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Swift Boat Veterans for Truth home page
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Senator John Kerry has made his 4-month combat tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of his bid for the Presidency. His campaign jets a handful of veterans around the country, and trots them out at public appearances to sing his praises. John Kerry wants us to believe that these men represent all those he calls his "band of brothers."

But most combat veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam see him in a very different light.
.

Before and After
Touch the photo to see which Swift officers support John Kerry, or click it to read more

The purpose of this photo is to correct the misleading use of our
images -- against our will -- to further John Kerry's campaign.
.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been formed to counter the false "war crimes" charges John Kerry repeatedly made against Vietnam veterans who served in our units and elsewhere, and to accurately portray Kerry's brief tour in Vietnam as a junior grade Lieutenant. We speak from personal experience -- our group includes men who served beside Kerry in combat as well as his commanders. Though we come from different backgrounds and hold varying political opinions, we agree on one thing: John Kerry misrepresented his record and ours in Vietnam and therefore exhibits serious flaws in character and lacks the potential to lead.

We regret the need to do this. Most Swift boat veterans would like nothing better than to support one of our own for America's highest office, regardless of whether he was running as a Democrat or a Republican. However, Kerry's phony war crimes charges, his exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam, and his deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and effectiveness of Swift boat operations compels us to step forward.

For more than thirty years, most Vietnam veterans kept silent as we were maligned as misfits, addicts, and baby killers. Now that a key creator of that poisonous image is seeking the Presidency we have resolved to end our silence.

The time has come to set the record.


SUGGEST YOU GO TO ACTUAL SITE TO GET LINKS,

Edited to correct the link

Way to add your own content, my man.

And do they mean "set the record straight"? Or perhaps they mean "reset the record" to suit their political agenda?

There were 7 men on Kerry's swift boat. 2 are supporting his bid for candidacy, two are dead and their children are acting in their stead in this smear group and 3 are actually against him. The rest of the men who are in this group never actually served with him, but served above him. i.e career military commanders who didn't see the way he actually commanded his boat.

The guy who started Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman who may have taken great offense to Kerry since he seems to be a primary source of attack in Kerry's historic congressional hearings. Hoffman was well known for being into increasing bodycounts any way possible.

Finally the groups real leader, John O'Neil makes the claim that he was on Kerry's boat, but he was only even on it after Kerry was already gone from Vietnam.

There seems to be something a little....ironic(?) with the above statement.

And as for the server being instructed not to allow me access?
I give a resounding....phhpphhhhttttt

or you could just try:

<a href="http://www.swiftvets.com/">here</a>, however it took one or two tries for it work.

Heard one of the commanders of one of the other boats on the radio today in Boston. He was talking about what really happened in the Rassmusen incident that John put himself in for medals for.
What happened was there was several boats, they took some minor fire, and one of the boats hit a mine. Kerry's boat beatfeet out of there real quick. the others stayed to fish everyone out of the water. When he realized that he was the only who had left, he turned around and went back. There was one survirvor still left in the water. Kerry pulled him out, but was not wounded as his side of the story would leave you to believe.
Another thing that was brought up, was that Kerry was very protective of his own crew.(That might be why they are with him now and no one else is)
Also, the story of him wanting out after 3 purple hearts was not true. When his commander realized he had 3 purple hearts, he sent him back to the states to get rid of him.
Not sure of who was the speaker, but he was from the swift boat veterans and was on todays Pat Whitley show on WRKO in Boston, and he was a commander of one of the other boats.

It's hard to believe that Kerry is getting attacked on his military record. 3 Purple hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star vs. AWOL in Alabama. My mind reels. What's next, attack Kerry's diction?

Yes, Kerry gets hounded for his military record, while the same people doing that hounding give Bush not only a pass but protray his service as somehow honorable.
It's very.... retarded.

Get out of my head Cthulu!

Mainly because Bush gets an anal probe down to payroll records base commanders etc. none of which is good enough for Dems. Kerry has people who where in his unit question his performance questioned his last medal, questioned his 4 month tour and now his staged 8mm films. Why is ok for Bush to be constantly checked yet Kerry is supposed to get the same pass as Clinton did simply because he's your guy.

Because hating Bush is religion.

I've seen John O'Neill (an SBVFT cofounder and a lifelong Democrat bw) interviewed. He is incredibly articulate and credible. The transcript from the Dick Cavett show on which O'Neill debated Kerry is quite revealing.

http://www.swiftvets.com/staticpages...hp?page=Debate

The following transcript is taken from ABC's special June 30, 1971 broadcast of "The Dick Cavett Show," during which former Navy Lieutenant John Kerry represented Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He was opposed by fellow Navy veteran John O'Neill, representing Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace.

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If you have just joined us, my two guests tonight are, as I said before, they've been on the program separately in the past. They're both veterans. One of them, John Kerry, belongs to Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and John O'Neill belongs to a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. Will you welcome them both, please.

This is John O'Neill and this is John Kerry, and I even think that we both asked you which profiles you favor equally.

We will actually start, because it was requested that we do this – this may seem ludicrous – with the flip of a coin because – this is not going to follow the actual outlines of a debate, but I thought it might be well for each of you fellows to start out with some statement of what your organization wants and is, if you'd like to do that.

Do you want to call it in the air?

MR. O'NEILL: Heads.

MR. CAVETT: All right. It's an absolute – it's a U.S. quarter, 1966. You got it.

MR. O'NEILL: I'll speak first.

MR. CAVETT: Okay.

MR. O'NEILL: Hopefully last, too.

I've come here today to speak for peace, a just and lasting peace, in Southeast Asia. There is no one in this country who likes war, least of all, those of us who fought in the Vietnam war. And it is in the spirit of ending that war in a rational manner that I would like to speak today. I think any rational man can see that the Vietnamization program of the president has done more to end this war than all the demonstrations and hate of the last 10 years in this country. When Mr. Kerry and I were in Vietnam there were 550,000 U.S. troops there. When Mr. Kerry marched down in April with his 900 embittered men to Washington, there were 284,000 troops there. When our own organization was formed in May, there were 245,000 troops there. Today there are 215,000, and by the time you see this show tonight, there will be 700 less.

When we were in Vietnam there were 87,000 marines in I-Corps. Today there are 900 in all of South Vietnam, and South Vietnam and I-Corps remain free. The unit we both served in in Vietnam, Coastal Division 11, the first naval combat unit in Vietnam, was one of the last naval combat units out of Vietnam last December. And the South Vietnamese who replaced us there are doing a fine job. They've won victories and they're suffered defeats as any army – as any army does.

But the main story has been that the strength of the North Vietnamese in I-Corps and other areas of that country, including the Mekong Delta where we both served, has been broken.

I think there are three things we can all agree on. First, we all want to see a speedy end to American involvement in Vietnam. Second, we all realize that if we come home from Vietnam leaving our POWs rotting in North Vietnamese jails, that we will leave the heart and soul of this country there also.

Finally, we all want to see the South Vietnamese have the type of government that they themselves freely choose. I suggest that it's time for an end to hate and disruption in this country. I suggest it's time for trust in this country. The same kind of trust we will need when the war in Vietnam is over to live with ourselves here.

I'd like to turn to a second issue. Mr. Kerry is the type of person who lives and survives only on the war weariness and fears of the American people. This is the same little man who on nationwide television in April spoke of, quote, "crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command," who was quoted in a prominent news magazine in May as saying, quote, "war crimes in Vietnam are the rule and not the exception," unquote. Who brought 50 veterans down to Washington to testify about alleged atrocities in April, the same 50 who after they had appeared on every major news network refused to provide any depositions or provide any details of any kind.

Never in the course of human events have so many been libeled by so few.

There were two and a half million of us who served there in Vietnam under the most severe restrictions in this nation's history. We have brought this war close to a close. We never engaged in mass bombing of population centers, as all nations did in World War II, and the reason we did not is because we are a moral people.

Fifty-five thousand Americans died there in Vietnam no matter what they thought about the war because they believed in this country, and those of us who survived came back to this country, by and large determined just to resume our normal lives after the disruption caused by war.

We encountered a variety of problems: unemployment, discrimination, other problems, and then we encountered the biggest problem of them all, the big lie by Mr. Kerry and his group, that we were either each individually war criminals or that we were collectively the executioners of a criminal policy.

You've seen that all before, guilt by association. If one or 50 or 150 veterans testify as to war crimes, then all two and a half million of us must be war criminals. That's the same as saying if one Jew or one black commits one murder in this country, then all the Jews and all of the blacks in this country must be murderers, and that is something that we must not stand for in this country.

We've all heard of Lieutenant Calley. He's accused of the murder of 102 civilians in Son Mai Lai, and the operations – and the law will operate in his case.

This man has attempted the murder of the reputations of two and a half million of us, including the 55,000 dead in Vietnam, and he will never be brought to justice. We can only seek justice and equity from the American people. Every man kills the thing he loves. By each let this be told: The brave man does it with the sword; the coward with the word.

Thank you.

MR. CAVETT: Mr. Kerry, I expect you do have something to say to that. We have a message however from Calgon. Here is how a bath can smooth and soften your skin, leaving you radiant and refreshed with Calgon Bath Oil Beads.

