OpieCunningham

Edited for rudeness to another member

pan6467

Well then I guess if it's on all the other news channels it must be fact then.

Like I stated in my first post I was too busy with school today to really catch any news. I just went by the original statement that it was Dredge and ABC. (which are the sources the others are probably using.)

Faux News does not surprise me in using this.

NBC, the news source I personally prefer over anyone else, using this, shows me there maybe some fact to it.

As for my defense of Rather, just so noone says I defended Rather. I stated I would trust him over Dredge. I lost respect for Dan rather back in the 80's when he walked off during a news broadcast that had like 7 minutes left to go over something that didn't seem that important. (Can't remember what it was, but I'm sure someone on here will find it.)

I will defend CBS though, because they have been pretty reliable. Although they hold onto correspondants way way too long. How old is the youngest anchor on 60 Minutes anyway?

Also I've heard from people, I trust, that have met/known him and they all have said he is an arrogant asshole.

I still say this is just more of the neverending attack on Viacom for whatever reason.

PS for those that get irate at some, I highly suggest using it... I have recently found the ignore post feature to work quite nicely, and I do not believe I am missing any facts. I have done it to only 1 but it is so much nicer now, because most posters on here even if we don't agree provide facts and treat others with due respect.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

irateplatypus

i'm irate all the time! oh wait, that's not what you meant.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

phyzix525

where are you getting this?

I just got this off ABCNews

Killian's son, Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father, also told ABC News Radio that he doubts his father wrote the documents. "It was not the nature of my father to keep private files like this, nor would it have been in his own interest to do so," he said.

"We don't know where the documents come from," he said, adding, "They didn't come from any family member."

His daughter and wife both have come out against this.

If this is true and these are false, Kerry is sunk for sure.

__________________
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It's hard to remember we're alive for the last time
It's hard to remember to live before you die
It's hard to remember that our lives are such a short time
It's hard to remember when it takes such a long time

Ustwo

No you don't understand these documents are obviously true, even if his widow, his son, and his fellow officers say they are fake and totally out of the character of the man who wrote them, while people who served with Kerry in Vietnam are obviously lying and paid for by Bush.

This is the interesting thing about the thought processes of some of the people here. When I first heard about the new Bush files I figured it was something of the classic 'October Surprise' and I didn't think they would be stupid enough to use fakes. I assumed they were sitting on these and released them now as a political ploy of course, and Dan Rather would be a willing accomplice, but I did assume they would be true. (btw whoever said that Dan Rather doesn't write his own stories, that my well be true because he is big enough to not have to, but if you think he doesn't get final approval on what he goes with after all these years as their #1 guy you are sadly mistaken).

I can't say I am unhappy that they look like they may well be fakes, but I gave them the possibility of being true.

Others here seem to assume that if its something bad about Kerry is said, it must be somehow planed, paid for and manipulated by the Bush campaign and can be ignored. When a former POW in Vietnam says Kerry's lying testimony to congress was used to justify his torture, they say 'see the guy who funded the add that let this man speak is a Bush supporter therefore it can't be trusted!'

But when a scandal ridden Kerry fundraiser changes his story on Bush's guard duty and Dan Rather gives the guy an interview there is nothing untoward with it.

When you allow your intellectual honesty to suffer in order to maintain your beliefs you exchange your philosophy for a religion. Ironic when you think how some members of the left think about religious faith.

Edit: I felt I should add this.

If the worst things said about Bush in the Vietnam Years are true then his father tried to keep him out of the war, he was crappy at showing up on time, and used his connections to get away with it.

If the worst things said about John Kerry are true, he knownly gave aid and comfort to the enemy by lying to congress, and added to the suffering of American POW's in Vietnam.

The first one shows a spoiled foturnate son.
The second shows a traitor.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

OpieCunningham

I'd love to come back on the first portion of your post, but I've already had my response to your standard "I know the truth and because you disagree, you're blind fools" nonsense deleted.

But I will come back on the second -

If we're going to start comparing the depths of accusations, I submit mine: Bush eats little babies because he likes the taste of little baby flesh.

That clearly trumps the moral depravity of Kerry's treason.

