New SBVFT ad -- will we never put Vietnam behind us?

[BrainGlutton]

I just saw a new Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad. Having fallen flat on their faces in their efforts to defame Kerry’s war record, the SBVFT are now trying a new angle of attack: his antiwar record. Their new ad plays clips from Kerry’s testimony to Congress as a representative of Vietnam Veterans Against the War – describing American troops committing atrocities, rapes, mutilations. (It’s not clear, from the ad, whether Kerry claimed to have witnessed such things himself or merely to have heard about them from other servicemen.) The ad, curiously, takes no position on whether the things Kerry said were true or false. It merely asserts that his statements were shameful and dishonorable and denigrated American military personnel and veterans. Which means Kerry is going to have to respond to all this, one way or another, and take some position on whether he still believes what he said back then was true. And journalists are going to revisit the whole issue and open old wounds and rake up all the old stories about American GIs misbehaving themselves in Vietnam. And if it is proven Kerry spoke the truth, then the Pubbies (or, at least, the SBVFT) will have to argue the position that just saying such things at the time was treasonable even if the statements were true.

Jeez. Vietnam. The war ended almost 30 years ago. Are we never going to put it behind us until the last war veteran and the last war-protest veteran pass from the scene?

[Revtim]

@BrainGlutton

The ad, curiously, takes no position on whether the things Kerry said were true or false.

Not curious to me at all. These folks clearly care nothing about what is true and what is false.

[John_Mace]

@BrainGlutton

Jeez. Vietnam. The war ended almost 30 years ago. Are we never going to put it behind us until the last war veteran and the last war-protest veteran pass from the scene?

I’m afraid not…

As I said in another thread, I think this SBVfT ad will be more damaging to Kerry than the eariler one(s). It makes Kerry look bad from a number of angles. One, he clearly had much more of a Boston Brahmin accent in his younger days-- sounds very affected, and not someone your average Joe would identify with. Two, he has already stated that he probably went a little too far in his characterization of the acts of other soldiers, so he can’t come out and say “I stand by every word I said back then”. Three, he’s going to have to address these ads and get further distracted from the real issues of the campaign.

I wonder if the Swifties have a third salvo they’re saving for just before the election. Or does McCain Feingold prohibit 527 ads at some point prior to the election?

[XT]

Well, a lot of veterans are pretty worked up about this thing, so in answer to the OP I’d say: Probably not. Unfortunately.

I’ll give a personal anacedote for how these ads are working (take it with a grain of salt of course). My dad served in Vietnam, in the Navy…on a river patrol boat (a.k.a. a ‘swift boat’). He didn’t serve with John Kerry and never met him, but served around the same time frame (though he was in the full 4 years). Prior to these ads, my dad always disagreed with Kerry (my dad is VERY conservative) but always said that he respected Kerry for being in Vietnam, though he didn’t know that much about Kerry’s service there. Since these ads came out, and especially since this new bunch of ads came out, my dad has done a complete 180…he HATES Kerry now. When they ran the ad were Kerry is talking before the Senate committee about taking ears and acting like the armies of G. Khan he pretty much exploded, because Kerry was painting with a VERY broad brush…and also because Kerry claimed to have first hand knowledge of such things (i.e. he implied HE was doing them too).

Anyway, these ads are really hitting home with the veterans (or at least the few I know from Vietnam) in a way that the lame ass ‘Kerry was/wasn’t in Cambodia on Christmas eve, blah blah blah’ ones never did. Kerry has a real problem on his hands with this and really needs to hammer this down or its going to seriously hurt him. I’m making no claims one way or the other about Kerry or whether this stuff is true or not (obviously quotes before the Senate are true quotes, whether there is truth in them or not) because for myself I don’t CARE…I was 9 years old in fricking 1968 for gods sake. I care more about Kerry’s record NOW than what he said in 1972 when he was just a kid. However the guys from that time see it differently.

