i guess this is as good of place as any to discuss the content of the movie. i have not seen it, as it is only available as pay-per-view on
www.stolenhonor.com.
from what i have found, much of the movie shows POWs disgusted with kerry for his senate testimony. this article seems to detail some of their words.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=15108
Quote:
I’m sorry I can’t quote them, but essentially [Kerry] accused all of us in Vietnam of being criminals, that everything we had done was criminal. The North Vietnamese had told us from the time that we got their hands on us that we were criminals, that we were not covered by the Geneva Convention, so It was okay for them to do whatever they wanted to do to us. And they told us that they were going to put us on trial and some of us would be executed.
...
...[Kerry] starts talking about war crimes and the atrocities we’re committing. He’s putting them in dire jeopardy. Every military combat guy I’ve talked to from Vietnam said their greatest fear was not being killed; it was becoming a POW. As you know, there were people captured in South Vietnam who were literally skinned alive…And Kerry’s giving the captors ammunition to treat people like that if they’re captured. And these are people he knew. Where in the world is his loyalty to the people in the military?
...
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i've seen parts of it kerry's testimony on tv, but here is the transcript:
http://www.nationalreview.com/docume...0404231047.asp
audio here:
http://www.democracynow.org/article..../02/20/1535232
Quote:
I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of one thousand, which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country.
...
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.
It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape 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 in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
...
We are here in Washington also to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country, the question of racism, which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions also, the use of weapons, the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions, in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners, accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is party and parcel of everything.
...
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now i omitted much of his testimony. these are a just few areas where he is particularly hard on certain soldiers, and likely some of the cause of contention.
i'd be pretty pissed if his testimony was used against me in a POW camp. i doubt these camps would be nice anyway, but his words may have caused some additional suffering. his position seems to have been oversimplified, though. kerry doesn't condemn all soldiers. he points out the alleged deeds of the worst, indicating moral decay in many units. unless he is lying, why is this wrong? there seemed to be serious problems to be addressed, and i'm not sure he can be held responsible for the actions of our "enemy."
just wondering what you think. this is scheduled to air right before the election, so it could tip the scales redder.