But since it's ultimately juvenile to compare the depths of accusations - let's take a look at the situation where we throw out both sets of accusations:

- Bush, as a youth, could have tried to go to Vietnam. He didn't.
- Kerry, as a youth, could have avoided going to Vietnam. But he didn't.

rukkyg

http://factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=254

No one is disputing the facts put forth in the documents. The only thing is that they have already been known for 4 years or longer. Of course, a lot of swing voters probably forgot or didn't know (because they didn't pay attention back then). That's why it's "coming out" again. I don't see how there's any room to dispute the facts here.

Ustwo

Opie I don't know why I bother, but I will try yet again.

Kerry tried to get out of going to Vietnam by getting a deferment to go study in France. It was rejected. He took the quickest way out. I would commend him for his service if he didn't lie to congress etc when he got back.

Kerry TRIED to avoid Vietnam, he failed, he figured out a quick way home getting three purple hearts with zero hospitalization time, and then he lied about his service causing suffering for US POW's. We have what he said to congress on tape, with his long face lying his way to political fortune with the left, that can not be denied. You won't address it I know.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

rukkyg

At the very least I can say I'm jealous of Bush for being a rich little white boy and not having to go to Vietnam, and therefore I wouldn't vote for him.

OpieCunningham

Sorry Ustwo - but once again your "truth" is nothing more than a baseless accusation. I could respond with a dozen accusations about Bush and how everything has been handed to him on a platter and he then proceeded to bankrupt it/screw it up or otherwise fail ... but why should I bother? you're a blind partisan.

And honestly, I don't know why you bother either. I mean, really - what is it you hope to gain by logging onto an Internet discussion board, expressing opinions almost exclusively without any supporting evidence (sometimes even denouncing the scientific applicability of supporting evidence, no less!) and then labeling anyone who questions your "logic" as a partisan subject to blindness? Do you get paid to do it or is it just your hobby to avoid dealing with the details of what you claim in grand generalizations?

This is a place for discussion - yet you seem to want to shut them down as soon as you've had your say as to what is true and who is blind.

Mephisto2

I don't always agree with your politics Ustwo, but that gave me a laugh.



Mr Mephisto

irateplatypus

why stop at dozens? you could make hundreds of accusations about Bush but it wouldn't effect Kerry's record.

I've heard the points Ustwo brought up several times and i cannot find a source that disproves their veracity. can anyone cite me a reliable source?

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Scipio

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in641481.shtml

Key passage:

Can we just say we don't know? While it's true that the allegations made about Kerry are more serious (or perhaps more preposterous and dishonest) than the ones made about Bush, the fact of the matter is that we have documents that validate a lot of the claims made about Bush's conduct in uniform. Serious allegations have been made about the documents, but we just don't have all the facts to conclude anything. Although CBS is in a position of bias when it comes to protecting their credibility, or perhaps covering up a mistake, they are also the ones with the most information. In much the same way that partisans on the left have rushed to support these memos, partisans on the right have rushed to support the accusation that they are forgeries. Me, I don't know. Nobody knows. I think we have to be patient with this story, because nobody has all the facts yet.

__________________
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OpieCunningham

Exactly my point. Kerry's record is that he served in Vietnam and received various medals for his service. The accusations claim that he didn't deserve those medals, that he never wanted to go to Vietnam, that he shot himself to get out, that he lied to Congres, etc. etc. But those are not his record.

Bush's record is that he did not go to Vietnam, he served in the National Guard.

Scipio - I agree. It is undetermined at this point if the documents are real.

host

Ustwo, although you have recently exempted yourself from providing site sources for the purpose of validating your statements <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1398079&postcount=5"> (Link Here)</a>by posting that:

<i>"while I’ve done long threads in the past where I site sources, look at page after page of information, and waste a lot of Googles bandwidth I am not going to do that here. I’ve done it enough and quite frankly I don’t have a lot of time for it. I will give you the information I have garnered over the last couple of years in everything from articles to interviews but if you ask me for a source I won’t have it. My brain doesn’t work that way, to me only the information is important, and from personal experience as a scientist, if you find someone who likes to quote sources while he talks about a subject, odds are he doesn’t know anything of his own on said subject."</i>

Your statement is that Kerry lied. You say it twice; but it is still only your unsubstantiated opinion. Is your post usefull, or appropriate in this forum ?

