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Originally Posted by irateplatypus
but senator kerry did say that the warcrimes were "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." it's my interpretation from those words (and i'm not alone in this) that the warcrimes were widespread, that they were consistent, and that they were performed under the awareness of senior leadership. does that not, if not explicitly stated, implicate all soldiers over there... or at least cast suspicion upon the whole armed forces engaged in the theater? the north vietnamese thought it was a broad enough statement to use it in their propaganda and torture regimens.
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enemy soldiers are going to use whatever they want to use--you surely aren't going to impugn one of our decorated soldiers based on the actions of enemy soldiers are you?
in direct answer to your question, whether kerry was leveling his charge against all vets in general, the answer is clearly no. You may not be alone in your interpretation of those lines, but that makes you no more correct in how you parse the english language.
Quoting the entire sentence (instead of half of it):
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
indicates that
150 honorably discharged and many other highly decorated vets testified that they committed war crimes on a daily basis with the full knowledge of officers--that's all it says. That's the correct way to interpret this. There is no way you can extrapolate that kerry is charging
all vets with committing war crimes by this sentence. If you don't believe me, take this sentence into an english teacher for a third opinion.
The actions of the vietcong notwithstanding, and whatever deplorable psyops they were using against POWs aside, kerry wasn't accusing the POW's of deserving what they got.
he got those statements as heresay and plainly stated that they were comments others had told him. dude, it's then up to congress to dig up more evidence. He said "other vets have told me, so I'm telling you" that's all he said. it's not a criminal trial. if you are getting your notions of rules of evidence from law & order, two things you should know: one, it's a television show and isn't very accurate (heresay isn't "wrong" or inadmissable), and two, this wasn't a criminal trial so it isn't relevant.
congress was doing a preliminary investigation to get to the bottom of reports that had been going on for quite a few years. you are jumping to all sorts of conclusions based on your interpretation, and that interpretation is clouded by your preconceived desire to not have respect for kerry in the first place. you appear to be looking for a reason to justify what you already believe. and other people who share your desire are twisting statements out of context and then throwing an extra layer of contempt on top.