[Commercial Break]

MR. CAVETT: Before that break – and I must apologize for the fact that we do have to keep stopping. It's a commercial medium, and sometimes those things aren't going to mesh very well.

Now, John Kerry.

MR. KERRY: Wow. Well, there are so many things, really, to be said, and it's hard to find a place to start after a barrage like that.

I think, first of all, I'm somewhat surprised at the attitude of somebody who wore the same uniform as I did who served in the same military for the same kind, I hope, of patriotic reasons, and I really haven't come back to this country nor have Vietnam Veterans against the War come back to this country to try in any sense or in any form to show bitterness or to tear the country apart or to tear it down.

I think that what we're doing is we're trying in a sense to show where the country went wrong, and we believe that as veterans who took part in this war, we have nothing to gain by coming back here and talking about those things that have happened except to try and point the way to America, to try and say, "Here is where we went wrong and we've got to change." And I think that the attitude of the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace is really one sort of of my country, right or wrong, which is really on the intellectual level, I think, of saying my mother, drunk or sober.

And I think that just as when your mother is drunk, you take her and dry her out – God forbid that she is – you take your country, in the words of Senator Carl Schurz, who said, "My country, right or wrong. When right, keep it right; when wrong, put it right." And I think that that's what we veterans are trying to do.

On the question of Vietnamization, this is something which people can argue about for hours and hours. We've just heard it mentioned that it's succeeding, that the Marines have been withdrawing from the north. Well, just the other day Firebase Fuller was overrun and it took the United States to fly supplies in to take care of it. We hear that the Delta is pacified. Well, a few weeks ago the report came out that 54 naval bases and other bases, all the bases in the Delta, had been overrun in the first three months of 1971, and that the reason they were overrun was because in 22 cases sentries were asleep, in 22 cases there were quislings, people who gave up.

You can contest this question of Vietnamization right down the line. The question really is this: Is the United States of America determined to leave Vietnam, and if we are determined to leave Vietnam – which I believe the president has shown some indications of because he has withdrawn troops. We don't deny that. What we say is the troops can be withdrawn faster. What we say is the killing can stop tomorrow, and it can stop if the president of the United States will set a date certain for the withdrawal for all United States combat and advisory troops from South Vietnam. And that's really the major issue.

Now, on the question of war crimes, it's really only with the utmost consideration that we post this question. I don't think that any man comes back to this country to say that he raped or to say that he burned a village or to say that he wantonly destroyed crops or something for pleasure. I think that he does it at the risk of certain kinds of punishment, at the risks of injuring his own character which he has to live with, at the risks of the loss of his family and friends as a result of it, and he does it because he believes intensely that people have got to be educated about the devastation of this war.

We thought we were a moral country, yes, but we are now engaged in the most rampant bombing in the history of mankind. Since President Nixon has assumed office, we have dropped some 2,700,000 tons of bombs on Laos. That is more than we dropped in the entire Pacific and Atlantic theaters in the entire course of World War II. And I think the question of morality really has to enter in here, so I'd say that Vietnam Veterans Against the War are really trying to approach this from a most constructive point of view.

MR. CAVETT: You are both, actually, there each allowed five minutes, and you took a little less. Have you finished your opening statement?

MR. KERRY: No, I'd like to discuss everything possible.

MR. CAVETT: Yeah, right, but now you can both talk.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to comment on a number of things. Our attitude certainly isn't our country right or wrong. We were all 15 and 16 years old when we happened to get into the Vietnam war. What's so interesting about many of Mr. Kerry's backers including Clark Clifford, Roger Hillsman (phonetic spelling) and a number of others, is that they happen to be exactly the same people who sent us to Vietnam. We certainly, obviously, would never support this country if we felt it were wrong. We just feel we need a rational way out of Vietnam. As far as setting a date, that accomplishes nothing.

Finally, Mr. Kerry said that he didn't come here to show bitterness, he didn't feel bitter. He said in his statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22nd, he said, "We are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country."

A second thing we object to with Mr. Kerry's organization is his attempt to represent himself as speaking for all veterans, which he clearly did in the same statement.

As far as the 54 bases overrun in the Delta, I can refer him to an article by John Paul Vann in U.S. News and World Report of June 1st which states that the number of incidents in that area is running about 20 per month compared to 120 per month two years ago.

I think that, clearly, the biggest question we're going to have to deal with is the moral question of war crimes. There's quite a difference between coming back to this country and putting on a sack and saying, confessing, "I committed war crimes" and running for the Congress of the United States from Massachusetts and saying, "Well, all three million of us committed war crimes," and I suggest that that's the question that Mr. Kerry and I should be talking about because that's precisely and exactly what he said.

MR. CAVETT: Well, let's talk about that. Did you see war crimes committed and –

MR. KERRY: Well, I have often talked about this subject. I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free fire zones and I did take part in harassment interdiction fire. I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these, I find out later on, these acts are contrary to the Hague and Geneva Conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the applications of the Nuremberg principles, is in fact guilty.

But we're not trying to find war criminals. That's not our purpose. It never has been. I have a letter here which I could read to you which we wrote to Washington D.C. in an effort to try and solve the problem of these war crimes, and we sent it to Senator Stennis, and we said, "On behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, we're writing to ask that the Senate Armed Services Committee immediately convene public hearings to examine the testimony presented by these veterans." May I go on?

Among the questions raised were charges. What we're looking for is an examination of our policy by people in this country, particularly by the leaders before they take young men who are the objects of that policy and try them rather than examine the policy at the highest level where it was in fact promulgated.

MR. O'NEILL: that's very interesting that you would say that, John. I've got an article right now. It's from the May 8, 1971, New York Times. It concerns some of the testimony. It concerns a Danny S. Notley (phonetic spelling), who apparently is a member of your organization. The Army pursued him all the way to Minnesota to try and get him to sign a deposition regarding the allegations of war crimes that he made, and he refused to, as have all 50 people that testified there and 150 that testified in Detroit, and so I suggest that if you're honest, you ought to finally produce the depositions after all of us waiting for two months.

The effect of what you've done hasn't been to prevent one or two Kerrys (sic). It's been to label two and a half million of us as – Calleys, not Kerrys, although they may be somewhat interchangeable at times.

That's precisely and exactly what you've done. And I think in honesty, as a just and decent human being, that you'd want to do that. I think there's something particularly pathetic about me having to appear on nationwide television and trade polished little phrases with you to defend the honor of the 55,000 people that died there, the two and a half million of us that served there. I think further that the justification that Hanoi uses for keeping our POWs is that they were engaged in criminal acts there, and I think that someone who comes out and says exactly the same thing could be doing nothing but serving those purposes, although I'm not – obviously those are not your intentions. There's no question about that.

MR. KERRY: We – the Vietnam Veterans Against the War – and I can't even pretend to speak for all the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, let alone speak for all the men who served in Vietnam, and neither in fact can anybody else pretend to speak for a majority. That's entirely in the impossible range. But what we're saying is – and the reason that some of these men have not signed depositions is very, very simple, and it's up to each individual. One reason is that specifically they are not looking to implicate other people. They haven't cited names of individuals involved because they don't want more Calleys. They don't want men to enter double jeopardy, to have to come back to the United States of America and be penalized for those things that they did that were the result of the mistakes and the bad decisions of their leaders.

MR. CAVETT: Uh-huh.

MR. KERRY: And the purpose of them not signing them is literally to call for an examination of policy and not scapegoats and to examine it from the President of the United States to General Westmoreland and others. And when they do that, then they will sign and then they will talk.

Now, there are individuals who are perfectly willing to sign. Nobody's ducking anything.

MR. O'NEILL: Well, who are they? Can you tell me that?

MR. KERRY: well, I have a friend who came all the way from Florida today, and if it's all right with you, he's here now. I'd be very happy to bring him on and let him make a deposition.

MR. O'NEILL: Well, I think just you and I. I've had the same experience of four against one before.

MR. KERRY: You've asked for depositions, and I have the man –

MR. O'NEILL: Yeah, and I'd like to see him sign a deposition after the show.

MR. KERRY: I think you've made a very, very serious charge.

MR. O'NEILL: That's absolutely correct, I have.

MR. KERRY: And there's a veteran here who's come all the way from Florida who, if you didn't mind, would come on television now with names, facts, dates, places, maps, coordinates, and he's be very willing to make it public.

[Pause]

MR. O'NEILL: I've just got two or three things to say. It's amazing, and it certainly is wonderful that you've finally produced someone after two months.

The second thing I have to say is the last time I came on the show, I appeared basically on a four-against-one format, and I prefer it one to one, but I'd certainly be interested in seeing him do that after the show, and I know the people of America would.

It's interesting that you happen to say that you don't claim to speak for all veterans. You said that before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, same testimony previously cited, "I'm here as one member of a group of a thousand, which is a very much – very – which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit here at this table, they would be here and have the same kind of testimony."

I'm here, John. I'm a veteran in this country. I'm here to say that's a lie.

MR. CAVETT: Uh –

MR. KERRY: May I answer that, please?

MR. CAVETT: You may, after this message, or we'll be in big trouble. We'll be right back.

Commercial Break]

MR. CAVETT: And we're back.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to finish my statement, if I could, Mr. Cavett. I think that it's highly interesting that Mr. Kerry has finally produced one person to sign a deposition after three months of accusing two and a half million of us of being war criminals. I suggest that if he produces another four or five hundred thousand depositions, that his charge might stand up. I think all he'd establish, even if the deposition is correct, is that he has one war criminal that belongs to his organization, and that's kind of pathetic.

Further, I'd like to go on –

MR. CAVETT: [Unintelligible]

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to go on and finish. I served in Coastal Division –

MR. CAVETT: It's easier if we don't jump to a second subject when one is on the table.

MR. KERRY: Well, as to my being a liar, I – in my testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I did indeed say what he said. I said I represent one of the group of one thousand, which incidentally was one thousand at any one time. There were some two thousand who came through the whole time we were in Washington. And when I referred to the very much larger group within the country, I referred to our membership of our organization. I didn't say a majority; I didn't say all veterans; I said to a very much larger group, which is the some 20,000 members that we have in the country at this particular moment. And that was my reference there.

As to this question of who speaks for the majority and all this personal vindictiveness, I really think that that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about the question of this war and why it is continuing, why – [unintelligible] – and I really don't think it does just justice to those men who have to give up their lives or be maimed or something or are in Vietnam now to have two veterans of the war sit here and go at each other's throats. I really think we can do better justice to the issue than that, and the issue really is why can't we set a date. Mr. O'Neill has simply shrugged this off, saying that would be absurd.

I want to know why we can't set a date when we know that the prisoners will come home, when we know that people will stop being maimed for the most senseless purpose in the world, and when we know that that in fact can be a solution and release the forces of accommodation in Vietnam which will not be released as long as we are there and as long as we are helping the South Vietnamese.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd certainly like to talk on setting a date, but I suggest that we keep talking about the same two issues we have on the table. Once again from Mr. Kerry's testimony, that same committee, was written, "I understand from Adam Walinsky, your friend – It's interesting to see somebody that has a friend write about his experiences in Vietnam. I wouldn't –

MR. KERRY: How do you know that?

MR. O'NEILL: He says –

MR. KERRY: Wait, wait. How do you know that?

MR. O'NEILL: Well, Mr. Walinsky admitted it in Human Events, also in the Boston Globe.

MR. KERRY: Did you read Mr. Walinsky's letter yesterday [unintelligible]?

MR. O'NEILL: No, I did not.

MR. KERRY: Did you read his letter?

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to finish –

MR. KERRY: May I quote his letter – no.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to quote your speech, if that's satisfactory.

MR. KERRY: No wait. You've just made a charge.

MR. O'NEILL: "The country does not know it yet, but it has created a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and trade in violence who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped." I think that Mr. Kerry is trying to talk for something more than his little group of 20,000. I think that he was attempting to represent himself as representative of all of us.

Second, on the war crimes issue –

MR. CAVETT: Well, wait a minute. We're way past the thing there –

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to -

MR. CAVETT: – about whether or not your speeches were written for you or whether or not –

MR. KERRY: Somehow the group has suddenly jumped to 20,000 in the period of this –

MR. O'NEILL: Whose group has jumped to 20,000? Your group has, you mean?

MR. KERRY: The Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Two days ago in Leonard Lyons in New York – as a matter of fact, in answer to a charge made by the Vice President of the United States saying a Robert Kennedy speech writer had written my speech, I would be flattered to have one write my speech frankly, but in this letter he wrote to the Vice President, saying, "Dear Mr. Vice President, Thank you very much for insinuating that I wrote John Kerry's speech. I would have been proud to have done it, but I didn't; however, in the future please be sure to mention my name as it will – as it is sure to help me in my next election."

No, Adam Walinsky did not submit a draft to me and he did not write my speech. Now, as to the question –

MR. O'NEILL: I didn't say that, John. If I can quote Human Events of May 22nd, 1971 –

MR. KERRY: Can we move –

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to establish this point. "Former Robert F. Kennedy staffer, Adam Walinsky, acknowledged he had helped Kerry put together his eloquent presentation. Walinsky said that Kerry, the 1966 Yale class orator, was pretty darn good with words all by himself, but added he had a hand in drafting those parts of the Kerry address which were on television." I think it is a relatively minor point. It is your speech I disagree with, not with who wrote it.

My understanding is that's what he told a number of people. The same stories appeared over and over. I think that even more important is this point: You happen to feel that you're being vilified. I think you can imagine how the two and a half million of us whom you have vilified feel at this time.

MR. KERRY: You're speaking for two and a half million.

MR. O'NEILL: I'm speaking for myself now.

MR. KERRY: You're speaking for two and a half million.

MR. O'NEILL: I think, John, if you'd poll the American people instead of taking 75 – poll the veterans in this country instead of taking 75 to Bunker Hill, and you asked them the question, "Do you consider yourself a war criminal," you'd find out that I was speaking for very close to two and a half million.

MR. KERRY: That's very, very interesting. I – you're speaking for most of the guys in your division and everything else? They feel this way, you think.

MR. O'NEILL: I'd say that most of the veterans I have met. I am aware that you did solicit virtually everybody from Coastal Division 11. I had people calling me from all over the country whom you have called. You have financial resources above and beyond ours. And I don't know what results you happened to get. Do you mind telling me, how many people did you get from Coastal Division 11?

MR. KERRY: I didn't reach any, Mr. O'Neill, because I didn't call any personally and talk to any; however, I do have some friends who came back who did.

MR. O'NEILL: Apparently these members of your organization did.

MR. KERRY: Well, it's very strange. You see, I received a letter from one of them, impromptu, that said, "Dear John, about John O'Neill, I can't understand how he could possibly represent any majority whatsoever," and this is from somebody who served in your division with you at the same time. In fact, who turned over the last boat to the Vietnamese.

[Cross talk]

MR. O'NEILL: I should explain the background of this. There were 800 people that served in Coastal Division 11 over the course of the Vietnam war. I've received approximately 12 calls, the furthest away being from Honolulu, from people that your organization has contacted. Now, if you happen to read one letter, all I can say, it's like your organization. Everybody knows about the 10 percent that don't get the word, and your 20,000 make up about 1/20th of the 10 percent that don't get the word.

MR. KERRY: I think – I really think that this is exactly the point that I am trying to make, and that is that we have never purported to represent any majority, nor can Mr. O'Neill sit here and pretend to talk for two and a half million. He can talk for himself. And I think that this contest is ludicrous, that the points to be discussed are the questions of the war, and that's the issue we should get to, and I'd like to talk about that in a rational discussion.

MR. O'NEILL: I suggest it is time to move on. I'd like to make one last point, if I could. I think that Mr. Kerry's [unintelligible] to the American people –

MR. CAVETT: All right, but the world's favorite mother has some important news about bathtub safety. Watch. We'll be right back.

CosmoKnight: I didn't say give Kerry a pass....I said compare his record to Bush's. One privileged man chose to fight, another did not. Lets try to keep a bit of perspective here.

Wonderwench: I'm not religious and I don't hate anyone, but I don't share your adoration for George Bush. That may cause others to regard me as some sort of cultist, but I like to think that I'm a rational human being.

I find the reference to Vietnam a bit confusing. Republicans hawks have always resisted the Vietname/Iraq comparison as it brings up unpleasant memories of another war that seemed to lack necessary justification and that the American people quickly grew sick of.

The posted transcript points to a fundamental misconception held by many American conservatives: just because someone is anti-war does not make them anti-soldier. Kerry, himself, was a soldier. The opposition is centered against the policy makers that demand criminal acts of good soldiers. I can't help but think of the Bush administrations redefining of torture and Abu Graib.

Let's be fair here. You cannot possibly compare Vietnam to Iraq. It's apples and Oranges...night and day. For one thing during the Vietnam war....Bush had an exit strategy.

Iraq != Vietnam, but it doesn't take very much imagination to draw some parallels between the two. Can you say "quagmire?"

Oh please.

We ousted Saddam's regime in a matter of weeks; he is in custody - Vietnam lasted over a decade. 900 soldiers have died in Iraq compared to over 50,000 in Nam.

A transitional government is in place in Iraq - they are on track for an election early next year and finalization of a constitution by the end of 2005. Not too shabby by any historical benchmark.

The quagmire is in the minds of those who cannot move beyond their ideology to understand the facts.

As I said, I agree that Iraq is not in the same class of conflict as Vietnam (obviously), but the active insurgency, the rising body count, the flimsy justifications and the waning popular support are all fair targets for drawing an analogy. We are allowed to use metaphors , right?

Regardless of that, I don't think that we're going to pull out our troops anytime soon. The series of air bases that we are building point to our continued presence there for quite a while. Things are progressing there, and I hope for the best, but there are still many questions to be answered and there is no sign of an end to the violence there, yet. Some outside force will need to be in Iraq for some time to come.

First "hating Bush" is my "religion," now I'm blinded by ideology. Could we cut back on the thinly-veiled, personal insults, please? I hardly think that my posts here have given you any basis for those opinions of me nor any idea of what type of person I am in Real Life. Could it be that those of different opinions may actually be rational, reasonable people? You often mention the illogical aggression of the left....perhaps you should shine that same light on yourself.

That's your problem. Vietnam lasted over a decade. We haven't completed two years in Iraq yet.