I'm going to risk your assumption that I am uninformed by advising you that your accusations that Kerry "lied to congress" in his 1971 testimony, directly contradicts the research and conclusions of the experts at <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docid=244">FACTCHECK.org</a> Here is the information from their website, complete with links:
<table width="758" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">

<b>Swift Boat Veterans Anti-Kerry Ad: "He Betrayed Us" With 1971 Anti-War Testimony</b>
<!--BEGIN FactCheck Meta Info-->
<p class="lede">Group quotes Kerry's descriptions of atrocities by US forces. In fact, atrocities did happen.</p>
<p class="date">August 23, 2004</p>
<p class="mod">Modified:
August 23, 2004
</p>
<!--END FactCheck Meta Info-->
<!--BEGIN FactCheck Body-->
<h2>Summary</h2>

<p><p> </p>

<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica">"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" announced a second anti-Kerry ad Aug. 20, using Kerry's own words against him. It features the 27-year-old Kerry in 1971 telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee stories about American troops cutting off heads and ears, razing villages "in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan" and committing "crimes . . . on a day-to-day basis."</font></p>

<p><font face="Arial">The Kerry campaign called it a smear and said his words were "edited" out of context. The</font> <font face="Arial">ad does indeed fail to mention that Kerry was quoting stories he had heard from others at an anti-war event in Detroit, and not claiming first-hand knowledge. But Kerry passed them on as true stories.</font></p>

<p><font face="Arial">The ad characterizes Kerry as making "accusations . . . against the verterans who served in Vietnam." The Kerry campaign denies that, saying Kerry was placing blame on the country's leaders, not the veterans. But Kerry himself said earlier this year that his words were those of "an angry young man . . . inappropriate . . . a little bit excessive . . . a little bit over the top."</font></p>

<p><font face="Arial" size="+0">Kerry's critics point to a 1978 history of Vietnam that challenged some of the witnesses Kerry quoted. But other published accounts provide ample evidence that atrocities such as those Kerry described actually were committed.</font></p></p>
<h2>Analysis</h2>
<p><p> </p>

<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica">The ad's title is "sellout," and features Vietnam veterans saying Kerry "dishonored his country" and aided the enemy by airing allegations in 1971 of US atrocities in Vietnam.</font></p>

<p></p>

<table cellpadding="10" width="45%" align="left" bgcolor="#DC143C">

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center"><strong><font face="Verdana" color="#F8F8FF">SBVT Ad</font></strong></p>

<p align="center"><strong><font face="Verdana" color="#0000a0">"Sellout"</font></strong></p>

<p align="left"><strong><font face="Times New Roman, Times">John Kerry</font></strong> <font face="Times New Roman, Times">(from Senate Testimony in 1971): They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads...</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Joe Ponder</strong>: The accusations that John Kerry made against the veterans who served in Vietnam was just devastating.</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>John Kerry</strong>: ...randomly shot at civilians...</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Joe Ponder</strong>: ...and it hurt me more than any physical wounds I had.</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>John Kerry</strong>: ...cut of limbs, blown up bodies...</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Ken Cordier</strong>: That was part of the torture, to sign a statement that you had committed war crimes.</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>John Kerry</strong>:...razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan...</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Paul Galanti</strong>: John Kerry gave the enemy for free, what I and many of my comrades, in the North Vietnamese prison camps, took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us.</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>John Kerry</strong>: ...crimes committed on a day to day basis...</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Ken Cordier</strong>: He betrayed us in the past, how could we be loyal to him now?</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>John Kerry</strong>: ...ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam...</font></p>

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Paul Galanti</strong>: He dishonored his country, and more importantly, the people he served with. He just sold them out.</font></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

<p align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="4">Out of Context? </font></p>

<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica">On Aug. 20 the Kerry campaign issued a <a href="http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0820b.html">statement</a> calling the ad an a smear and a distortion, saying it "takes Kerry’s testimony out of context, editing what he said to distort the facts."</font></p>

<p><font face="Arial">There is some missing context. What's missing from the ad is that Kerry was relating what he had heard at an an event in Detroit a few weeks earlier sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and was not claiming to have witnessed those atrocities personally.</font></p>

<p><font face="Arial">Here is a more complete excerpt of what Kerry said, with the words used in the ad bold-faced so that readers can judge for themselves how much the added context might change their understanding of how Kerry was quoted in the ad:</font></p>

<blockquote dir="ltr">
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Kerry Senate Testimony (1971):</strong> I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but <strong>crimes committed on a day-to-day basis</strong> with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.</font></p>

