.
Certain people in this thread have latched on to the illogical conclusion with hungry jaws, and are unwilling to let it go. Not much can be done for them, which is why I question my own logic in saying all this again.
I mean really… “I threw the ribbons because I thought the protest was important enough to justify throwing the ribbons” goes without saying, does it not? Do you really need to be led like a child through every painfully obvious aspect of life?
Hi there, Nighttime.
Here’s the thing, though. The ribbons are an exact equivalent to the medals. They are, essentially, the same thing.
Check out Airman Door’s post on the first page for a lesson on how medals and ribbons relate to each other.
It is illogical to me, or any other veteran, to see how Kerry can justify treating his medals with respect and his ribbons with disrespect. They all are cut, quite literally, from the same cloth.
John Kerry is perfectly free to make a statement like the one you said about the protest, and I, truly, would accept it and move on. What I cannot accept is throwing the ribbons in protest but then using them to political advantage without some kind of intervening clarification.
Let me use another example that might make it clearer. Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice recently became quite angry with the American Library Association for not sticking up for independent libraries in Cuba. So he renounced the Immroth Award that the ALA had given him in 1983.
If Nat Hentoff were to be introduced now at a speech as an Immroth Awardee, and didn’t correct the error, he would be a hypocrite, and roundly condemned as such.
This is, to me, the exact same thing.
Its not so much apoplexy as stunned, jawdropping amazement that such arguments can be made with a straight keyboard. You support your claims with weak citations to minor points of military etiquette, and in so doing you trivialize a very important service that John Kerry performed for his country: he woke us up, he splashed the cold water of truth in our faces and woke us up.
I was quite active in the anti-war movement and am very happy to continue to include several Viet Nam Veterans Against the War as my friends. I have no regrets about my participation whatsoever, save only that it took so God-damned long!
What Kerry did was a hydrogen bomb of political theater, it had impact that you simply had to see to believe. It was astonishing! It was still a long, hard miserable road, but the monolith had cracked. When a man with his sleeve pinned up for his missing arm looks you in the eye and tells you that he believes he was sent to kill for an ignoble cause, you by God listen, of this I can assure you. It mattered, it was important because people would listen to them who refused to listen to us. And then they did.
Keep in mind, he didn’t have to do it. He didn’t have to do much of anything, he could have gone right ahead, kept his mouth shut, and leveraged his military history and heroism on thousands of advantageous ways. He did not. He exposed himself to hatred (yes, hatred! you would have to have seen thier faces to believe it…) and derision, and he did it for his country.
If to achieve this end costs him your respect and admiration, it is small enough coin to squandor.
North and South Viet Nam were entirely specious entitys. The Allies promised the Vietnamese a referendum to decide thier future as a unified nation. We reneged on that promise in an entirely dishonorable display of realpolitik, and divided the country arbitrarily into North and South. There was no “North Vietnam” to invade “South Viet Nam” until we made it so.
Were the Viet Cong glorious heroes of the People’s Revolution? Of course not, for the most part, they were drafted, But it was their country, not ours. We had no more business in thier civil war than Tasmania has the right to divide Pennsylvania east and west.
A collossal mistake? If only it were so small. It might be over by now.
I’m not sure how this is a response to my post, since I said nothing about this subject.
But doesn’t it go without saying?
“I threw the ribbons because I thought the protest was important enough to justify throwing the ribbons”
Do you really need him to walk you step by step through such an obvious conclusion?
My question to you is, why have you jumped to such a bizarre and unsupported conclusion as “I did not think throwing the ribbons was justified by the importance of the protest, but I did it because I hated them, and even though I hate them and am not proud of the lives I saved, I am now mentioning the medals in the hopes of furthering my political career”?
Furthermore, if you truly believe this is Kerry’s mindset, why would you trust him if he told you it was not? That’s like saying “This person is a liar. But I’ll believe them if they tell me they aren’t.”
But really, it all comes back to the fact that the act of throwing the ribbons is self explanatory. You haven’t given any reason not to accept the blindingly obvious conclusion that he threw the ribbons because he thought the protest was important enough to justify throwing them. To dispute something so obvious you need good evidence, but so far you not only don’t have good evidence, you have no evidence whatsoever.
You must be reading a diffrent thread. I’ve addressed each of you specious “citations” point by point and explained why they don’t say what you think they say. You have pontedv to regulations that simply delineate what can and cannot be done in uniform. It is forbidden to engage in poitical protest in uniform so as not to give an impression that there is any official imprematur from the military for any particular political statement. Kerry was a civilian in civilan dress when he threw his ribbons. He was not wearing them and he studiously avoided any impression or pretext that his statement carried any official endorsement from the military-- just the opposite, in fact.
You also cited regs which forbid the counterfeiting, improper sale or improper wearing of medals. These are regs which are simply designed to stop people from making fake medals or wearing medals they didn’t earn. They do not forbid the tossing of justly earned ribbons as a part of a political protest as long as the action is not done in uniform.