-XT

Ironically I just got this from my dad…its an email message passed to him from some of his navy buddies that is making the rounds…from Olie North:

[QUOTE>Dear John,
>
>As usual, you have it wrong. You don’t have a beef with President
George Bush about your war record. He’s been exceedingly generous about
your military service. Your complaint is with the 2.5 million of us who
served honorably in a war that ended 29 years ago and which you, not the
president, made the centerpiece of this campaign.
>
> I talk to a lot of vets, John, and this really isn’t about your
medals or how you got them. Like you, I have a Silver Star and a Bronze
>Star. I only have two Purple Hearts, though. I turned down the others
so that I could stay with the Marines in my rifle platoon. But I think
you might agree with me, though I’ve never heard you say it, that the
officers always got more medals than they earned and the youngsters we
led never got as many medals as they deserved.
>
> This really isn’t about how early you came home from that war,
either, John. There have always been guys in every war who want to go
home. There are also lots of guys, like those in my rifle platoon in
Vietnam, who did a full 13 months in the field. And there are,
thankfully, lots of young Americans today in Iraq and Afghanistan who
volunteered to return to war because, as one of them told me in Ramadi>a
few weeks ago, “the job isn’t finished.”
>
> Nor is this about whether you were in Cambodia on Christmas Eve,
1968. Heck John, people get lost going on vacation. If you got lost,
just say so. Your campaign has admitted that you now know that you
really weren’t in Cambodia that night and that Richard Nixon wasn’t
really president when you thought he was. Now would be a good time to
explain to us how you could have all that bogus stuff “seared” into your
memory – especially since you want to have your finger on our nation’s
nuclear trigger.
>
> But that’s not really the problem, either. The trouble you’re
having, John, isn’t about your medals or coming home early or getting
lost – or even Richard Nixon. The issue is what you did to us when you
came home, John.
>
> When you got home, you co-founded Vietnam Veterans Against the War
and wrote “The New Soldier,” which denounced those of us who served –
and were still serving – on the battlefields of a thankless war.
Worst of all, John, you then accused me – and all of us who served in
Vietnam – of committing terrible crimes and atrocities.
>
> On April 22, 1971, under oath, you told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee that you had knowledge that American troops “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 in fashion
reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food
stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam.” And
you admitted on television that “yes, yes, I committed the same kind of
atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed.”
> >
> And for good measure you stated, “(America is) more guilty than any
other body, of violations of (the) Geneva Conventions … the torture of
prisoners, the killing of prisoners.”
>
> Your “antiwar” statements and activities were painful for those of us
carrying the scars of Vietnam and trying to move on with our lives.
And for those who were still there, it was even more hurtful. But those
who suffered the most from what you said and did were the hundreds of
American prisoners of war being held by Hanoi. Here’s what some of them
endured because of you, John:

Capt. James Warner had already spent four years in Vietnamese

custody when he was handed a copy of your testimony by his captors.
Warner says that for his captors, your statements “were proof I deserved
to be punished.” He wasn’t released until March 14, 1973.

Maj. Kenneth Cordier, an Air Force pilot who was in Vietnamese

custody for 2,284 days, says his captors “repeated incessantly” your
one-liner about being “the last man to die” for a lost cause. Cordier
was released March 4, 1973.

Navy Lt. Paul Galanti says your accusations "were as

demoralizing as solitary (confinement) … and a prime reason the war
dragged on." He remained in North Vietnamese hands until February 12,
1973.

John, did you think they would forget? When Tim Russert asked

about your claim that you and others in Vietnam committed “atrocities,”
instead of standing by your sworn testimony, you confessed that your
words “were a bit over the top.” Does that mean you lied under oath? Or
does it mean you are a war criminal? You can’t have this one both ways,
John. Either way, you’re not fit to be a prison guard at Abu Ghraib,
much less commander in chief.

One last thing, John. In 1988, Jane Fonda said: "I would like to

say something … to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain
I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did. I was trying to
help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was
thoughtless and careless about it and I’m … very sorry that I hurt
them. And I want to apologize to them and their families."

Even Jane Fonda apologized. Will you, John?

Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist, host of the Fox News
Channel’s War Stories and founder and honorary chairman of Freedom[/QUOTE]

[XT]

If a mod wanders in could you fix the coding on that last post please?

-XT

[SteveG1]

Sounds like the same old shit to me, anything less than blind silent obedience equals treason. Like I care what Ollie North says anyway. He got caught sneaking money and weapons to the Contras for Reagan, so Reagan wouldn’t take the hit. Tge SBVT whatever have already been shown to be a bunch of liars and flip floppers, and all we need another liar and sneak (Ollie North) defending them. Doesn’t anyone have a brain anymore? Wake up and smell the fertilizer.

[LilShieste]

From the email sent to xtisme:
Worst of all, John, you then accused me – and all of us who served in
Vietnam – of committing terrible crimes and atrocities.