<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times">It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.</font></p>

<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times">They told the stories at times <strong>they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads</strong>, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, <strong>cut off limbs, blown up bodies</strong>, randomly shot at civilians, <strong>razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan</strong>, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally <strong>ravaged the country side of South Vietnam</strong> 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.<br />
</font></p>
</blockquote>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Arial, Helvetica">The record gives no sign that Kerry doubted the stories he was relating. In fact, he said earlier this year that he still stands by much of what he said 33 years earlier (see below) and that "a lot of them (the atrocity stories) have been documented."</font></p>

<p dir="ltr" align="center"><font face="Arial" size="4">Accusing Veterans? Or US War Policy?</font></p>

<p dir="ltr" align="left"><font face="Arial">One veteran who appears in the ad says "The accusations that John Kerry made <strong>against the veterans</strong> who served in Vietnam was just devastating."</font> <font face="Arial, Helvetica">Kerry's campaign insists his 1971 testimony as "an indictment of America’s political leadership—not fellow veterans." </font></p>

<p dir="ltr" align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica">As an example, Kerry aides point to a portion of Kerry's testimony in which he places the blame for the 1968 My Lai massacre not on the troops, but on their superiors: "I think clearly the responsibility for what has happened there lies elsewhere. I think it lies with the men who designed free fire zones. I think it lies with the men who encourage body counts." But that statement came only in response to a direct question, long after Kerry volunteered his description of rapes and mutilations.</font></p>

<p dir="ltr" align="left"><font face="Arial">Earlier in 1971, during an NBC "Meet the Press" interview, Kerry explicitly spoke of "the men who designed the free-fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas" and said he considered them "war criminals." But he did not draw such a sharp distinction between leaders and followers during the"atrocity" portion of his Senate testimony.</font></p>

<p dir="ltr" align="center"><font face="Arial" size="4">Winter Soldier Event Discredited?</font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Arial">Kerry critics have long disputed that atrocities by US forces were as prevalent as Kerry suggested. And at least some of the testimony at the </font> <font face="Arial">"<a href="http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/WS_03_1Marine.html">Winter Soldier</a>" event was called into question by historian Guenter Lewy in a 1978 book, <u>America in Vietnam</u>. Lewy noted that the event had been staged with financial help from Jane Fonda. He stated that many of the Winter Soldier participants later refused to speak to investigators for the Naval Investigative Service even though they were assured that they wouldn't be questioned about atrocities they might have committed personally. Lewy also suggested that some of the witnesses were imposters:</font></p>

<blockquote dir="ltr">
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size="3"><strong>Guenter Lewy, <u>America in Vietnam</u> (1978):</strong> But the most damaging finding consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit. One of them had never been to Detroit in all his life. He did not know, he stated, who might have used his name.</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="3">Kerry's critics point to that as evidence that he was irresponsibly passing on false atrocity stories. However, there's </font> <font face="Arial, Helvetica">no question that events such as Kerry described did happen, as Lewy himself stated:</font></p>

<blockquote dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Lewy:</strong> Incidents similar to some of those described at the VVAW hearing undoubtedly did occur. We know that hamlets were destroyed, prisoners tortured, and corpses mutilated.</font></p>
</blockquote>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Arial, Helvetica">Some atrocities by US forces have been documented beyond question. Kerry's 1971 testimony came less than one month after Army Lt. William Calley had been convicted in a highly publicized military <a href="http://www.courttv.com/archive/greatesttrials/mylai/background.html">trial</a> of the murder of the murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai hamlet on March 16 1968, when upwards of 300 unarmed men, women and children were killed by the inexperienced soldiers of the Americal Division's Charley Company.</font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Arial, Helvetica">And since Kerry testified, ample evidence of other atrocities has come to light:</font></p>

<ul dir="ltr">
<li>
<div><font face="Arial, Helvetica"><strong>Son Thang:</strong> In 1998, for example, Marine Corps veteran Gary D. Solis published the book <u>Son Thang: An American War Crime</u> describing the court-martial of four US Marines for the apparently unprovoked killing 16 women and children on the night of February 19, 1970 in a hamlet about 20 miles south of Danang. The four Marines testified that they were under orders by their patrol leader to shoot the villagers. A young Oliver North appeared as a character witness and helped acquit the leader of all charges, but three were convicted.</font></div>

