Kerry DID NOT Accuse Soldiers of Committing Atrocities.

[0rion]

Please read his testimony before the Senate before you believe the things said and take them TOTALLY out of context. Kerry NEVER accused soldiers of committing attrocites.

Decorated veteran John Kerry, testifying before the House Foreign Relations Committee

[SheepyMcSheepster]

1. i love how "They told stories that" is always left out.

and according to rush this afternoon O'neil is dong "god's work", pathetic.

[0rion]

7. That new ad by SBV Liars just BURNS ME UP!

I would love to bind 300,000 copies of Kerry's testimony into telephone sized books and CRAM then down the throats of those liars!

I don't see how ANYBODY with half a brain could read the testimony for themselves and conclude that he is accusing Vietnam Vets of committing attrocities!!!!!!!

And when the media goes to the vietnam veterans memorial and ask vets what they think, THEY ALL THINK THEY HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF COMMITTING WAR CRIMES BY KERRY which....just.....just......BURNS ME UP!

[CaTeacher]

27. It burns me up too!!!

These vets who are complaining are just like a bunch of damned babies---wwaaaw we were fighting and dying while he was criticizing us--wwaaaaaw we were in prison camps being tortured while he was criticizing us---wwaaaaaaaww---we still can't get over it.

I wish they would all just STFU!!!

[trogdor]

30. You're close.

About two inches from the pin. The tone of your post sounds like something the Freepers could wave around as "proof" that our side is...well...I'll leave that to your imagination.

The real answer is more like, "Kerry criticized the leadership, and they turned his words around to mean he was criticizing all participants by crying croccodile tears to the media, who ate it up like ice cream. They desperately need a swift kick in the ass!"

[CaTeacher]

31. I was imitating what the Swift Boat Liars

are saying. They are acting like it was personally directed at them--and that one dude (the one who was also part of Bush's campaign) whines about being a POW at the time and being tortured while Kerry was saying it.

I was just making fun of the Swift Boat Liars--as they represent themselves in their latest commercial. (I was not attempting to give a real or accurate answer--I was just making fun of some whiny, cry babies who have already misrepresented the situation.)

[LynnTheDem]

45. Guilty before facts

That's America nowadays. You're guilty with no need for any facts, let alone any presumption of innocence.

NO ONE who reads Kerry's actual testimony believes he was accusing the soldiers of anything.

NO.

ONE.

So all the vets who think Kerry DID accuse them of atrocities have never even bothered, not even once, to actually go read the testimony for themselves.

Dole, however, DOES KNOW what Kerry actually said. O'Neill DOES KNOW what Kerry actually said.

ALL the SBLiars KNOW what Kerry actually said; after all, they got his quotes from his testimony; they had to see his full sentance in able to cut all the first part off. And it was O'NEILL who first did so.

Every time people say Kerry accused vets of atrocities I ask them, have you actually read the testimony? Nope. And my standard reply is "Do your ignorance a favor then, and read it for yourself."

No wonder Ahmed "thanks suckers! Iranian spy and conman extraordinaire" Chalabi was able to pull off the biggest duping and conning in history. Dunno why, but most Americans simply will not bother to check any facts for themselves.

[volosong]

39. WHY DOESN'T KERRY PUT ON AN AD PUTTING IT INTO CONTEXT?

That would be simple enough to do, just rewind a few seconds before the Republicans started and start him speaking with "..."They told stories that...

[lottie244]

47. The Kerry campaign managers need to be fired. They are worthless

Any really good campaing manager and staff would have this stuff put out a long time ago, along witht the facts that Kerry was speaking on behalf of hundreds of Viet Nam Vets who wanted their story told but who were afraid of having benefits and health services cut off as well has being black-balled from employment.

The Kerry campaign staff aren't worth a shit!!

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Occulus]

3. The word "atrocities" and "atrocity"

do not appear in the document.

Would you like to take your lie back now?

[devlin radiset]

4. it's not a lie...

rape, murder, cutting off of heads are some of the actions he mentioned

[Occulus]

5. As, specifically, war crimes.

I see nothing at all wrong with calling a spade a spade.

on edit: here's the actual text of what you're having trouble properly characterizing:

"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. 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."

THAT'S what he said. I see him repeating accusations made by others here, and describing those accusations in detail. I then see him providing his own interpretation of what was said in his presence. And yes, I did read the whole thing.

"I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped."

And we still see and hear echoes of those emotions to this very day.

[0rion]

10. He was just repeating what other's had testified to, he didn't ACCUSE.....

anyone of these actions, true or not.

Did that kind of stuff happen? Absolutely, probably beyond 150 cases but what happened there in Vietnam that isn't happening RIGHT NOW IN IRAQ?