Until about year 4 of Vietnam, the average US casualty was less than the average we are getting in Iraq right now. THEN it started to skyrocket. It took about 4 and a half years for Nam to reach 1000 casualties, we have done it here in less than two.

Look at this page to see some pretty graphs detailing this.

Now that we have set up this government for Iraq, I count casualties of the Iraqi 'government' with our total. Resistance militants blew up 56 applicants to the Iraqi police force yesterday.
Deaths are still flying past at a rapid clip over there.

You should also include our considerably large number of wounded when comparing Iraq to Vietnam. Our wounded's lives are horribly altered forever. We have just short of 6000 wounded now.

And the body count from Saddam's regime is in excess of one million.

A little perspective wouldn't hurt.

You're opening a whole different subject of "justification" when we were taking specifically about combat operations.
Can you focus on the subject or was that a deliberate attempt to derail a discussion that you aren't doing well on?

By the way, thought wildly off topic, I'll bite.
Our current alliance with Uzbekistan and Equatorial Guinea show 'we' don't give a shit about human rights, torture and bodycounts.

I am not the one who made the quagmire comments - so your accusation is spurious.

I am fine with my performance in this conversation. The lack of comment to the Dick Cavett interview is quite enlightening.

Here's more:

Kerry is using a picture in his campaign materials of the group of swift boat captains - the majority of whom do not support him.

What does that say about his character?

KERRY WAR COMRADES PREPARE BATTLE -- AGAINST KERRY

Capped by Kerry's primetime speech to accept the Democratic Party's nomination, Thursday's program will include appearances and remarks by Kerry's Swift Boat crewmates, the Kerry-Edwards campaign announced in a press release this morning.

But a group of veterans will soon try to convince a nation how what is presented on the convention stage tonight -- may not be the full story: "Only 2 of John Kerry's 23 fellow Swift boat commanders from Coastal Division 11 support his candidacy today."

A new bombshell book written by the man who took over John Kerry's Swift Boat charges: Two of John Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations (#1 and #3) resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire.

The startling Purple Heart accusations, outlined in detail for the first time, are found in UNFIT FOR COMMAND, Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.

And that's just the beginning.

The book, previewed by the DRUDGE REPORT, will be unleashed next month by REGNERY.

The book hit #2 on the AMAZON sales chart on the eve of the Kerry acceptance speech in Boston.

Swift Boat Veterans began to fume after Kerry's campaign used a photograph of John Kerry and 19 other Coastal Division 11 Swift boat officers [taken at Ton Sun Nuht Air Base on January 22, 1969] in a pro-Kerry advertisement.

William Shumadine, a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth pictured in the photograph, explains in UNFIT: "John Kerry's use of a photograph with his nineteen comrades, with knowledge that eleven of them comdemn him and six who cannot or do not want to be involved, is a complete misreprentation to the public and a total fraud."

[A major campaign is being planned, beginning next week, over 200 anti-Kerry vets involved, with news conferences in battleground states.]

Developing...

thanks for flooding wonderwench, O'neil was better prepared for that debate but he was wrong, we were no where close to winning in Vietnam. Did you see Kerry's statement made before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 1971? We need someone who can speak truth to power:

I would like to talk on behalf of 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. These 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 is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told stories that at times they 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 Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside 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 call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term Winter Soldier is a play on words of Thomas Paine's in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriots and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out....

In our opinion and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.

We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.

We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese or American.

We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.

We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against "oriental human beings." We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater. We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation by the North Vietnamese. We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point, and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and Fire Base 6s, and so many others.

Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."

We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?....We are here in Washington 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 such as the use of weapons; the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at 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, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything.

An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly. He told me how as a boy on an Indian reservation he had watched television and he used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said, "my God, I am doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people," and he stopped. And that is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to end.

We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We're here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, and so many others? Where are they now that we, the men they sent off to war, have returned? These are the commanders who have deserted their troops. And there is no more serious crime in the laws of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The marines say they never even leave their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They've left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country....

We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission - to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. And more. And so when thirty years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.


Bush's military record: [Missing due to microfilm error] Although I compel you to find anyone who will actually say he even showed up for duty...

compare with:

Kerry 1969 Vietnam Action
The following is a summary of combat actions of PCF94 from February 12 to March 17, 1969 taken from after-action reports and the Coastal Division Eleven Command History on file at the Naval Operational Archives. All locations are near the south end of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

12 FEB 1969
Two swiftboats inserted Navy Seals and conducted normal river patrols the night of February 12 and early morning of February 13.

13 FEB 1969
PCF 94 conducted routine Psyops mission.

14 FEB 1969
Two swiftboats inserted seal team and provided protection for mission.

18 FEB 1969 Bay Hap River
Kerry's boat and another swiftboat, PCF72, entered the Bay Hap River in the afternoon carrying Navy Seals. A mine exploded close to PCF72, and a short time later the two boats came under heavy fire. Five B-40 rounds were fired at Kerry's boat, three missed and exploded on the river bank, one passed across the bow and another passed across the boat's stern. A mine exploded about 15 yards in front of Kerry's boat. It was suspected that the Viet Cong had expected the boats to come up the river and planned an ambush.

19 FEB 1969 Bay Hap River
As a follow-up to the mission of 18 February, five swiftboats moved downriver in the morning with a company of South Vietnamese marines to engage troops that took swiftboats under fire the day before. The boats came under fire several times during the day, although damage was limited to "several SA (small arms) holes in superstructure and rigging of PCH 72 and 94."

20 FEB 1969 Dam Doi River
On a patrol of the Dam Doi River with five other swiftboats and helicopter cover, PCF 94 came under intense small arms and rocket fire from three personnel in black pajamas on the bank. Kerry and one member of his crew were wounded. Kerry received shrapnel wounds in his left thigh. The second man, EN2 Eugene Kenneth Thorson suffered shrapnel wounds in his right arm. Both were treated aboard the USCGC Wachusetts and returned to duty. Persons filing reports on this mission were highly critical of the cover provided by the helicopters and noted that the area seemed prosperous and lacked offensive bunkers, and suggested that future operations in the area avoid destruction. Kerry received the Purple Heart for this operation.

25 FEB 1969 Cua Lon River
Early in the morning, four swiftboats, including Kerry's, rendezvoused to conduct operations against Viet Cong targets with cover from helicopters. The party destroyed several boats as well as a suspected Viet Cong meeting hall containing Ho Chi Minh posters and Viet Cong uniforms. Later in the day, the boats encountered heavy fire from rockets and automatic weapons. The boats and helicopters suppressed the enemy fire. When a man was seen running into a bunker, PCF94 beached and an assault party was sent to retrieve him. The landing party was fired on shortly after landing on the beach and pinned down until another boat could reach the area. When the Viet Cong refused to leave the bunker in spite of repeated requests from the Officer in Charge, the bunker was destroyed.

26 FEB 1969 Cua Lon River
On night patrol with two other swiftboats, PCFs 43 and 44, the patrol discovered a double-hulled sampan. Five men on the sampan jumped overboard, but were trapped the boats at the waters edge. They resisted capture and boat crews had to jump off the boat and drag them back on board. After taking the Vietnamese prisoners back to the boats, all three boats began to pull away from shore when a rocket fired from shore exploded near PCFs 43 and 44. The boats returned fire and withdrew with five prisoners. One of the prisoners taken on board was seriously injured with a broken leg. When filing their report, the crews believed that the prisoners avoided capture to delay and facilitate an attack on the boats. After interrogation, it was determined that the prisoners were not military.

27 FEB 1969 Bay Hap River
On an evening patrol with two other swiftboats, PCFs 23 and 43, about 26 miles south of Ca Mu, the patrol took heavy fire, including five rockets. Three rockets narrowly missed Kerry's boat, and exploded on the opposite bank. Another rocket exploded near PCF 94, and the fifth exploded near PCF 23, wounding a crewmember on that boat. The boats suppressed the fire and withdrew. During the battle, a sailor on Kerry's boat, Crewmember/Trainee Michael J. Givens was shot in the upper right arm. Givens injuries were not serious and he was sent to the 79th field hospital in Can Tho.

28 FEB 1969 Bay Hap River
Three PCFs were traveling up the Bay Hap River with 70 South Vietnamese Militia investigating an area where the boats were ambushed the previous night. During the patrol, the boats came under heavy fore from the shore. Kerry, serving as the Officer in Tactical Command of the mission, ordered the units to turn toward the fire and beach. As the boats approached shore, more than 20 Viet Cong troops stood up and ran. They were quickly overrun when the Marines troops reached the shore. While the Militia searched the area, PCFs 23 and 94 left to investigate another site where an Army advisor reported gunshots. Returning from the site, a B-40 rocket exploded close to PCF94, blowing out one of the windows. Kerry again ordered the units to turn into the fire and charge the ambush site. PCF 94 landed in the center of ambush and a man jumped up holding a B-40 rocket launcher and started to run. The forward M-60 gunner on PCF94 wounded him in the leg as Kerry jumped off the boat and chased him inland behind a hooch and shot him. Marines swept the area, and received fire from snipers and small arms that was suppressed with the assistance of mortars and gunfire from the swiftboats. The landing parties found vast stores of rice, ammunition and clothing. The boats were fired on one additional time as they were heading back down the river. The site of the second ambush was believed to be a major Viet Cong supply point. Kerry received the Silver Star for this operation.