</li>

<li>
<div><font face="Arial"><strong>Tiger Force: </strong></font> <font face="Arial, Helvetica">The <em>Toledo Blade</em> won a Pulitzer Prize this year for a series published in October, 2003 reporting that atrocities were committed by an elite US Army "Tiger Force" unit that the <em>Blade</em> said killed unarmed civilians and children during a seven-month rampage in 1967. "Elderly farmers were shot as they toiled in the fields. Prisoners were tortured and executed - their ears and scalps severed for souvenirs. One soldier kicked out the teeth of executed civilians for their gold fillings," the <em>Blade</em> reported. "Investigators concluded that 18 soldiers committed war crimes ranging from murder and assault to dereliction of duty. But no one was charged."</font></div>

</li>

<li>
<div><font face="Arial"><strong>"Hundreds" of others:</strong> In December 2003 <em>The New York Times</em> quoted </font> <font face="Arial, Helvetica">Nicholas Turse, a doctoral candidate at Columbia University who has been studying government archives, as saying the records are filled with accounts of atrocities similar to those described by the <em>Toledo Blade</em> series. "I stumbled across the incidents The <em>Blade</em> reported," Turse was quoted as saying. "I read through that case a year, year and a half ago, and it really didn't stand out. There was nothing that made it stand out from anything else. That's the scary thing. It was just one of hundreds."</font></div>

</li>

<li>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial, Helvetica"><strong>"Exact Same Stories":</strong> Keith Nolan, author of 10 published books on Vietnam, says he's heard many veterans describe atrocities just like those Kerry recounted from the Winter Soldier event. Nolan told FactCheck.org that since 1978 he's interviewed roughly 1,000 veterans in depth for his books, and spoken to thousands of others. "I have heard the exact same stories dozens if not hundreds of times over," he said. "Wars produce atrocities. Frustrating guerrilla wars produce a particularly horrific number of atrocities. That some individual soldiers and certain units responded with excessive brutality in Vietnam shouldn't really surprise anyone."</font></p>
</div>
</li>

</ul>

<p align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="4">"A Little Bit Excessive"</font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Arial, Helvetica">Aside from his Senate testimony, the young Kerry spoke publicly in 1971 of "war crimes," and said in his April 18, 1971 NBC "Meet the Press" interview that he had personally engaged in "atrocities" like "thousands of others" who engaged in shootings in free-fire zones. He said then that he considered the officials who set such war policies to be "war criminals." But 30 years later, anticipating a run for the White House, Kerry took a more conciliatory tone when confronted by NBC's Tim Russert, again on</font> <font face="Arial, Helvetica">NBC News' "Meet the Press" program:</font></p>

<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Kerry (May 6, 2001; Meet the Press):</strong> I don't stand by the genocide I think <strong>those were the words of an angry young man</strong>. We did not try to do that. But I do stand by the description--I don't even believe there is a purpose served in the word "war criminal." I really don't. But I stand by the rest of what happened over there, Tim.</font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times">. . . (We) misjudged history. We misjudged our own country. We misjudged our strategy. And we fell into a dark place. All of us. And I think we learned that over time. And I hope the contribution that some of us made as veterans was to come back and help people understand that.</font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><strong><font face="Times New Roman, Times">I think our soldiers served as nobly, on the whole, as in any war, and people need to understand that.</font></strong></p>
</blockquote>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Arial, Helvetica">And earlier this year, Kerry was again pressed on his 1971 antiwar views, and responded to some of the same points now being raised anew in the Swift Boat Veterans ad. He said his 1971 words were "honest" but "a little bit over the top." </font></p>

