cthulu23

That clip clearly states that the very policies of the US military in Vietnam constituted war crimes, such as free-fire zones, search and destroy missions, etc. He is only culpable as a soldier who followed these policies and he has said in other interviews from the era that he never raped or tortured although he was aware of many soldiers that did admit to such acts. I could argue that systemic policies of criminality do not indict the soldiers that are forced to comply with them although it is easy to conjure up scenarios where that isn't true. All in all, accurate judgements in cases such as this probably require scrutiny of each individual incident.

As for the veracity of the "war crime" statement, there is a thin line here between truth and lie and it all comes down to the meaning that the speaker gives to this particular statement. This points to a larger problem with many of the "lies" that are listed here...in some contexts they may be correct or at least not quite an outright deception. For example, the "personal vendetta" reason for the Iraq war....although it probably did not play a role in Bush's decision making, he did list that as one of his complaint's against Saddam. In the same way, Kerry did vote against an Iraq funding bill in an attempt to get another version of the bill passed, so acknowledging that is not really a lie. The deception comes in when someone tries to claim that Kerry "voted against body armor" without explaining that Bush had threatened to veto an earlier version of the bill that he didn't like and that the funding to the troops had never been put in jeopardy by either political move. For another example, take the "Bush is a religious fanatic who ism directed by God" line. Bush is a born again christian who does talk about his praying for and receiving inspiration from God. Does this equate with the "directed by god" statement? Well, it all depends on just what the speaker or writer of that statement meant by it. To some, describing someone as being "directed by god" would be meant as a compliment and would not equate with nuttiness in any way.

sometimes the only difference between a lie and the truth is the intent, inflection and unspoken sentiment of the speaker.