Why are people so quick to suggest/imply that Kerry was talking about all soldiers? The impression I got was that it was happening; not that everyone was doing it.

The soldiers responsible for the torture/abuse at Abu Ghraib disgust me. Oh wait, did I just say that I am disgusted with the entire U.S. military…??

I don’t understand why people feel the need to draw these accusations to themselves, or make them more generalized than they are.

LilShieste

[elucidator]

Gosh, XT, Ollie North said that! Wow, I wonder what the other non-partisan observers, like, oh, say, G. Gordon Liddy have to say on the subject I mean, when you bring in a guy like that, whose record of straight-forward candor is so unblemished…

[XT]

Gosh elucidator, I didn’t say I BELIEVED it, nor that I thought it was unbiased (snort)…I SAID it was an email that was making the rounds between some of my dad’s Navy buddies and put it in to show what THEY are discussing amongst themselves. Please chill out and read what I said.

-XT

[elucidator]

Gosh, XT, didn’t say you did. Didn’t say anything of the sort. Now you chill and read mine, after all, mine is shorter.

Your Dad is being had. They are pushing his buttons and playing him, and men like him, like a violin. You said yourself: before he saw the ads, it was no big deal, he’d dealt with it. Then he sees these manipulative, carefully trimmed ads and it changes everything.

If Kerry had been lying, that would be one thing. But he wasn’t. If Kerry said that all 'Nam vets had done things like that, he would have been lying. But he didn’t. (Which would have been pretty fucking ridiculous, since he was one of the leaders of a Viet Nam veterans group.)

Boiled down, it comes to this: some men feel that loyalty to comrades in arms exceeds all other loyalties. This loyalty is powerful, but morally nuetral. It brings men to noble deeds, and it brings men to be manipulated and used. Would a soldier in the Wehrmacht be wrong to expose the evil done by other soldiers? of course not! Then what difference does our being American make, what special dispensation have we been granted? If they must face the truth, is there some reason we cannot? Should not?

A son has a duty to help his father when he is wrong. It is a duty my own son is sternly aware, and never shirks, even for a moment. My gratitude is, of course, boundless.

[Shayna]

xtisme, I don’t think friend 'luci is accusing you of buying into that rubbish, just pointing out the irony/hypocracy that that piece of filth is being circulated by Oliver North, of all people.

I mean, it’s not like Ollie has an axe to grind against Kerry or anything…

John Kerry and Oliver North were just three months apart in age. Both served in Vietnam. Both were renowned for their daring, and both won Silver and Bronze Stars. Kerry had three Purple Hearts; North had two.

But while Kerry returned from the war speaking against needless deaths and government lies, North believed that Vietnam was an honorable stand against communist tyranny. North blamed antiwar protesters for forcing the United States to prematurely bring its troops home. The Iran-contra probe would pit these two determined figures against each other.

<snip>

During this time, North was an obscure White House aide, a man with a ramrod-straight disposition, short cropped hair, patriotic zeal, and unflagging allegiance to President Reagan. North had secretly begun to organize a complex scheme to raise money from wealthy conservatives, foreign nations, and eventually from the proceeds of secret arms sales to circumvent the Boland amendments and keep the contras in the field.

Word that something was afoot began to seep into Kerry’s Capitol Hill office, which had become a magnet for tips from left-leaning journalists, activists, and conspiracy theorists drawn to the senator’s antiwar history and his criticisms of Reagan’s Central American policy.

Kerry worried that a repeat of Vietnam – with a White House misleading the public – was in the making. “A central part of my campaign had been the notion that I would bring to the Senate the experience of the Vietnam period, which cautioned me against the kind of illegal activities we were hearing about, and the things that were going on,” Kerry recalls. “Literally, I did do an ad hoc investigation.”

<snip>

“[Kerry] understood that I was ambitious and serious about the work that we were doing, an enormous agenda, and in fairness, he regularly participated,” Lugar says. “He was not one of the dissident types. I did not see in him someone who was out there going after President Reagan, out after a Republican president.”

But North, who declined repeated requests for an interview, did see Kerry as a threat to Reagan. His notebooks, later obtained by Congress, were peppered with notations of concern about Kerry, his staff, and their freelance investigation. On April 18, 1986, North wrote: “Sen. Kerry trying to get evidence linking RR [Ronald Reagan] to La Penca,” the location of an attempted assassination attempt against a contra leader by hardliners in the movement.