[WoodrowFan]

22. In Iraq now

I'm pretty sure we're not bombing rice paddies now. but other than that/.///

[radwriter0555]

35. right, bombing mosques, schools, hospitals is MUCH better than

bombing rice paddies.

[radwriter0555]

36. oo Weddings, don't forget weddings! MUCH better than bombing

those rice paddies.

[Bandit]

33. Which ones were later found to be lying?

Everything he repeated that had been told to him had in fact been done in Vietnam by American soldiers. As far as I know no one has ever denied that fact. Certainly not all soldiers participated in any of those acts but some never the less did. Just as in Iraq today. There are war crimes being committed by American soldiers. We see pictures and hear tales occasionally to shore up that belief.

[zuzu98]

41. I think that one of the people involved in the Winter Soldier hearings

was later discredited (exaggerating things, for the most part). I read about this when I was doing some reading about Kerry's SFR testimony in 1971. I will try to find the stuff again & post it.


ON EDIT: Al Hubbard, one of the organizers of Winter Soldier, although he did not testify at the hearings. Here are a couple links to stuff about him.

http://www.bigmagic.com/pages/blackj/column106g.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Soldier_Investigation


NOTE: I fully support Kerry & I despise the SwiftLiars. I'm just trying to be fair.

[LynnTheDem]

46. Nope actually

Al Hubbard was an organizer; he NEVER testified in the Winter Soldier hearings.

None of the vets who testified at the WS hearings has ever been discredited to date.

Look; a bunch of Vietnam vets WANTED to confess to atrocities. They asked the VVAW to hold hearings. They asked Kerry (among others) to monitor the hearings.

THEY then ASKED KERRY to REPRESENT THEM TO CONGRESS.

Kerry agreed to do so.

He DID NOT accuse anyone of anything. (this is to the posters who argue that he did)

He SIMPLY SUMMARIZED what the OTHER VETS had TESTIFIED TO and had then AKSED KERRY to TELL CONGRESS.

Republican Senator Hatfield then ordered the OTHER VETS' testimonies into the Congressional Records and for the US Naval Investigative Service to investigate the vets' confessions.

The USNIS did investigate, and concluded the confessions could not be proved or disproved.

Kerry does what the VETS ASKED HIM TO DO...and 32 years later the slimeball lying Ted Sampley & Cartel have managed to CON and DUPE half the veterans in this country into believing Kerry was a"traitor" who "turned on them" and "accused them of atrocities".

Amazing.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

6. all 150 of these "others" were later found to be lying?

is that what you are saying?

"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."

[devlin radiset]

9. I'm not saying anything...forget I was here...

I shouldn't take part in this discussion..I'm not dressed for religious services

[Occulus]

12. Considering that truth can be a religion of a sort,

you've just admitted you're not interested in hearing the truth.

[devlin radiset]

13. no...I am interested in the truth...

that's where we differ ...have a good day

[Occulus]

15. Wow, that tactic didn't take long to slap away

I think I'm getting better at this!

[SheepyMcSheepster]

16. surely if you know the truth, you can present us with documented facts

that can support your agrument for the truth?

[bobbyboucher]

34. Who was that masked tool?

And where did he get off to? And what the hell was he talking about?

[SheepyMcSheepster]

14. i am not personally religious, i do favor facts over fiction though.

[HFishbine]

8. "later found to be lying"

By whom? I'm pretty open-minded, I'd like to read some more about lying vets -- if you have a source.

[klook]

11. Yes, pray tell, enlighten us, devlin radiset

Which of the Detroit soldiers were lying? And where, when, and by whom were their lies proven?

[LynnTheDem]

49. He's doing the very common confusion thing

Mark Lane was one of the Winter Soldier Hearings organizers.

He also wrote a book, interviewing various vets about atrocities etc.

NONE of the vets in his book are the vets who testified in the WS Hearings. Two totally separate things.

In 1970, Lane had published a book called 'Conversations With Americans' purporting to be interviews with Vietnam veterans about war crimes, containing Vietnam tales of atrocities. Reporter Neil Sheehan showed that some soldiers interviewed in Lane's book had never served in Vietnam and others had not been in the situations they described.

Lane admitted he did not check military records, as confirmation of details was not relevant. Lane later confirmed these military records.

NONE of the soldiers who testified in the Winter Soldiers Hearings, which is ALL that Kerry presented to Congress on their behalf, have EVER been discredited in any way. They were all Vietnam vets and they were all exactly what they testified being.

But people get the 2 mixed up, thinking the discredited soldiers IN LANE'S BOOK are also the soldiers who testified at the WSH and whom Kerry represented.

