From having read Tour of Duty and Unfit for command. My authority is derived from John Edwards who said to understand Kerry you have to talk to the people who served with him. The Swiftvets did.
There’s no slander. The Wintersoldier testimony is John Kerry’s own words. His interviews are his own words. His authorized biography is his own words (or close enough.
Kerry’s a self-confessed war criminal. I didn’t say it, he did.
No, the people in his swiftboat did…You know, those guys up on stage at the Democratic Convention including the one (a lifelong Republican, as I recall) whose life Kerry saved.
He didn’t say “In the same boat,” he said served with. Gardner served in the same boat with Kerry longer than anybody else. His cocaptains served mere yards away with Kerry and have at least as good an insight into his actions as anyone else, if not better.
The “not on the same boat” argument is just silly and doesn’t even have the benefit of being true.
Unless this is an example of those vaunted debating skills of yourn, I guess you’ve decided to drop even the pretense of a debate and proceed with your actual (sour-grapes) agenda. Maybe one day the rest of the world will be enlightened enough to recognize your brilliance. Good luck until then.
Just so’s you know there is a whole forum just for badmouthing your fellow Dopers, if you care to dare.
elucidator: I have posted the requirements for a purple heart before, but apparently you just ignored it. So I’ll post a link again to the actual Navy manual. Here are the qualifications for a Purple Heart:
Now, let’s go over this so you don’t try to just cherry-pick a sentence out of there and declare the case closed. First, the ONLY time a self-inflicted wound is acceptable if if you get it while engaged in combat with the enemy ((6) As the result of friendly weapon fire while actively engaging the enemy.). This is not debatable. If you accidentally shoot yourself diving into a foxhole because you’re being shot at, you can get a Purple Heart. If you accidentally shoot yourself cleaning your gun in your barracks, you can not. Or, for example, if you accidentally blast some rice into your ass while on a routine supple-destroy mission with no enemy in sight. There is no possible dispute here: Kerry’s ass wound did NOT qualify for a purple heart.
How about his ‘minor contusion’? Nope. Because it didn’t require medical attention. The reg is quite explicit on this - you can only get a purple heart for a wound that does not have a ‘lesion’ if it REQUIRES medical treatment. This is obviously going to be things like internal injuries due to explosions, concussions, and the like. Minor bruises do not require medical treatment.
Kerry did not qualify for his third purple heart. Period. So how did he get it? Go read the after-action report. It’s very clevery worded. It describes the mission earlier in the day, then it describes the mission on the water where the mine went off. At the end of that description it lists as wounded Lt. John Kerry. Anyone reading that would assume that he was wounded in the second action. It’s a clever not-lie that would keep a person from being charged for filing false reports if someone made an issue of it, while still giving a medal application the supporting documents it requires.
As for his first purple heart, we have affidavits from his medical officer that his wound did not require treatment (he SOUGHT treatment - demanded it, almost, so the doctor put a band-aid on his arm), and another affidavit from his commanding officer that Kerry requested a purple heart AND WAS REFUSED. Then, three months later, after all the eyewitnesses had left the theater, another purple heart application went through and Kerry got his PH. But we don’t know anything about that application, because Kerry refuses to release the documentation. According to his medical officer, his commanding officer, and Admiral Schachte (as well as other people who weren’t on the boat but where present when he came back and have testified to not seeing an injury), Kerry did not qualify for a Purple Heart for that mission.
It’s clear that at least in the third case Kerry’s PH was undeserved. And not only that, even if his first and third Purple Hearts fit into some foxhole-lawyer definition of the reg, they are still dishonorable because A) Kerry sought them out, and B) they are clearly against the spirit of the Purple Heart regulation. As other Swiftvets have said, if a minor bruise or a piece of rice in the ass qualified for a Purple Heart, most of those guys would have boxes full of them. But most soldiers have too much personal pride and honor to ever think about reporting minor injuries like that. For example, in jungle warfare how often do you think people cut themselves or poked themselves with nettles or branches while in combat, chasing or running from the enemy? An injury like that WOULD qualify for a Purple Heart, because it’s an injury sustained while engaged in combat. But what would you think of a soldier who continually filed reports for pokes by sticks or bruises on knees from falling while chasing someone? You think that would be honorable?
The thing is that not only were Kerry’s first and third wounds not eligible, but the mere act of trying to get a Purple Heart for them is dishonorable. Purple Hearts are supposed to be awarded automatically when medical personnel file their injury reports. In the first case, Kerry went to the medical officer and demanded treatment, demanded that he file a form, and then went to his superior officer and told him that he had been injured and demanded that his medical report be submitted for a PH. He was clearly gaming the system, and his superior officer called him on it. Then, three months later he got someone else to file it. He probably went to some bureaucrat in the Navy and said, “Hey, where’s my purple heart? Look in my file, and you’ll see an injury report. I never got my PH for it.”, and that guy, not having any eyewitnesses left to ask, probably just had him sign an affidavit that he was injured as a result of enemy action and rubber-stamped it, not knowing that Kerry had already asked his superior officer and was refused. But we don’t know, because those documents are not available.
So wait, the “liberal” media gets things wrong and apologizes. The right wing media gets things wrong, and generally doesn’t even acknowledge it. Clearly, the “liberal” media is less trustworthy. Is that the basic thrust of the argument?
Sure, it was self-correcting, in the sense the CBS did the right thing when confronted with evidence that their evidence was a fake. Contrast this with all the nothing that has happened wrt to Robert Novak and the Plame outing. See the difference?