`In early 1986, people like North were deathly afraid of what Kerry was after," says Tom Blanton, the executive director of the National Security Archive, a research organization in Washington. “There was this pervasive sense of the potential of turning over too many rocks. Worms and insects kept crawling out.” Despite Kerry’s work, and that of House investigators, North’s covert enterprise thrived. But on Oct. 5, 1986, a C-123 aircraft was shot down in Nicaragua. Documents found in the wreckage connected the plane to a CIA proprietary airline, Southern Air Transport. A surviving crew member, Eugene Hasenfus, said he was involved in an effort to arm the contras.

To Kerry’s investigators, the operation smelled like a covert CIA plot. Suspicions about North’s involvement intensified. By now the full committee, at Kerry’s urging, had launched its investigation, and Kerry used an Oct. 10, 1986, hearing to interrogate Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams about whether the Reagan administration had involved foreign governments in arming the contras.

<snip>

Ultimately, the subcommittee’s findings on the scope of the contra-drug connection were validated by two subsequent federal investigations. Inspectors General at the CIA and the Justice Department found that these agencies had done little or nothing in response to hundreds of allegations that elements of the contras and their supply networks were involved with drugs.

“Kerry’s proven conclusion was that the government, especially the CIA, looked the other way,” says Blanton. “The Kerry committee findings hold up.”

John Kerry handed Oliver North his ass, which, by all rights, should’ve landed in a federal prison. Oliver North is scum.

[Guinastasia]

I love this statement:

Your “antiwar” statements and activities were painful for those of us
carrying the scars of Vietnam and trying to move on with our lives.
And for those who were still there, it was even more hurtful. But those
who suffered the most from what you said and did were the hundreds of
American prisoners of war being held by Hanoi. Here’s what some of them
endured because of you, John:

Capt. James Warner had already spent four years in Vietnamese
custody when he was handed a copy of your testimony by his captors.
Warner says that for his captors, your statements “were proof I deserved
to be punished.” He wasn’t released until March 14, 1973.

I also heard that Kerry sold weapons to some of the terrorists who held some of our citizens as hostages and…
Oh wait. That was you, Ollie.

Never mind.

[XT]

Well, I guess I misunderheard you 'luci…my profound appologies. I HAVE talked to my dad about this btw, but I’m just a son…my opinion means little to him on such things. My fathers gratitude has NOT been boundless on this topic…to say the least.

-XT

[Cervaise]

@BrainGlutton

Jeez. Vietnam. The war ended almost 30 years ago. Are we never going to put it behind us until the last war veteran and the last war-protest veteran pass from the scene?

Personally, I think the overwhelming focus on Vietnam is a thinly-veiled argument-by-proxy over the current war in Iraq.

The idea is to take Kerry’s decision to volunteer for Vietnam and tangle it up with his decision to vote in favor of giving Bush the authority to pursue the war in Iraq. Kerry came back from Vietnam with deep disillusionment in his participation, and likewise a lot of people are starting to feel greatly disillusioned about our actions in Iraq. But Kerry won’t repudiate his vote the way he previously repudiated his service. That, I think, is at the heart of the flip-flopper accusation, even if nobody is really coming out and saying it; his attackers sense (perhaps rightly) a deep hypocrisy here.

Personally, I think Kerry should have disclaimed his vote. He could have said something like: “When I was young, my country asked me to serve. I am a patriot, and I set aside my misgivings and answered the call. Only later did I find the war was a lie. Last year, my country again seemed to call out to me for aid and defense. Again, I set aside my misgivings. Again, only later did I find, did we all find, the war was a lie. Am I guilty of being blinded by patriotism and a sense of duty? That is not a dishonorable crime…” and so on.

I think he decided not to do that, because he didn’t want to play into the flip-flopper meme, but now he’s caught in a deeper bind, and it’s too late, because it would be worse.

Kerry’s campaign sucks.

Anyway, that’s what I think the Vietnam issue is really about. Anyone disagree?

[Punoqllads]

We will put the Vietnam War behind us some time after we have healed the wounds from the War of Northern Aggression.

[XT]

Well, I think different people look at the issue in diffent ways. As I was trying to point out with my anecdote, there are certainly some people who are (rightly or wrongly) genuinely angry at Kerry over his stance when he came back from the war. There are also certainly other people who are exploiting this issue to lower Kerry’s chances to win in November. So I think I’d have to disagree with you on your assertion Cervaise…I think the issue is too complex to boil it down the way you are portraying it.