No small thanks of course to mr. Ted Sampley.


edited; spelling

[tandot]

17. All of them were lying???

I guess the soldiers who reported the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal and made sure that it wasn't covered up are lying, too? Oh wait, we have pictures of that...

Stuff like this happens in every war. War does horrible things to some people. Look at some of the freepers on freerepublic. I would be worried that they would snap if they would be in a war situation. Just the way they are talking about people who dissent, or people who criticize Bush, or how they are talking about Iraqis and Muslims in general.

[Occulus]

19. Got a source for that finding of fact?

I'd be very surprised if you did.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. He didn't need to. The atrocities were all over the nightly news.

Torture. Assasination. Massacres. Free Fire Zones. Carpet bombing.
My Lai.

Only the willfully ignorant were unaware of what was going on in Vietnam.

[JohnyCanuck]

21. Eyewitness report from GI Tom Glen

"The average GI's attitude toward and treatment of the Vietnamese people all too often is a complete denial of all our country is attempting to accomplish in the realm of human relations," Glen wrote. "Far beyond merely dismissing the Vietnamese as 'slopes' or 'gooks,' in both deed and thought, too many American soldiers seem to discount their very humanity; and with this attitude inflict upon the Vietnamese citizenry humiliations, both psychological and physical, that can have only a debilitating effect upon efforts to unify the people in loyalty to the Saigon government, particularly when such acts are carried out at unit levels and thereby acquire the aspect of sanctioned policy."

Glen's letter contended that many Vietnamese were fleeing from Americans who "for mere pleasure, fire indiscriminately into Vietnamese homes and without provocation or justification shoot at the people themselves." Gratuitous cruelty was also being inflicted on Viet Cong suspects, Glen reported.

"Fired with an emotionalism that belies unconscionable hatred, and armed with a vocabulary consisting of 'You VC,' soldiers commonly 'interrogate' by means of torture that has been presented as the particular habit of the enemy. Severe beatings and torture at knife point are usual means of questioning captives or of convincing a suspect that he is, indeed, a Viet Cong...

"It would indeed be terrible to find it necessary to believe that an American soldier that harbors such racial intolerance and disregard for justice and human feeling is a prototype of all American national character; yet the frequency of such soldiers lends credulity to such beliefs. ... What has been outlined here I have seen not only in my own unit, but also in others we have worked with, and I fear it is universal. If this is indeed the case, it is a problem which cannot be overlooked, but can through a more firm implementation of the codes of MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) and the Geneva Conventions, perhaps be eradicated."

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin3.html

Above excerpts are from a letter written in 1968 by a US GI, Tom Glen, to Gen. Creighton Abrams CinC Vietnam. A certain Maj. Colin Powell was given the task of investigating Glen's charges and his superiors were no doubt relieved when Maj. Powell was able to conclude that relations between the US troops and the Vietnamese were just fine and things were pretty well peachy all over with a few minor exceptions. Maj Powell neglected to interview Glen or assign anyone else on his team to interview Glen and accepted at face value the claims of Glen's superiors that Glen was not close enough to the action to have made the observations he did. This was all not too long before news of the My Lai atrocity made headlines across the world.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Miltary investigates the military. Like Gotti investigating the mafia.

Yeah, everything was just fine between those nice GI's and the happy Vietnames seeing their relatives/neighbors barbecued by napalm, tortured, assasinated, poisoned, raped, and all the other things they were doing when not handing out chocolate bars.

[cheezus]

20. "some say"

/recently watched outfoxed

[nonkultur]

23. April 18, 1971 Meet The Press

"There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages."

http://www.wintersoldier.com/audio/kerry2.mp3

[murielm99]

25. What's freepnet?

http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/audio/kerry2.mp3

Why didn't you quote what he said about the Geneva Conventions?

Writing the quote misses his verbal emphasis, too, which is important.

Maybe you need to go back to your hobby of taking your medications, as it says in your profile.

[nonkultur]

26. Kerry NEVER accused soldiers of committing attrocites?

I googled the quote wich he did.

What is freepnet?

[murielm99]

28. I would invite everyone here to listen to that quote.

I would invite everyone to listen to his testimony in its entirety.

And I asked you -- why don't you answer?

[murielm99]

29. Everyone go to freepnet, too.

Who the cheney let him in here?

[nonkultur]

43. I am sorry.

I googled the quote and cut and paste.
I linked to wintersoldier.com. I didn't realise the text did not have the last sentence.

Was is some kind of masking? I do see people posting links to freepnet here though.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x658077

[0rion]

32. That's nice of you to provide that link...Tell me, are these atrocites?

that's part of freep.net.........here's some other reading material for you about atrocities.......

The atrocity claims below are all taken from the "1st Marine Division" session of the Winter Soldier Investigation -- just one of 15 sessions held during the three day event.