Nothing you cited was on point and you can’t cite an instance of any ex-soldier being prosecuted for throwing his ribbons. Your UCMJ tack is getting you nowhere. Stick to your moral indignation. At least that’s not so easily harpooned.
You have received your explanation-- not that you were entitled to it, but you have received it. If the explanation isn’t good enough for you then by all means, vote for Shrubya. He is a man of much simpler contradictions, a hawk who stayed home.
Senator Kerry received metals for heroism, gallantry and being wounded. Mr. Moto, are you not part of the grateful nation? Is there a time limit on that gratitude? What action on his part – even what might seem to you to be hypocricy – could possibly outweigh the honor due him for that kind of service to his country?
Elucidator, your post was one of the finest I’ve read in any thread.
Okay, let’s go with this. Suppose the American Library Association, in part because of Nat Hentoff’s protest (word chosen deliberately), decided that they SHOULD stick up for independent libraries in Cuba after all. Then suppose Nat Hentoff said, “The ALA has done the right thing, and I’m glad” and then hung his Immroth Award on the wall again. Would he be a hypocrite?
You’re right. It IS the exact same thing with Kerry. Why a person is incapable of changing their mind in your world confuses me inordinately.
Completely changing gears: elucidator. Your posts in this thread give me goose bumps. Thank you for educating a young (25 year old) man about a war – and, more specifically, America’s reaction to a war – that I never seemed to reach in my history classes. Thank you even MORE, much much much more, for being part of a movement for goodness and decency. I’m sure John Kerry has received heaps of warranted praise in his days. You’re no less deserving.
Thank you.
Quix
Exactly. The 1954 Geneva conference declaration made very clear that the dividing line was never designed to create two separate countries, and nor was it designed to be permanent. The term used is “northern and southern zones of Viet-Nam.”
Not only that, but the declaration also set July 1956 for elections that were to help bring about the reunification of the two zones under a single, nationally-elected government. Of course, the US acted to block these elections because President Eisenhower was informed that, if free and fair elections were held, Ho Chi Minh would win about 80% of the vote.
Can’t have people democratically voting in a communist, you know.
Sure, let’s go with this some more.
Nat Hentoff renounced the award in a Village Voice column. I hope if he ever mends fences with the ALA, he does so in an equally vocal way. I believe Nat Hentoff would.
John Kerry’s medal-throwing was a public spectacle, an act of political theater. His change of mind, if there was one, was done out of sight.
I have always allowed for the possibility in this thread of a change of heart on the medals. And that’s why I think John Kerry really needs to answer questions about them.
I am grateful, and have paid full respect due John Kerry in this thread for his genuine military courage.
In fact, that’s the problem. John Kerry showed improper respect toward my gratitude, in the form of those medals.
This morning two American soldiers were killed in seperate incidents in Bahgdad.
This brings the total of Americans killed in this unecessary war — a war that Mr. Moto’s champion Mr. Bush scared the American people into having by lying to them — to 540.
Mr. Moto continues to obsess over John Kerry and his medals.
You see, it’s a character issue.
So discussion of the OP constitutes a hijack?
You know what I like least about you? Your dishonesty.
I notice that you decided not to defend or explain your previous attempt. So you either realize that insults are out of place in GD (but lack the integrity to apologize) or realize that trolling is out of place on the SDMB (but hope nobody notices).
And again, in your latest, not a word in defense of Kerry, just more attacks on Bush.
And you claim Mr. Moto is obsessed.
Moronic.
Well, sort of.
The trouble being that the cease-fire put in place, partly at the urging of Kerry, made provision that:
Two years later, North Viet Nam invaded and conquered. And the boat people fled, and so on. I don’t recall any elections, and, AFAIK, the people of South Viet Nam were not consulted in any genuine way.
I don’t recall Kerry making any major public gestures of protest then, however.
And I am quite sure that, if South Viet Nam had invaded the North, all you folks would be just fine with that. None of our business, right?
Regards,
Shodan
Quite right, Shodan.
Anybody who mentions the 1954 agreement and the promose of free elections is, quite honestly, a fool. It was the height of the Cold War, and the world was growing quite used to countries being divided between communist and non-communist halves.
Just to refresh the memories of those who forgot, the Cold War saw a divided Korea, Germany and Yemen in addition to Vietnam.
Calling them specious halves didn’t make them less of a political entity; in fact the two Koreas are entirely separate states today. Their development has diverged to the point where reunification may be forever impossible.
North Vietnam was a communist state that received material support from Russia and China, and also projected power into Laos and Cambodia in the form of leftist movements there. They directly threatened the South through a large army and support to the Viet Cong.
This was not a “civil war” by any reasonable use of the word, but a battleground of the Cold War. It is tragic for the Vietnamese that found themselves in the middle of it, and for the many that died on all sides, but the threat posed to the South by the North, China, and Russia made our involvement inevitable.