1 MAR 1969 Bay Hap River
Four Swiftboats conducted operation "U-HAUL," which involved towing fuel bladders up the Bay Hap River to Cai Nuoc. The units received light fire during the operation.

10 MAR 1969 Cua Lon River
Four swiftboats, including PCF94, carried troops and surveyed an area where other boats were ambushed two days earlier. No incidents occurred.

11 MAR 1969 Cua Lon River
Three swiftboats cleared the Cua Lon River of barricades. The mission received no hostile fire and no casualties were reported.

12 MAR 1969 Cua Lon River
Four swiftboats proceeded up Cau Lon with 20 troops on board. The boats encountered hostile small arms fire, which was suppressed. A short time later, two or three mines detonated and the boats came under heavy automatic weapons fire from both banks. Unable to suppress the fire, the boats moved south to extract the troops and called in air support. After the area received artillery and air strikes, the boats returned and inserted the troops, who observed, but could not capture 9 Vet Cong troops. One female was captured, taken to the USS Washtenaw and later returned.

13 MAR 1969 Bay Hap River; Dong Cung Canal
Four swiftboats were engaged in moving Mobile Strike Force troops on the Bay Hap River and the Dong Cung Canal. Moving down the river in the afternoon following a day of heavy fighting, a mine detonated underneath PCF 3, lifting it 2-3 feet out of the water and, at the same time, a second mine detonated near PCF94, wounding Kerry and knocking an Army advisor on PCF94 into the water. Meanwhile the boats began receiving heavy fire from both sides of the river. Kerry, who had received shrapnel wounds and hurt his right arm, directed his gunners to provide suppressing fire while he pulled the Army advisor back into his boat. PCF 94 then returned to aid PCF 3 and towed the boat down the river to safety. Kerry received the Bronze Star for this action.

I have read Kerry's infamous "Winter Soldier" testimony before Congress. He trashes the memory of thousands who gave their lives and served with honor. He impugnes 2M+ who served with honor and returned home to a hostile environment due to the lies spread by Kerry.

It doesn't matter how honorably Kerry served during his four months in Viet Nam - his behavior upon return has been appalling.

The Swift Boat Veterans are calling him on his lies.

Good.

Hmm, I wonder what I would get out of Kerry's Congressional Testimony if I did it tripping on acid as well....

I guess i'll have to quote myself here:

Yes, some soldiers committed atrocities in Vietnam. However, the true war criminals are the maniacs that gave us terms like "free-fire zone." It is a common tactic of the right to equate anti-war with anti-soldier. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kerry's anti-Vietnam campaign was meant to save his fellow soldiers, not trash them. The same argument was tried 30 years ago, and it rang just as false then.

Wonderwench:

You didn't post these words?

Then I must warn you that someone has access to your account and is taking indirect shots at other forum participants.

That was a bit beneath you Superbelt. But your point, although overstated is well taken. It seems that Wonderwench has taken to massive amounts of retorical wriggling to avoid cognitive dissonance.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/4900128.html

It appears that many of his actual crewmates support him. I guess maybe you have to actually serve alongside someone to have some perspective on who they were at the time.

That is rather mean - I've never heard the claim that Kerry testified while on acid before.

Where did you get that info?

Hmmmmm...Let me see. The majority of Swift Boat Captains who served with Kerry are opposed to him being President. Seems pretty cut and dried to me - those who knew him back then don't trust him now.

Good enough for me.

How is Kerry lying? Seriously have you ever seen any footage, photos, or testimony to contradict what he has to say. It's not always easy to speak truth to power but that's what he did in 1971. The American leaders made fundamental errors in understanding the very premise for the Vietnam conflict. I think you need to read it again:


I would like to talk on behalf of 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. These 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 is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told stories that at times they 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 Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside 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 call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term Winter Soldier is a play on words of Thomas Paine's in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriots and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out....

In our opinion and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.

We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.

We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese or American.

We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.

We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against "oriental human beings." We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater. We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation by the North Vietnamese. We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point, and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and Fire Base 6s, and so many others.

Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."

We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?....We are here in Washington 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 such as the use of weapons; the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at 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, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything.

An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly. He told me how as a boy on an Indian reservation he had watched television and he used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said, "my God, I am doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people," and he stopped. And that is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to end.

We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We're here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, and so many others? Where are they now that we, the men they sent off to war, have returned? These are the commanders who have deserted their troops. And there is no more serious crime in the laws of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The marines say they never even leave their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They've left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country....

We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission - to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. And more. And so when thirty years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.

I suspect that some of the Swift Boat Captains, like others here, have misconstrued Kerry's condemnation of the Vietnam War as an attack on all soldiers that fought in that war. This is an unfortunate but all too common misconception in the military.

Edit: It's interesting how the same accusations that were hurled at Kerry over thirty years ago have been dusted off and lobbed at him again with no revision or regard for the historical record. Is it not common knowledge today that the US committed atrocities in Vietnam? Does anyone still consider this a controversial idea?

Kerry testified before Congress that war crimes were "commonplace" and that atrocities were carried out with full knowledge of the command structure. He then paraded this fiction around the country.

Atrocities have been and will be committed in any war - this is why war is literally hell. The reprensible actions of a few should not disparage the honor of the vast majority of our service personnel. Kerry's grandstanding and lies harmed many innocent and honorable vets.

What the hell do you think that a "free fire zone" is if not an invitation by the command structure to commit war crimes?

Edit: Forgive me...a "free fire zone" is not an invitation...it is an order.

wonderwench, maybe I'm wrong, but I think you are a female. I also think you are under 40. If you meet either of those conditions, you didn't serve in the US armed forces during the Vietnam War. That being the case, you have no first-hand intelligence of what went on. You are choosing to believe one of two conflicting reports (namely, that command was unaware of atrocities carried out during the war). That is your right. Don't cast that belief as the iron-clad truth.

It is irrelevant that I did not serve in Viet Nam.

There are two conflicting points of view.

1. The Kerry version in which he claims to have committed war crimes himself - and that atrocities were "commonplace" and committed with the full knowledge of the command structure. If that is the case, why were not 2M+ veterans court martialed - including Kerry himself?

2. The Truth. Atrocities were committed by a small minority of soldiers acting on their own. War crimes were not standard operating procedure.

One does not have to experience something first hand to be able to interpret the information and reach a rational conclusion.

As I stated before, tactical designations such as "free-fire zones" were an implicit order to commit war crimes (wanton killing of civilians and all that). These orders emanated from the top, so the lack of war crime court martials should be unsurprising. These men were forced into horrible acts by their superiors. Is this really a new idea to anyone here? Don't the hundreds of books that have been written in the decades since Vietnam fully disclose this truth?

In instances such as this, each participant of every rank, is bound to inform the chain of command that war crimes are occurring. To have not done that is inexcusable and criminally culpable.

Art,

When I hear that a man is forced into an organization (Vietnam grunts were draftees), taught obedience and then ordered to commit horrible actions, I tend to put the blame for those acts on the organization, not the soldier.

Lt. Calley claimed that his commander gave him his orders....unsurprisingly, nothing ever came of it.

I just don't understand how in the past few years Vietnam has become this great lighthouse beacon to the Right.

I grew up watching friends of my dad's come home, torn, beaten, crippled physically and mentally, drug addicts, morally broken, hating the country's leaders for putting them in a war that we had no reason being in.

Hating the country they loved's government for treating the men in VA hospitals like sub human guinea pigs.

Hating the country because the VFW's that wouldn't allow them in.

Hating the American Legions that wouldn't let them in as members.

Hating a country that dumped agent Orange and purple and Napalm on them.

Hating the country because when they got home they were spat on and called babykillers.

Hating the country becausewe didn't go in after the MIA/POW's.

And when I was old enough and talked to them, (because I was interested in history) they said they saw things that WE did and THEY did things they never thought they would do. In THEIR words I heard stories of how they killed whole villages because they didn't know whom to trust and orders were sent to find the guerillas in the village and they followed orders, because those who didn't were sent into the really bad areas (killing zones) or sent out on recon.

I heard stories how they saw men killing our own men because they were loaded up on drugs and heard a noise and shot without thinking.

I heard a lot more stories and NOT ONCE did I hear how great and noble it was, or how moral the men were. Those are myths, fallacies created the past 5-10 years, first to try to defeat Clinton then to defeat Kerry.

I can contrast this to how the WW2 vets will talk on and on about their war and homecomings in a much different way.

So, no Kerry testified seeing what many over there saw. What many reported seeing and having been a part of themselves (anyone ever see Born on The 4TH of July? True story, noone blasted Ron Kovic for showing how evil that war was.)

Vietnam Vets who saw the movie Platoon acknowledge how true that movie was.

WHY ARE PEOPLE BLASTING KERRY FOR SPEAKING OUT NOW? Why now is Vietnam becoming so glorious when the leader of the party trying to glorify it 1) never went: 2) took a year off in his service to "campaign for a family friend".

Did Limbaugh serve? Did O'Reilly serve? Did any of those right wingers who are behind other's efforts to tarnish Kerry's record on 'Nam serve?

You want to attack Kerry on policy fine. Attack him, but attacking him for doing what many did when they came home and how 1000's upon 1000's felt when they came home just shows the depths of your hatred and your uncaring trivialness of what true VietNam vets went through. And when we trivialize Vietnam, we forget, and in forgetting we are destined to repeat history.

Do any of you truly want to do that?

People are criticizing Kerry because upon his return from his four months in Viet Nam he testified before Congress that war crimes were common place among his fellow soldiers. He dishnored the memory and reputations of over 2.5M soliders.

Now, he cries up his Viet Nam service - Kerry is the one who made Viet Nam a campaign issue. His ads and other campaign materials make frequent mention of it. The people he dishonored don't like it.

I can't blame them.

Geez....deja vu. Maybe (just maybe) we could stop equating the criticisim of the Vietnam war effort with criticism of the common soldier. Is that too much to ask?

It is when the goal is to smear a man.

http://www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/tim...j_kerry_s.html

Anybody else here ever watch the movie Hamburger Hill?
Incredibly sad story. It's up there with movies like Platoon that everyone should see to really understand what was going on over there.

First, he EARNED those medals and ribbons.

Who did he dishonor?

A country that used CHEMICAL WEAPONS illegally and poisoned there own men with those chemicals and then refused to treat them in VA hospitals?

Generals like Westmoreland to whom the battle was to be won no matter the cost only to turn around and say, "ok we won have the hill back."?

Military industrial companies like Dow (makers of Agent Orange), Boeing, McDonnell Douglass, for whom they made millions and kept the war machine moving by using lobbyists and payoffs?

I know he dishonored a President who had people break into Watergate and ordered Governor James Rhodes to call out the National Guard on a University demonstration in Ohio.... It was called KENT STATE and people lost their lives for pecefully demonstrating against that noble government and its war.

Or did he dishonor the FBI and the secret lists they kept of people who demonstrated and labelled them as non-patriots?

Or did he dishonor the men who committed these attrocities yet believed that the military like the NYC police department had a code of silence and was to turn a blind eye from the evils we were doing?

Or did he HONOR the US by bringing forth (what MANY 'Nam vets) brought forth and that was the negligence of the leaders and he questioned the government and wanted this country to do better.

So stick to issues. Stick to healthcare and the millions who have found themselves living in poverty within the last 4 years.

I just saw an article yesterday or thge day before I was going to post but figured someone else would (noone did, so I'll do a search and find it and post it). The report stated that the average family the past 2 years made less each year YET CEOS made 15% more each year (the report came from the IRS by the way.). ADDRESS THOSE ISSUES.

Address why people must go into poverty because in this great nation our president cares more about the top 1% getting a tax cut than he does about a healthcare system that is affordable to ALL.

Maybe if Jawnboy would stop starting every sentence with "I was in Viet Nam" maybe people would drop it.

Perhaps, if the right debated the issues and showed that they truly aren't just the party of Limbaugh, Robertson and the rich but of all US citizens then you wouldn't have to worry about what John says or how often he says it.

I'll bite.

I want to know how you think telling the truth dishonors those soldiers? Wouldn't the actual dishonor be to say that everything that happened in Vietnam was good and right and honorable? Perhaps you think lying or keeping silent about it would have been better. The real insult to those men and women was what the US government asked them to do.

i looked at the website the citation of which started this whole thread, which i have kept out of until now.

i found it difficult to determine anything about these people that did not loop back onto the activities of the organization as they were cited in the press (wire services, papers, right think tank proceedings, blogs--mostly conservative).

while it is obvious that websites can be produced cheaply and that there is no requirement for wider support from the outside world, something about these people makes me suspicious--does anyone have any information about these "veterans for 'truth'"?

their line fits directly into the tradition established by the far right since the early 1970s of revisionist histories of vietnam. they might be individuals who are looping themselves for political reasons through the main right narrative--one that looks to erase the history of criminal actions by the americans in vietnam (from fabricating the tonkin gulf incident to agent orange to napalm to massacres on the ground) and replace it with some johnwayne narrative----as if thinking about the history of the veitnam war can be reduced to the assumption that either everyone was a war criminal or no-one was a war criminal--and that within this ridiculous framework, the "honor" of the military can only be salvaged if the idea is floated that no-one was a war criminal.

Nobody is saying that everything that happened in Viet Nam was all sweetness and light - but neither was it the mass orchestration of war crimes as represented by John Kerry.

All soldiers receive training that they are not to participate in war crimes and if they have knowledge of them, they are to immediately report them. Kerry, by his own Winter Soldier testimony, must have violated his own training. He said he committed crimes and he did not report them at the time. Instead, he returned to the U.S. and accused the entire military of participating in war crimes.

Truth is one thing - exageration and lying for personal political gain are something altogether different and despicable. Kerry did the latter.

BTW, he stated in an interview in 2002 that he would not use his home movies from Viet Nam for campaign purposes. Another flip flop.

You are neglecting the fact that Kerry did not tell the truth. He implicated the entire military community in Viet Nam as being guilty of war crimes via vague generalizations.

The real insult is to the vast majority of soldiers who served honorably.

Of this is true, why didn't Kerry report it at the time?

If the command structure is aware of and responsible for these war crimes, isn't it obvious why Kerry would not report these acts?

What lie? Isn't the existence of a "free-fire zone" a war crime in and of itself? It is not 1971 anymore....the American people now know what went on in Vietnam. Perhaps these ancient arguments need to be rethought.

Why do you care? Did he dishonor you? How are you in any position to comment on whether or not kerry portrayed vietnam as he experienced it accurately? You have no right to claim that anyone was dishonored because you don't know. Are you pretending that this new veteran's group is any less biased than kerry? That they have less of an axe to grind? Certainly atrocities happen, they're just as much a part of war as apple pie and civilian beheadings. Is it that much of a stretch to acknowledge that they actually may have been endorsed by a c.o.? Is that so implausible or are you blinded by conservative talking points to actually consider the possibility?

The republicans made vietnam an issue way back when clinton was up for election. Kerry didn't start it, he just turned the table. If only the newt gingrich republican could have forseen that the next republican administration would be composed almost completely with chicken hawks.

What pass did the So Called Liberal Media ever give bubba? That man was hounded from day one.

Did anyone hear the guy on the Michael Savage show tonight? I think his name was Steve Gardner and he was a Gunners Mate on Jawn's boat for 2 months.

I don't listen to lunatics or charlatans.

Edit: Michael Savage, not the other guy. I don't know him.

Again, the right refuses to just stick to the issues and have to keep trying to "drudge" up this Vietnam issue.

Ok, so let's say the Vietnam issue causes enough people in swing states to vote for Bush and cost Kerry to lose the vote. It wasn't done on issues it was done on mudslinging.

What does that tell the future candidates? Tells me they will not win on issues just on who has the less mud on them.

It's a slippery slope we have been going down because when we elect officials because of less mud and not on substance then we get what we vote for. All glitter no substance and that is no way to run a great nation and make it better.

To me that is a hollow victory that is more dangerous than having someone who made mistakes or did what they believed and were crucified for their beliefs.

I WAS IN VIET NAM

I bet you wake up every day and curse the hour that john kerry disgraced you and all of those that served alongside you.

Even so, for every vet that hates kerry there is a vet that loves the shit out of him. It isn't as simple as a talking point.

And suddenly everyone served in Vietnam...

Few if any veterans come back from Vietnam saying it was a "good war" and a "fun war." Even those who volunteered seeing it a noble goal often came back changed - very changed.

Just look in their eyes and you will see what they mean - and it is always the same, they never wish to force war upon another generation after what they have gone through. They always hope their sacrifice and war would end future wars - but it always happens.

Anyways my point is this - such disgrace that the same ideology that honors soldiers and the military goes out to slam other veterans simply based on ideology. Rather than thank them for serving in a war few kids remember, few want to remember, and one that we lost - they go out and slam those veterans as "commies" and "traitors." Yes, believe it or not, there are many veterans that are "liberal" just as there are those who are "conservative."

Even if you disagree with those vets, I think one could show more respect rather than claim respect, but mudsling when it comes down to ideology - it just doesn't make any sense.

I care because Kerry is running for President. It matters to me that he lied about his fellow soldiers to further his own political career.

I have a policy of pre-emption regarding for whom I vote. In Kerry's case, I want to prevent him from dishonoring me - which he would certainly do if he were able to fulfill his promise to subordinate our national security interests to the U.N.

I am literate and I have a brain.

I have the inalienable right to evaluate the information and make my own conclusions, thank you very much.

The veterans' (note usage of plural noun) group has just as much right to speak up as Kerry does. It is up to each individual to decide who is more credible. I believe John O'Neill - he does not have his personal ambition at stake, as does Kerry. He also doesn't have a long history of flip-flopping, as does Kerry.

Yes, they do have less of an axe to grind - they haven't built their lives upon the defamation of over 2.5M of their fellow soldiers. (It takes a lot of grinding to sharpen an axe enough to whack that many necks.) Military personnel receive training to immediately report war crimes. Is it possible that there are corrupt COs? Yes. Is it a common place, day to day circumstance - highly doubtful.

Here's a little story about that: No.

1992 has absolutely nothing to do with 2004. Kerry has made Viet Nam his main qualification to be Commander in Chief. This is rather odd considering that he spent four months in Nam over 35 years ago. He mentions this far more than his 20 or so years in the Senate. Don't you wonder why? He also has avoided mentioning his activism (read: smear campaign against his fellow soldiers) upon his return. This part of his background was completely left out of the bio piece at the convention. Again, don't you wonder why? Could it be because Kerry himself has said he exagerated his testimony (which he has since admitted).

He is a fraud. I would rather not have a fraud for President.

And around and around in a circle we go...

What is the point of debating if one simply brings the same things back up, avoids evidence, avoids the subject, brings up other things, and spins in a circle again?

In those cases, the words 'debate' shouldn't be even used.

+2cents

Wonderwench,

I think that we al know where the real smear campaign is coming from. We can repeat the same, tired logic from 30 years ago, but it doesn't make it any more true then it was then. In fact, history has shown that much of what Kerry said then had some validity.

I don't anything about their claims, but just so ya guys know, these "swift boat veterans" are headed by the same right-wing operatives that took down John McCain 4 years ago.

Smear Boat Veterans for Bush

And here you can listen to John Kerry's anti-war speech before the 1971 Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I wish that (anti-war) Kerry was still here today! :(

Kerry certainly did mention his anti-war activism, and it also figured prominently in the bio piece. I suggest watching it again.

Thanks for the article, hammer4all, here it is for those who don't want to listen to some ads:

John O'Neill is a Democrat.

History has shown that most of what Kerry said was exageration and for self-promotion.

He spent more time disparaging the reputations of his fellow soldiers than he spent in Viet Nam. Why isn't he highlighting his anti-war activities in his campaign?

So is Zell Miller, who, by the way is speaking at your convention next month.

And John Ritter (UN Weapons Inspector to Iraq) is a Republican and has come out full force against Bush for Invading Iraq over flimsy WMD evidence and not listening to the experts who were telling him he was wrong. (He also voted Bush in 2000)

Being a democrat doesn't mean you are a liberal and love Kerry.

I'm a registered Democrat who agrees with Zell Miller that the party has gone downhill.

Kerry is of the unfortunate new Democrat model in which class politics and divisiveness are played up in high relief - to the destruction of civil society.

Small example: Kerry's statement that Bush is "opening firehouses in Baghdad and shutting them in the United States of America" in his acceptance speech.

The cynisicm of this statement is almost indescribable - and poses a mock choice. Fire stations in Iraq and the U.S. are not mutually exclusive.

Party may be relevant to you, but it means little to me.

Your interpretation of history says that. I make no such conclusion.

Once again we come to the same point....I consider Kerry's criticism of the conduct of American soldiers in Vietnam as a condemnation of the policies that shaped the war, not the soldiers themselves. This is getting tiresome. You can keep repeating arguments that lost their vitality thirty years ago if you'd like. You can paste a transcript that talks about the breaking of the NVA by the South Vietnamese and consider it relevant, too. Personally, I'm getting sick of fending off the same Republican talking points over and over and over. If we can't come up with something more original than channeling our parties press releases, then it's going to be a long wait for november.

Indescribable cynicism? Are you kidding? Are Democrats allowed to criticise Bush at all, or does that qualify as hate speech? And liberals are accused of hyper-sensitivity....sheesh.

Since when have politics not been divisive? Class warfare? Most freakin' Democrats won't even admit that there is a class system in this country. Jesus, do we have to become total mouthpieces for our parties? I'm not even a Democrat, but I find myself in the uncomforatable position of defending Kerry just because these attacks on him are so furious yet baseless. I wonder where all of those who cried "politics as usual" in the July surprise thread have gone. It seems that that sentiment is missing from this thread.

This is funny.

Is this the same wonderwench who started the f9/11 thread to bash it without even seeing the movie. You don't even pretend to take in both sides of an issue.

You seem to think that everyone on your side of the aisle is incapable of underhandedness or deception and you accuse everyone who doesn't agree with you of intellectual dishonesty and foolishness. Is it that difficult to see that the "swift boat veterans for truth" are nothing more than a republican allied political organization? They aren't bipartisan. They are exploiting the "dishonored veterans" to help the republican party reach its political goals. Just like you're exploiting "dishonored veterans" to get all up in arms about the democratic presidential candidate. I doubt you'd bat an eye if bush ever did anything to that could be percieved as unbecoming towards veterans.

note: if you're going to try and nitpick my grammar, and imply that you are still in high school in the process, at least choose something that is clearly grammatically wrong.

Like gouge veterans benefits?

Let's face it some people just cannot or will not ever argue issues because they know the GOP can't win. All they can do then is try to smear and call names and do whatever they can to try to make Kerry more repulsive to independants and fence sitters than Bush has made himself already appear.

They will change history to make Vietnam look like it was a great wholesome, moral war.

They will call Kerry a UN pussy and say he will sell us out to them.

They will call him unpatriotic.

They will try to turn voting records against him (and yes, there are many Senators and Reps that change their votes on issues because the issues and what is in them changes, but for some they don't want to admit that fact).

They will take any fact based debate against Bush and within 2 sentences start slamming Kerry personally and on this threads subject and not on facts concerning his politics NOW.

We have all done things we choose to forget or that embarass us, a politician is no different and for him to explain himself every time he talks takes time away from him discussing the issues and his platform, and that is why those GOP people want so desperately for this subject to stick to Kerry. They can't win real debates on real issues (because all they know is hate and they are blind to facts), so they resort to cheap tactics and partisan politics and hate mongering.

I have no respect for those types of GOP members. The GOP members that can debate issues civally and show respect have my undying respect, because in the end those people and I truly want a better country. Hate mongerers and cheapshot artists and bullies don't want a better nation they just want things their way and fuck anyone else.

And before I get slammed, YES there are people on the left that do the same thing.

Not as funny as some people's peddling of empty rhetoric and party line adherence as debate. I suppose that if one screams into an echo chamber long enough that it might begin to sound like a conversation.

Thats so funny cause I was talking to my gradfather and he said almost the exact same words except subbing, dems for GOP, Bush for Kerry, you get the idea. It seems like more and more both the Dems and the Rebs use the exact same disses on each other. If we accomplish nothing else this election year I say one of the parties at least come up with some origanal smack talk. I mean come on this is America talking shit is one of those things we do well. This whole no I'm not you are kinda third grade thing we've got going is not at all representative of the highschool level smack whe could throw around. In fact I'll get us started.

Keri's mom is so fat that when she goes to a movie she sits next to everyone.

In all seriousness how is a concerivitive minded voter, who would be more than willing to vote dem if the right guy came along, such as myself ever suposed to sort anything out when it seems like both parties insult each other for the same things. Any one have any sources for non biased facts. Do those even exist.

Just so this can at least be sort of on topic. I don't like the way Bush handled the Viatnam thing, but I think its important to remember that had his unit been called, yes I know very unlikely, but had it been he would have had to fight just like anyone else. At least he wasn't in another country completely hiding out. As far as Keri goes I don't know a whole lot about what went down, but it seems like his men liked him, and they don't award bronze and silver stars for being a jack off so he must have done something right. Chalk that up as Keri 3 points Bush 1 point, in november the canadite with the most points gets my vote.

^ what was it winston churchill said about five minutes with the average voter? (please take in good humor, not as a flame...)

Something new
Kerry's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander George Elliot retracts his smear on Kerry. He has decided to now tell the truth and says Kerry acted correctly and deserved his honors.

Score one for the truth.

So, now what he says is the truth? Before what he said was a lie but now that he supports Kerry he's telling the truth.

How about just discounting his opinion since he can't seem to decide what the truth really is?

That would be the most logical avenue actually. As well as assuming that this is the standard for which SBVFT accepts statements and "accounts"
This is the kind of character people they are represented by.

Good luck with that smear campaign. Especially with McCain vocally denouncing their statements, and tactics.

Personally I couldn't care less about the whole "issue". I don't like either side's position on this.

Kerry was in Vietnam he was awarded some medals. That's splendid.

The complete bullshit involved in this campaign underscores for me why current political tactics and the effort voters put in to understand reality are pathetic.

On the specific issue of military service the hypocrisy amazes me.

There are claims that Kerry didn't earn these medals. The response from the Kerry campaign is basically that they went through the necessary military channels to be approved so they shouldn't even be in dispute. Fine. I agree.

Now, on to the claims against Bush and his attendance at guard drills. His campaign claims that everything went through the proper channels, they were approved otherwise the military wouldn't have signed off on his completion of duty. Fine. I agree.

However, each side refuses to stipulate that the military approval(s) of the other were proper.

Now, on to this Swift boat group. They are a group of people with something to say and they are saying it. They are taking donations from people who support their message. Somehow the other side thinks it's wrong that they're doing this because they are supposedly politically motivated or whatever. Fine, while I think they have the right to say what they want, I feel this group is subverting campaign finance reform laws by taking unlimited contributions and working against Kerry. But so are the 527 groups being used by the Dems.

All the BS associated with these issues is fully partisan manure. Until people recognize it and focus on real issues we will only get more of the same.

You're right. I would also like to see all 527's barred from advertising. I'd also like to see the NRA, Sierra Club, ect stop political advertisements as well.

All advertisements should be restricted to positive messages for a particular candidate. Negatives should be strictly prohibited.

Gee Superbelt, you and I agree on something.

I wouldn't go so far as saying all negatives should be banned. I don't have much of a problem with the Sierra club and the NRA advertising. I think it's because they are more issue oriented than politically motivated IMO. I would expect the NRA to support candidates who agree with their goals relating to gun ownership and the like and oppose those who don't. So long as they focus on the issues that relate to them I think it's ok.

The problem I have is with groups that are created with the sole intention of supporting a specific political party (or opposing another). They become pseudo arms of the party system and subvert campaign finance reform.

I guess I see the possibility that the NRA or Sierra Club could change alliances if the parties eventually migrate toward the other side on issues important to the groups.

Of course, allowing groups with very specific agendas to continue to take unlimited campaign contributions while banning the "general political" groups from doing so would only encourage the parties to set up dummy issue oriented groups to campaign against their opposition.

In the end, what I would ideally like to see is restrictions on all advertising for or against candidates. If groups want to advertise to influence elections, their contributors should be revealed and their individual (and corporate) $ contributions capped at a reasonable level. That way those with the most money to advertise are the ones with the broadest support from voters.

so. . . how are you two gonna do that without violating the first amendment?

onetime2's thoughts on this (above), echo my own.

Limiting contributions is not a violation of the First ammendment. Individuals would still be allowed to say what they want. You want to take out an ad in the NY Times saying you think GWB is an idiot or that you disagree with specific issues, feel free.

These limits are the same as we see being placed on the GOP and DNC. Do you think all campaign finance reform limits violate the right to free speech? If so, we disagree and won't likely find common ground.

God I hate when I agree with Onetime.... I feel so so ..... conservative. LOL.... I tease cause I love ya, Onetime.

I still say the best way for campaign reform is to force all stations that have FCC licsences to give not just equal time but FREE time.

Each federal and gubenatorial candidate gets 3 - 30 second commercials every other half hour or hour.

As for magazines and newspapers each candidate gets FREE equal space and the ads either run next to each other in WEEKLIES (Kerry's on page 32, then Bush is on page 33 and if Badnarik and Nader are on all 50 state ballots then Kerry and Bush each get 1/2 of page 32 and Bad. and Nader each get 1/2 of page 33) or in DAILIES the ads run every othe day Kerry/Badnarik get page 4 on M/W/F = Bush/ Nader get page 4 T/TH/SA and Sunday the ads are shared like in a weekly.

That cuts down probably the most expensive part of campaigning.

There is precendence for this as by FCC law stations have to have so much time devoted to public service AND they have to offer equal time to candidates.

The rules are now if a candidate cannot afford equal time "AW WELL, FUCK THE DEADBEAT, HE CAN'T PAY FOR THE SPACE"

But this will never happen the media makes too much money on campaign ads.

That's how I would do it. See if it works and how well.

Yeah sometimes it burns doesn't it? ;-)

I thought that you didn't agree with regard to the 527 groups though? Our last discussion on this topic ended with your acceptance of them in an "anything to defeat Bush" kind of way.

Not trying to stir things up here, I'm just curious. Did you change your mind on the groups? If so I'd love to hear what shifted the stance. If you still feel the same that's fine but sometimes it's reassuring to hear of people overcoming the partisanship to focus on issues that go beyond Republican and Democrat (or Independent, Green, whatever).

Personally, I think these groups lead to more partisanship and send us down the wrong path in addition to allowing too much influence on the process from large contributors.

I'll continue to point out how this group is sunk as I see them.

Adm. Roy Hoffman

Now he is saying
What are these people getting out of making up these statements?

That's not limiting contributions, that's restricting what can be said. They're advocating making it illegal to say anything but what they want you to say. That's a violation of the 1st.


I missed that comment the first time around. ROFL!

I honestly don't remember arguing 527 groups, I will say part of me says let them say what they want, part of me says they just add to hate mongering. But they burn themselves out. Like Move On has burnt itself out and noone pays attention to them anymore.

Flipping through today on Faux News there was something I finally agreed with them on. Forget who it was (around 10AM EST), but they were talking about this Swift Group from the thread and he said that Bush should just concede Kerry as a war hero and disassociate himself with the Swift Group and move onto the issues Bush knows he can win on.

His reasoning was that Bush is opening a can of worms, lowering himself to mudslinging and people are going to get sick of hearing about the Swift Group much like they did Move On and then it'll be more hurtful to his candidacy than helpful.

After I watched that they did something else, but it was much more partsan, so like a good American, I flipped to Gilligan's Island.

pan6467, I spent two years in Vietnam, and in essence I have to say that your observations on the first page of this thread are right on the money; however, the Swift Boat Veterans seem to think they have experienced things differently. Although I don't agree with their particular ideology, they have "walked the walk" and one can't take that away from any of them. I have never felt "dishonored" by what any person who served in Vietnam has had to say about his or her particular experience.

These days everyone tries to twist the truth and only gives you half the story. Here's a pretty nonpartisan look at that ad:

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=231

One of the men featured, George Elliott, says he made a "terrible mistake" when he accused Kerry of not deserving one of his awards.

Here's what John McCain said about the ad:

McCain : I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crewmates have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam.

I'm not pro Kerry; actually Im not pro Bush either.

Any medal issued in the military goes through a review board. So basically these men the SWIFT boat crew are attacking the integrity of the military itself. Why havent they taken the fight to them; or the first instant he ran for any public service.

The one point I do agree on is the fact that a picture is being used (although I dont know where as the site claims) without their consent.

When one clicks on the about us link this is what is stated: "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy "527" organization that consists of and is limited to former military officers and enlisted men who served in Vietnam on U.S. Navy "Swift Boats" or in affiliated commands."

Thats sounds fair and neutral-

There is no link to George Bush; however the source of the Swift Boat group's financing wasn't known when it first surfaced, but a report filed July 15 with the Internal Revenue Services now shows its initial funding came mainly from a Houston home builder, Bob R. Perry, who has also given millions to the Republican party and Republican candidates, mostly in Texas, including President Bush and Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whose district is near Houston.

Perry gave $100,000 of the $158,750 received by the Swift Boat group through the end of June.

Perry and his wife Doylene also gave more than $3 million to Texas Republicans during the 2002. The Perrys also were among the largest Republican donors in neighboring Louisiana, where they gave $200,000, and New Mexico, where they gave $183,000. At the federal level the Perrys have given $359,825 since 1999, including $6,000 to Bush's campaigns.

http://forms.irs.gov/politicalOrgsSe...4&formType=E72

Non partisan? Going back to what others have said in this post; I think this was the wrong area to attack; when a comparison is done the the service of GWB; it only further accents the truth.

A couple of sites that track any funding are

http://www.followthemoney.org/index.phtml

and

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.asp

Didn't read all the threads, but I'm surprised there wasn't more talk about how ridiculous that site is.

They're upset that he's using the photo that he's in? Wow. Unless Kerry has been saying, "Everyone in this photo supports me", then there's not much of a problem.

He took a picture with other people and he showed it off. So f'n what? All this stuff is trivial nitpicking and has NOTHING to do with his stand on the issues.

People need better things to do with their time :lol:

I did get a kick out of the "Click here for a morphing video of the "before" and "after" images above." They actually took the image that they use for the rollover (that highlights Kerry and his supporter) and made a flash movie of it. What's the point?! :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Because it seems as if Kerry was saying that those men support him, and they wanted to make their views clear.

You're right, it was mml that made the statement about 527 groups. (Don't think that I'm just grouping all you liberal wack jobs together ;) it's just that there are a few people from "the other side" on here whose opinions I respect and I tend to group them together and occasional may get you confused. You and mml make up about 50% of that group.)

As far as burning themselves out I disagree. They are likely getting stronger and there will soon be a significant counter offensive on the right.

Check out the concert with Bruce Springsteen et al, they're sponsoring. That hardly seems like ACT and Move On have lost their drive or funding.

The fact that the press isn't focusing on these groups gives them more strength. That means there will be less pressure for the FEC to shut them down and a greater likelihood that the Republicans will form their own on a grand scale. Right now the Republicans have been using these in limited ways (probably waiting till the FEC rules so they can make a big deal about it should the groups be found in violation of campaign finance laws).

--Paul

No, Kerry said that the men he SERVED with supported him. Not a few wankers who were never in the same boat as him but who participated in a smear campaign to mislead the public into THINKING they served with him.

I've made the same point about the medals. Additionally I likened it to the argument that Bush did not complete his duties in the National Guard. The military says differently yet the Kerry supporters deride Bush as AWOL.

As far as the Swift Boat group being a 527, I covered that as well. They are a 527 just like ACT and Move On. They all accept unlimited donations from who ever wants to support them. If the argument is that they should not be listened to or allowed to profess their beliefs, it must cut both ways.

All of this is partisan politics at its finest. Both sides are criticizing the other for the EXACT things they are doing themselves. According to the Dems, Move On and ACT are perfectly acceptable despite the millions given by individuals (George Soros for one) yet the Swift Boat group is unacceptable because it took $100k.

Bush's discharge went through military channels. Kerry's medals went through military channels. Are there questions about each of their service? Absolutely. But it doesn't mean a damned thing today.