<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Q:</strong> <strong>You committed atrocities?</strong></font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Kerry (Meet the Press Apr. 18, 2004</strong> Where did all that dark hair go, Tim? That's a big question for me. You know, I thought a lot, for a long time, about that period of time, the things we said, and <strong>I think the word is a bad word. I think it's an inappropriate word.</strong> I mean, if you wanted to ask me have you ever made mistakes in your life, sure. <strong>I think some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an anger. It was honest, but it was in anger, it was a little bit excessive.</strong></font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Q:</strong>You used the word "war criminals."</font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Kerry:</strong> Well, let me just finish. Let me must finish. It was, I think, a reflection of the kind of times we found ourselves in and I don't like it when I hear it today. I don't like it, but <strong>I want you to notice that at the end, I wasn't talking about the soldiers and the soldiers' blame,</strong> and my great regret is, I hope no soldier--I mean, I think some soldiers were angry at me for that, and I understand that and I regret that, because I love them. <strong>But the words were honest but on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top.</strong> And I think that there were breaches of the Geneva Conventions. There were policies in place that were not acceptable according to the laws of warfare, and everybody knows that. I mean, books have chronicled that, so I'm not going to walk away from that. But <strong>I wish I had found a way to say it in a less abrasive way</strong>.</font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Q:</strong> But, Senator, when you testified before the Senate, you talked about some of the hearings you had observed at the winter soldiers meeting and you said that people had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and on and on. A lot of those stories have been discredited, and in hindsight was your testimony...</font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Kerry:</strong> Actually, a lot of them have been documented.</font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Q: </strong> So you stand by that?</font></p>

<p dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><strong>Kerry:</strong> <strong>A lot of those stories have been documented. Have some been discredited? Sure, they have, Tim. </strong> The problem is that's not where the focus should have been. And, you know, when you're angry about something and you're young, you know, you're perfectly capable of not--I mean, if I had the kind of experience and time behind me that I have today, I'd have framed some of that differently. Needless to say, <strong>I'm proud that I stood up. I don't want anybody to think twice about it. I'm proud that I took the position that I took to oppose it. I think we saved lives, and I'm proud that I stood up at a time when it was important to stand up, but I'm not going to quibble, you know, 35 years later that I might not have phrased things more artfully at times.</strong></font></p>

</blockquote></p>
<h2>Sources</h2>
<p><p> </p>

<p><font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">"Kerry <a href="http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0820b.html">Campaign Statement</a> on New Swift Boat Veterans for Bush Ad," Kerry-Edwards 2004, 20 Aug 2004.</font></p>

<p><font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2"><a href="http://www.c-span.org/vote2004/jkerrytestimony.asp">Testimony</a> of John Kerry, "Legislative Proposals Relating to the War in Southeast Asia," US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 22 April 1971.</font></p>

<p><font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">Guenter Lewy, "America in Vietnam" Oxford University Press NY 1978</font></p>

<p><font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">"Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths: <a href="http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031022/SRTIGERFORCE/110190169">The Series; Elite unit savaged civilians in Vietnam</a>," Toledo Blade 22 Oct 2003.</font></p>

<p><font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">Michael D. Sallah and Mitch Weiss, "<a href="http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031022/SRTIGERFORCE/110190168">Rogue GIs unleashed wave of terror in Central Highlands</a>," Toledo Blade 22 Oct 2003.</font></p>

<p><font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">Joe Mahr, " <a href="http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040512/SRTIGERFORCE/405120331">Tiger Force answers still elusive</a>; Washington slow in responding to calls for Army prosecution," Toledo Blade, 12 May Jo2004.</font></p>
<p><font face="Courier New" size="2">John Kifner, "Report on Brutal Vietnam Campaign Stirs Memories," New York Times, 28 Dec 2003: A24.</font></p>
<p><font face="Courier New" size="2">Interview with Keith Nolan, 23 Aug 2004.</font></p>
<p><font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">John F. Kerry, "Meet the Press" NBC News 18 <st1:date Month="4" Day="18" Year="2004">April 1991.</st1:date></font></p>
<p><font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">John F. Kerry, "Meet the Press" NBC News 6 May 2001.</font></p>
<p><font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">John F. Kerry, "<a href="http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4772030">Meet the Press</a> " NBC News 18 April 2004.</font></p>
<p><font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2"><br />
</font> </p>
Ustwo, I find this article about Colin Powell and his link to My Lai interesting.
You can click anywhere on the quote below to read the whole salon.com source.
<a href="http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:9NvjdxRqv7sJ:www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/03/06/kerry/+%22my+lai+was+an+isolated+incident%22&hl=en">
" Kerry's critics argue that My Lai was an isolated incident, but at least one celebrated general doesn't agree.

Secretary of State Colin Powell held a command position in the Army's Americal Division, which had included Calley's unit, and he was asked to investigate the earliest allegations about My Lai. He failed to uncover the massacre and was later accused of facilitating the coverup. Whether that accusation is fair or not, Powell knows what happened in Vietnam.