Complete transcripts can be found at The Sixties Project.

----------

...he just moved up to the old woman and started nudging her and then I saw her fall out of the way. When the convoy had completely passed, like she was on the road, really like squashed.

----------

He was about 70 years old. I believe he was some sort of religious, like a monk or something like that, from his dress. He had an ID card and he was in pretty bad shape so they didn't want to call in a MEDIVAC chopper so they told us to kill him.

The atrocity claims below are all taken from the "1st Marine Division" session of the Winter Soldier Investigation -- just one of 15 sessions held during the three day event.

Complete transcripts can be found at The Sixties Project.

----------

...he just moved up to the old woman and started nudging her and then I saw her fall out of the way. When the convoy had completely passed, like she was on the road, really like squashed.

----------

He was about 70 years old. I believe he was some sort of religious, like a monk or something like that, from his dress. He had an ID card and he was in pretty bad shape so they didn't want to call in a MEDIVAC chopper so they told us to kill him.

----------

Whenever any prisoners were taken, the crewmen in the helicopters were in charge also of loading, in addition to maintenance on the aircraft would blindfold the prisoners, holding the blindfold on with heavy wire, safety wire. They'd bind their hands, bind their feet and maybe bind them into a fetal position and upon landing, rather than releasing them so they could walk off the aircraft, they'd throw them out--get the grunts to mark how far they could throw them and have little contests.

----------

The calling in of artillery for games, the way it was worked would be the mortar forward observers would pick out certain houses in villages, friendly villages, and the mortar forward observers would call in mortars until they destroyed that house and then the artillery forward observer would call in artillery until he destroyed another house and whoever used the least amount of artillery, they won.


More on Atrocities............

[Dick_Tuck]

38. This is what Freepnet is.

Freepnet is a part of Free Republic, a neofascist organization that celebrated when Paul Wellstone's plane went down and when JFK Jr. died. What they do is to take things out of context to promote their neonazi agenda.

Freepnet has a Mr. Swett as one of their directors, who also happens to be the IT chief for the shiftless boat veterans group. Freepnet supports the forum, where Corsi, O'Neill's coauthor, called Catholics and Muslims "boy buggerers" and other antisemite remarks.

Freepnet appropriated "Winter Soldier" to lie about what was said in 1971.

[murielm99]

40. Thank you.

I knew what they were, but I just wanted everyone to be sure that they noticed that the poster left the "freepnet" part out of his link.

Why is someone posting links here that go to that place?

I am not sure that I want to warn yet, but I will be paying attention to this poster for awhile. Trolls do slip through the cracks.

[Dick_Tuck]

42. Easy my friend...

The person who posted this neonazi link is either uninformed, which I assume, or is trying to FREEP us. No problem either way. They'll either gather a clue or two, and walk away more of upright walker, or they'll be wasting their time with their neonazi propaganda.

I tend not to worry about it either way. I spend some of my time making their pigsty forums look like Ronald Reagan's brain. Freep for freep, it's a game they can't win.

[EndElectoral]

37. I know..he was reporting what vets said at wintersoldier meeting Detroit

[cthrumatrix]

44. why let the truth get in the way of journalism.... you expect far to much

of them in doing thier homework

[terrya]

48. Chris Matthews actually did a little of this last night.

He was responding to some RNC talking point Pat Buchanan was regurgitating about this very subject. And no, Kerry did NOT accuse soldiers of committing atrocities.

[LynnTheDem]

50. It was worse than the Winter Soldiers testified to

Military records demonstrate that the "Tiger Force" atrocities are only the tip of a vast submerged history of atrocities in Vietnam. In fact, while most atrocities were likely never chronicled or reported, the archival record is still rife with incidents;

-An August 1967 atrocity in which a 13-year-old Vietnamese child was raped by American MI interrogator of the Army's 196th Infantry Brigade. The soldier was convicted only of indecent acts with a child and assault. He served seven months and sixteen days for his crime.


-A September 1967 incident in which an American sergeant killed two Vietnamese children -- executing one at point blank range with a bullet to the head. Tried by general court martial in 1970, the sergeant pleaded guilty to, and was found guilty of, unpremeditated murder. He was, however, sentenced to no punishment.

http://hnn.us/articles/1802.html

The Tiger Force atrocities only came to light last year. The little Toledo Blade, of all journals, did the investigation and won a Pulitzer Prize. Of course it was way below the US radar because of Iraq. I don't think many Americans heard a word about it. Makes for some very stomache-turning reading.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SRTIGERFORCE

You'd think after the atrocities that so far have been exposed re Afghanistan & Iraq people wouldn't be shocked to find out that yes actually we did commit atrocities in Vietnam.

Only naive fools think it doesn't happen.