I’ve been away from GD for a bit. I certainly haven’t kept up with the threads, or for that matter, read everything in the prior three pages in this one. So, if I’m violating the norms, sorry about that.
Here’s the question that comes up from reading the last several posts: The Dems seem to keep saying the Swifties are liars and the Reps keep saying show me a single statement in Unfit for Command or the Swifties ads that is untrue. And it dies there.
So the question (to the Dems I guess, but anyone’s 2 cents is welcome) is where specifically have the Swifties lied?
The first wave of SBVT ads, disparaging Kerry’s war record and trying to make out a case that he was not as heroic in Vietnam as some people seem to think. When that one backfired on the Swifties in terms of public opinion and reactions from vets generally, they came out with:
The second wave, disparaging Kerry’s 1971 Congressional testimony as leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, accusing some U.S. forces in Vietnam of atrocities. The SBVT did not actually contradict this testimony or call Kerry a liar; they simply played some sound bites of the testimony and then accused Kerry of dishonoring U.S. servicepeople – because, apparently, it is dishonorable to stand up and go public with uncomfortable truths in the middle of the most divisive and controversial American military conflict since the Civil War.
Both of these have been thrashed out already in the following recent GD threads:
“Kerry should sue thr Swift Boat VfT / Bush should sue CBS”
“John Kerry and Vietnam”
“New SBVFT ad – will we never put Vietnam behind us?”
Nonsense. The response from vets was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, Kerry’s support from veterans was actually slightly higher than Bush’s before the commercials hit, and within two weeks of those commercials airing Kerry’s support from Veterans had dropped to 38 vs 62 for Bush. About as big a swing as I’ve ever seen in a presidential election in such a short time. Veterans abandoned Kerry in droves. The veterans who went on the talk shows opposing the Swift Vets were members of the Kerry campaign.
The Swiftboat vets have never disagreed with simply disputing the war. In fact, a number of them were against the war after they returned. It was the WAY Kerry was against the war. Instead of petitioning his government or going around explaining why the war was misguided, Kerry did two very bad things: 1) He attacked the soldiers themselves, saying they were “like the armies of Genghis Khan”, raping and pillaging the countryside, and 2) He gave aid and comfort to the enemy. He attended the Paris peace talks, and supported the enemy’s side. He attended rallies where the American flag was burned and the Communist flag hoisted. He even attended a meeting where a vote was taken on whether or not to assassinate U.S. Senators. He accepted as gospel the words of fake veterans testifying to phony war crimes without vetting them, and repeated them under oath in front of Congress. He acted very, very irresponsibly. And since he was still a commissioned officer of the Navy at the time (in the ready reserves), he may have violated the UCMJ. He also violated the Logan Act, a felony:
Kerry is doing the same thing today. He should get HAMMERED over his statements against Allawi. It’s fine to say the war is a strategic blunder. It’s fine to say that there were better strategies for the war on terror. It’s fine to criticise the war in any number of ways. But when he comes out and says that Allawi is a stooge in the pocket of the U.S. and by implication not the legitimate leader of Iraq, he is repeating the arguments of the insurgency and giving them weight. He is helping to destabilize the Iraqi government and make the war harder to win. This is simply wrong. I hope Bush crucifies him over it in the debates, and I hope the people understand what he has said when they go to the polls.
And this is why character matters so much when electing a wartime leader. Kerry is willing to say anything that can get him elected. He behaved the same way in the 1970’s. His criticism of the vietnam war crossed a line. He went way, way too far.
Hell, even Jane Fonda recognizes that now, and she has apologized for her actions then. She has said that she fought for a cause she believed in, but her youth and zeal caused her to say and do things that she now recognizes were harmful and hurtful to soldiers and their families, and she wishes she could take some of it back. John Kerry refuses to admit anything of the sort. Jane Fonda has more decency and character than John Kerry.
Thanks for the response BrainGlutton. I looked through the threads and I found a lot of name calling and the phrases like the “debunked attacks” but no statement by the Swifties that’s proven to be untrue.
I did find at least one error on the other side, the statement that ALL of the men who served under Kerry support him.
So again, anyone out there, what exactly are the lies that the Swifties said?
Oh, and of course, on the other side, there’s a whole set of issues about George W. Bush’s service in the Air National Guard, and whether he got in through personal and family connections; and what he did or did not do while he was in the Guard, whether he disobeyed orders, refused to show for a physical, failed to report for duty, went AWOL, etc.; and what role his alleged coke problem and acknowledged drinking problem might have played in all that; and whether his superiors bowed to pressure to “sugarcoat” his record; and whether some of his records were destroyed/purged right before he ran for governor of Texas; and whether CBS’ coverage of the issue, using documents that might have been forged, shows “liberal media bias” or just sloppy journalism; and whether the Kerry team played a role in that; and whether Kerry supporters coordinated their “sons of privilege” ads with the CBS coverage; and whether the leak of the documents actually originated with the Bushies in some kind of Machiavellian maneuver; and whether . . . well, you get the picture.
Kerry’s record in the Vietnam period was doubly honorable: He fought honorably in the war, and protested honorably against it.
Bush’s record . . . well, whatever the truth of it may be (and at this point the world may never know), there’s just know way to make it compare favorably with Kerry’s record. So all the Pubbies can do here is throw in distracting side-issues and muddy the waters.