"My Lai was an appalling example of much that had gone wrong in Vietnam," he wrote in his bestselling autobiography, "My American Journey." "The involvement of so many unprepared officers and noncoms led to breakdowns in morale, discipline and professional judgment -- and to horrors like My Lai -- as the troops became numb to what appeared to be endless and mindless slaughter." </a>

OpieCunningham

And so it seems the claims that the memos are forgeries are not based on accurate information:

Basic rundown of claims of forgery:
http://dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603

Refuting the 'facts' presented by the experts claiming they are fake, also includes the expert quoted in the NYtimes as reversing his opinion:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/213416/348

irateplatypus

uhh... surely you don't think that reading something at dailykos makes it so, do you opie? i would think that if you're going to present some development as fact, at least wait till NBC/ABC/CNN/FNC/NYT/WSJ picks it up first. regardless of how it turns out, isn't it a bit irresponsible to place your trust in some online blog?

let's see... i'm looking at the ad sidebar, i see: "Dates for Democrats", "Progressive" tshirts featuring a picture of the President with the caption "Idiot" and last but not least "Are AK-47s Compassionate?". i honestly dislike impuning the source as a rebuttal, but if you want to get some credibility from a person who doesn't take your side already i suggest finding sources that aren't blatantly partisan.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

pedro padilla

its all a bit silly. at this moment, no-one is thinking about today or tomorrow. i think maybe that was the whole idea. neither one wants to talk about the real scandal.
the here and now.

OpieCunningham

Haha. Isn't that a fundamental point of this whole forgery issue? That blog's 'determined' that CBS got suckered/lied? Now you're telling me not to trust blogs because a mainstream source hasn't picked it up?

I don't discount blogs automatically regardless of the motives of the writers. If you read the information, which provides numerous non-blog sources for that information, you will see that the basic premise of the forgery claims, that the technology didn't exist, is false.

There is always a possibility that any document is forged. But as of now, you'll need to find actual proof to claim these documents are fake.

Moskie

There's one aspect about this subject that keeps bugging me: the fact that Bush himself, or some official representative, has not said anything about it.

Assume the memos are false. Bush, presumably, would know that the memos are false, because.... he was there. Now wouldn't the first thing he should do is to make sure that the puts out a clear, strong denial of the memos? All these forgery theories have come from journalists and experts and what have you, but neither Bush nor a representative of his administration have said *anything* about the authenticy of these memos. Well, excluding the fact the White House received and distributed them, but that doesn't really say anything concrete.

This is the most compelling reason for me that makes me think the memos are real. Bush doesn't want to deny them, because if the memos are proven to be true, he takes two blows instead of one.

So to anyone who thinks these memos are part of some conspiracy against Bush, why hasn't the Bush administration come out and clearly said they know the memos to be false?

Ustwo

These were personal memo's that he would know nothing about. They were not in his file. It would be like me saying your personal journal was fake.

As for more 'issues' with the memos...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...shguard11.html


http://abcnews.go.com/sections/polit...Noted_Now.html

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

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scout

And now for the latest, to get us back on track, it appears the memos was written about 18 months to late .....

read if you dare

Stompy

This is hilarious... I still don't get wtf the big deal is about military records. Who cares? Seriously..

This is like trying to prove to someone whether or not you bought toilet paper from the grocery store, and for some reason, it REALLY bothers them that they don't know whether or not you bought toilet paper. So you dig through your receipts to show them, and they turn around and claim the receipt is forged along with slamming your "credibility". This big controvery is born when really... who gives a good goddamn if you bought toilet paper or not?!

This stuff is seriously retarded. As if serving in the military affects how they act as president. Oh you didn't run through jungles with an M-16? Sorry, you can't veto this bill! Didn't go through boot camp and get shipped off to another country? Damn, better think twice before you deal with health care policies!!

__________________
I love lamp.

Strange Famous

My feeling is that they are fake.

It is way too close to election for them to suddenly turn up now by coincedence.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

Rekna

You know what the canidates should do? They should settle this once and for all. Drop there pants and measure their dicks then we know who has the bigger one. Then maybe we can talk about the real issues.