Personally I guess I’m just political dope…I just don’t see why this is working to hurt Kerry except from a very niche group of voters (i.e. voters who were actually IN Vietnam and who were offended by his comments and stances). It was fucking 30+ years ago. Kerry’s stances TODAY (and arguably his stances during his term as Senator) are much more important as to whether he should be president or not I would think. At least, thats how I see it.

-XT

[Bricker]

I am dismayed by this tactic.

Kerry’s record as a Senator is fair game.

But Kerry’s testimony to Congress is not. The man went over there in uniform, in a place where people were shooting at him. He did his duty. If ANYONE is entitled to come home and speak to lawmakers about the wisdom of our Vietnam policy, it’s a guy like John Kerry. He EARNED THE RIGHT. I’m not talking about his medals - I’m talking about wearing the uniform and being in the jungle. I don’t care if it was for four days or four weeks or four months or four years. He did his job. He didn’t portest and dodge a draft. He didn’t defer. He didn’t join the Coasties. He put on the uniform and did his freakin job.

That’s it, as far as I am concerned. Case closed.

• Rick

(No disrespect intended to the brave men and women of the Coast Guard – they had a necessary job and some of them did get activated in sent to 'Nam. And no disrespect intended to the recipients of deferments – they were there for a reason and those were the rules. It was perfectly honorable to take a deferment or wear a CG uniform.)

[elucidator]

Capt. Warner was held by ruthless and dedicated men. I can accept that they believed that, ultimately, their’s was a noble cause. But they used Lt. Kerry. He was not thier ally, not their friend, they would have used anyone to their ends. Lt Kerry did not reveal some unknown truth, certainly he didn’t reveal anything to the Vietnamese. They sure as hell knew!

If the VC had invoked Father Berrigan’s (famous protestor) name, would that have made him guilty of collaboration? If Kerry had been entirely unknown, would they have used his name to undermine Capt. Warner? No, of course not, it was Kerry’s notoriety that made him useful to them. And his notoritey was blameless! Even noble. He told the truth! If that isn’t reason enough, what is?

They would have tormented Capt Warner regardless, they would have merely used a different tool.

But we are different men, or we are not. We believe that no cause, no flag, no loyalty, can justify evil. An evil act does not become less evil or more evil, depending on the uniform. We believe that. Or we do not.

I believe that. I think John Kerry believes that. I’m real sure he believed it then, otherwise he went through a lot of shit just to be a petty dink.

Upon preview:

@XT

…my profound appologies…

Por nada. Your hearts in the right place, you can only make little mistakes. And I ain’t delicate.

[Shayna]

@Cervaise

Anyway, that’s what I think the Vietnam issue is really about. Anyone disagree?

Uhm, yeah. First and foremost, because you’ve mistaken Kerry’s vote to give Bush the authority to go to war, should he need to, with the idea that Kerry supported actually going to war. He did not. And he has said so repeatedly. And people keep getting it wrong because George W. Bush and his cronies, including the “liberal” :rolleyes: media, keep feeding it to us as if it were the truth.

Secondly, if you do a careful examination of Kerry’s record, you’ll find reasons going all the way back to when Kerry took down the BCCI, and was the original whistle-blower in the Iran/Contra scandal, both of which the Bush family were very closely tied to, for Bush’s hatred of Kerry. This is personal a lot more than it’s political.

And I may be called a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t think we’d be hearing nearly this much crap about Kerry’s Vietnam record or testimony if he were running against, say McCain, or any other Republican for that matter. But GW is out for more than just the presidency, he’s out for blood, and his Swifties are going for the jugular.

And it’s only gonna get uglier.

[Menocchio]

I think the SBVFT ads have a slightly more underhanded motive than merely “Let’s piss off the vets” (although they surely do that, too).

They force Kerry to talk about Vietnam. force him too. He cannot let such damaging ads go unchallanged, even if they are easily dispatched. This lets more measured Bush supporters (while slightly decrying the ads with one hand, preventing the middle and honorable conservatives from being too annoyed to vote for Bush) point out that Kerry’s not talking about anything but Vietnam.

Which is very nearly true, and partially (hell, until recently, mostly) Kerry’s own fault, but the Swifties sure aren’t helping him focus on his more recent record and plans for the future.

'Twas Kerry that exposed Iran/Contra? Good. He’s doing a poor enough job campaigning that I was starting to consider bringing a clothespin when I went to vote for him. Stuff like this helps me vote proudly.