Ustwo

I think its a smoke screen. Kerry has a lot of things he did and said after Vietnam he would like to keep out of the press (he won't allow a reprinting of his book he wrote right after). They are hoping to muddy the waters and make it seem silly enough to 'get back to the issues' and get off his character. Of course he has 20 years of ultra-liberal votes in the senate to hide too

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Ustwo

I think Kerry would win. He is not an attractive man yet married TWO very very very wealthy women. Something must be there

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

hammer4all

The Boston Globe weighs in...
Media Matters provides more insight: Forgery feeding frenzy: Media falling afoul of the facts

smooth

lol, are these people on crack?

"too large" making something unprobable?

"too expensive" for a government contract?

Where they hell were these people and what kind of technology were they exposed to in the 70's?

Let me tell you about my first personal floppy drive:

It was the size of a shoebox and cost $300 hundred fucking dollars!

Just look in a catalog from the 1980's under TRS-80 components--that's where I bought mine from.


I talked to my mom, who was a legal secretary during that time, and she remembers typing on a selectric.

Just who was buying these super-duper-expensive-miracle-water-producing-typewriters that made Big Blue, well, big? I'd have to wager it was large corporations and the military--just like all the other pork we pay for in the modern era.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Ustwo

And so it continues.....

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

OpieCunningham

That article rehashes "questions" that have already been demonstrated to be false. I would hardly call that a continuance.

dy156

I know this story has been hashed to death, and the consensus is that they were fake, but I couldn't leave this story quoted above up without adding to it. Don't know if it has been pointed out here yet, but the boston globe is backtracking from that story. I won't bother to cut and paste the whole thing.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...ard_documents/

another very interesting link containing where a blogger who interviewed the expert quoted by that Boston Globe story.

http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000859.php


edit:
I've read a whole lot of blogosphere writing and documentation on this issue, and I think this is the best yet understandable-to-those-of-us-who-aren't-document-experts stuff out there, just wanted to share. you really need to click on the link for the graphics.
http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_s...m_selectr.html

Ustwo

Boston Globe = Tool of DNC, this surprises me not.

Globe makes the NYT look fair and balanced

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

shakran

Can't help but notice that this JBX character has failed to post in here since his initial 2 ill-founded rants.

Seems to me that what happened is pretty simple.

CBS broke the story on the documents (dammit. They're a competitor )

Some asshat said they were fake.

CBS said "well we don't think so but we're responsible journalists so we'll investigate to find out"

JBX saw them being responsible journalists and decided to twist it and make it sound like the fact that CBS is making sure they didn't screw up, is evidence that they screwed up.


Amazing that JBX can't see the logical disconnect in his/her line of reasoning.

Eh, on second thought, not all that amazing at all. After all, JBX still supports Bush after all the negative evidence that's surfaced against him over the past 4 years.

cosmoknight

What you have to believe in order to be a Democrat.

(1) That the late Jerry Killian, Bush's commanding officer, typed the documents--though his wife says "he wasn't a typist."

(2) That Killian kept the documents in his personal files--though his family says he didn't keep files.

(3) That the disputed documents reflect his true (negative) feelings about Bush and a contemporaneous official document he wrote lauding Bush did not.

(4) That he typed the documents on a technically advanced typewriter, an IBM Selectric Composer--though that model has been tested and failed to produce an exact copy of the documents.

(5) That this advanced typewriter, which would have cost $15,000 or so in today's dollars, was used by the Texas National Guard and that Killian had gained the significant expertise needed to operate it.

(6) That Killian was under pressure to whitewash Bush's record from a general who had retired 18 months earlier.

(7) That Killian's superior, Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, was right when, sight unseen, he supposedly said the documents were authentic, but wrong when, having actually viewed the documents, he declared them fraudulent.

Now if you can't accept all that, there's another side. To believe the documents are forgeries, you have to believe this:


(1) The documents were typed recently using Microsoft Word, which produces documents that are

exact copies of the CBS documents.

(2) There's no number 2. All you have to believe is number 1.

A quick look at what experts could not make the IBM Selectric or the laughable $18,000 IBM Composer in the hands og National Guard do.Amazingling Microsoft Word gets the font,superscript,spacing everything done pat.

Ustwo

You didn't read anything in the thread did you? Why do you post?

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Mephisto2

Can I quote you on this?



Mr Mephisto

Ustwo

Please do. There are some fractured pottery types I just ignore, but I do try to read.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Rekna

So if these do come up to be fake should CBS's credibilty be questioned?

irateplatypus

if proven fake, what are the implications? who do you think was responsible for creating the documents if they are, in fact, forgeries?

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill