Just posted this elsewhere to refute the Kerry/war crimes accusation. Thought it might be useful here.
Quote:MR. CROSBY NOYES (Washington Evening Star): Mr. Kerry, you said at one time or another that you think our policies in Vietnam are tantamount to genocide and that the responsibility lies at all chains of command over there. Do you consider that you personally as a Naval officer committed atrocities in Vietnam or crimes punishable by law in this country?
SEN. KERRY: 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. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals.
Brand X wrote:nimh and I have been over this ground before, now it is being reported and deemed as a rare case that one would basically recieve three citations for one award and it be reworded.
I still consider it
a bit of a non-issue, tho ...
I mean, even within the dimensions of the entire SVFT non-story.
You didnt have this one yet, right?
(I'll see if I can dug up more of what I posted here before)
nimh wrote:If you click the headline and read the original webpage, you'll find many of the details linked to the originating stories. Emphasis here is mine.
Quote: Who is Steve Gardner?
Swift Boat Vet "eyewitness" was not present for events leading to Kerry's medals or Purple Hearts
Stephen Gardner has been touted by the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and by conservative hosts as a singularly authoritative critic with firsthand knowledge of Senator John Kerry's (D-MA) record in Vietnam because Gardner -- unlike all the other members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- actually served on a swift boat that Kerry commanded. Gardner has questioned Kerry's integrity; has claimed personal knowledge of the circumstances leading to Kerry's first Purple Heart; and has spoken with authority about the events leading to Kerry's Bronze Star. Fellow anti-Kerry Swift Boat Vets member Larry Thurlow has also cited Gardner as eyewitness support for his accusations against Kerry and against Kerry's first Purple Heart. Yet while Gardner did serve as a gunner under Kerry's command on PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) 44, he
has admitted that he -- just like the rest of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claiming that Kerry is lying about his medals -- was not present for the incidents leading to Kerry's receipt of any medals or any of Kerry's three Purple Hearts.
Gardner admitted that "he was not on the boat with Kerry during the incidents for which Kerry got his medals," reported The Columbus Dispatch on August 6. And as a guest on Michael Savage's radio show, Savage Nation, on August 2, Gardner said that of Kerry's three Purple Hearts, he could only attest to the first; Gardner later admitted to Savage that he was "not on the boat with him [Kerry]" when that injury occurred.
Yet in repeated media appearances, conservative hosts have presented Gardner as an eyewitness to key Kerry events. And in at least two interviews, Gardner has falsely claimed that he was present for the incidents leading to Kerry's receipt of awards. On Savage Nation on August 2, Savage introduced Gardner as an "expert coming on this show eventually to talk about the phony John Kerry and his swift boat." On FOX News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor on August 9, host Bill O'Reilly identified Gardner as "the only one who served directly under him of the 3,500 ... an eyewitness." As a guest on the August 20 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, host and former U.S. Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL) introduced Gardner as "a vet who actually served on John Kerry's swift boat" who would provide "a firsthand account of what really happened in Vietnam." On that same edition of Scarborough Country, MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan touted Gardner as the "first member who actually served aboard John Kerry's boat to speak since this controversy erupted," before he asked Gardner, "[W]ho is telling the truth?"
In an apparent attempt to substantiate his status as an eyewitness to key Kerry events, Gardner claimed on Scarborough Country, "[T]hat boat never left the dock that I wasn't aboard it with John Kerry, never. I was with that boat everywhere we went."
Gardner went on to make assertions regarding the events that occurred on March 13, 1969, involving Kerry's rescue of Jim Rassmann, for which Kerry received the Bronze Star. Gardner claimed to know that Kerry fled the scene on the river that day while the other three boats stayed and that Kerry then "turned around and came all the way back to pick up Mr. Rassmann that he had thrown off his boat when he took off, when he fled down the canal."
But later in the show, Gardner admitted to not being present that day.
There was this post, too. In terms of rebuttals, the top half was the interesting half (so thats all I'm reposting now):
- with Jim Russell as newly emerging eyewitness (no, nothing to gain by coming out now, either, and no prior ties to the Kerry campaign) on Kerry's crew coming "under significant fire" when Kerry was rescuing Rassmann (by pulling him out of the water with his injured arm, you'll remember);
- and Rich McCann testifying to how the SVFT, when they assailed Kerry for wrongfully using that one photo and saying only three people in the picture actually supported Kerry, had put him down as "neutral" when in fact they never even asked him about it at all.
nimh wrote:Quote:The [Kerry] campaign Monday organized a conference call for reporters with three men who served with Mr. Kerry, one of whom had become visible over the weekend through a letter to the editor of his hometown newspaper, The Telluride Daily Planet, in Colorado.
In the letter, the man, Jim Russell, said that he had served on the Bay Hap River with Mr. Kerry the day he won his Bronze Star and that they had come under significant enemy fire as Mr. Kerry rescued Jim Rassmann. His account contradicted that of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who have said there was not a major firefight. "Anyone who doesn't think that we were being fired upon must have been on a different river," Mr Russell wrote.
Rich Baker, who served in Mr. Kerry's Swift boat division, told reporters on the conference call that Mr. Kerry was the "most aggressive officer" in charge of the Swift boats and "extremely qualified" to serve as commander in chief.
Mr. Baker pointed out that at least two of the commanders now involved with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had given Mr. Kerry glowing evaluations during his time in Vietnam. "With no disrespect to anyone out there, the whole Swift boat operation took courage and guts every time you stepped on those boats," Mr. Baker said. "But John Kerry was one step above the rest of us, in my opinion."
The third veteran, Rich McCann, noted that a photograph on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Web site and in its book, portrays him as neutral on the question of whether Mr. Kerry is "fit for command.'' But Mr. McCann said the group had not asked him whether he believes Mr. Kerry would be an effective commander in chief - and he does. "As I said it in 1969 and I'll say it again today,'' he said, "if I had to go up a river and come under fire, I'd want John Kerry to watch my back.''
<snipping out the remainder of the quote, which was about Dole and about another possible Bush/SVFT link, just click link below to find it>
LINK
BBB posted
Jim Russell's full letter to the editor in Tulleride Daily Planet and
the full Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article that had Rich Baker.
I posted this summary on Dr. Letson's claim:
nimh wrote:JustWonders wrote:As Hanoi John likes to say: BRING IT ON! Given the chance, I'd ask him why he sought medical attention for the so-called wound which was, in his own words, just a scratch. Dr. Letson slapped a bandaid on it the next day, so ask yourself why Kerry couldn't have done that himself.
It appears Dr. Letson is making stuff up. He wasn't the one who treated Kerry, according to the records.
USAToday wrote:Louis Letson, a doctor who says he treated Kerry. He says Kerry didn't deserve his first Purple Heart because he "inadvertently wounded himself" and "there was no hostile fire." Medical records, however, note that Kerry was treated for shrapnel by J.C. Carreon, not Letson. Bill Zaladonis, who was on Kerry's boat at the time, says the men believed they were shooting at Viet Cong.
FactCheck.org, a non-partisan group that monitors political ads, says Letson's story is "based on hearsay, and disputed hearsay at that."
The NYT wrote:In the television commercial, Dr. Louis Letson looks into the camera and declares, "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury." Dr. Letson does not dispute the wound - a piece of shrapnel above Mr. Kerry's left elbow - but he and others in the group argue that it was minor and self-inflicted.
Yet Dr. Letson's name does not appear on any of the medical records for Mr. Kerry. Under "person administering treatment" for the injury, the form is signed by a medic, J. C. Carreon, who died several years ago. Dr. Letson said it was common for medics to treat sailors with the kind of injury that Mr. Kerry had and to fill out paperwork when doctors did the treatment.
Asked in an interview if there was any way to confirm he had treated Mr. Kerry, Dr. Letson said, "I guess you'll have to take my word for it."
In fairness, JustWonders' in turn argued:
JustWonders wrote:Dr. Letson was the only medical doctor at that base from September, 1968 to September, 1969. This can be verified by the commanding officer. The DNC lawyers are once again lying and they know full well that Jesus C. Carreon was one of the medics at that naval base.
Quote:Jim Russell, said that he had served on the Bay Hap River with Mr. Kerry the day he won his Bronze Star and that they had come under significant enemy fire as Mr. Kerry rescued Jim Rassmann.
Still doesn't make sense to me, I mean a boat was beached and took lots of time to to do what they had to do to get it moving.
A max of three bullet holes were found even if not from the nite before they were sitting ducks and no one got shot up, boats either.
Dunno, read on.....
Media failures allowed SBVT lies to dominate campaign
Media failures have allowed SBVT lies to dominate presidential campaign
Media Matters - 8/27/04
As each day brings more evidence that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is nothing more than a band of charlatans and partisan hacks with close ties to the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, the media's complicity in allowing these false charges to hijack the presidential race becomes more and more apparent.
A Media Matters for America survey of major newspaper editorials published between August 20 and August 26 found 24 editorials that have discussed issues related to the SBVT attacks; only two of those editorials said the group's allegations may have merit.
And yet the media continues to force wall-to-wall coverage of these baseless attacks on the public. Why?
The nonpartisan Columbia Journalism Review's website The Campaign Desk, calling media coverage of SBVT a "low point" among the "dozens of press failures during this presidential campaign," explained how the media has failed the public in covering the SBVT story:
Liberal commentators, not unjustifiably, are blaming the SBVFT for polluting campaign rhetoric with their loaded claims and harsh attacks. But the lion's share of the blame should not fall on the group, whose paid ads, after all, have appeared in just three states -- and are the kind of strident attack that might easily have quickly dropped off the national radar screen. While the SBVFT may have a questionable grasp of the facts, it has been extraordinarily sophisticated in its manipulation of the media. To understand why this campaign has been hijacked by a small group of veterans bearing a thirty-year old grudge, it's worth examining the institutional susceptibilities of a campaign press corps that allowed the SBVFT's accusations to take on a life of their own. The SBVFT may have put themselves in the game, but it's a flawed media that made them stars.
In the wake of the first SBVFT spot early this month, cable news programs for the most part offered viewers two talking heads, one on each side of the issue, to debate the merits of the claims. Verifiable facts were rarely offered to viewers -- despite the fact that military records supporting Kerry's version of events were readily available. Instead of acting as filters for the truth, reporters nodded and attentively transcribed both sides of the story, invariably failing to provide context, background, or any sense of which claims held up and which were misleading.
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote that the SBVT saga is a "test" for the media:
This is also a test for the media. We see here a fascinating and ugly development in the politics of annihilation. A supposedly outside group raises money from close Bush supporters, staffs itself with political operatives close to Bush and the Republicans, and then puts up several hundred thousand dollars worth of television ads. This is, as one operative with years of experience in Republican campaigns put it, "a professional hit." Suddenly, questions about Kerry's service that were asked and answered months ago become big news again.
To their credit, several news organizations -- the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and The Post among them -- have run reports exposing the distortions, inconsistencies and fabrications of the anti-Kerry crowd, and the links between this operation and the Bush machine.
But this hasn't stopped the run of unproven innuendo.
The Los Angeles Times agreed in an August 24 editorial, noting that the media is doing the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign's work for them:
The technique President Bush is using against John F. Kerry was perfected by his father against Michael Dukakis in 1988, though its roots go back at least to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It is: Bring a charge, however bogus. Make the charge simple ... ut make sure the supporting details are complicated and blurry enough to prevent easy refutation.
Then sit back and let the media do your work for you. Journalists have to report the charges, usually feel obliged to report the rebuttal, and often even attempt an analysis or assessment. But the canons of the profession prevent most journalists from saying outright: These charges are false. As a result, the voters are left with a general sense that there is some controversy over ... Kerry's service in Vietnam.
It must be infuriating to the victims of this process to be given conflicting advice about how to deal with it from the same campaign press corps that keeps it going. The press has been telling Kerry: (a) Don't let charges sit around unanswered; and (b) stick to your issues: Don't let the other guy choose the turf.
There is an important difference, though, between the side campaign being run for Kerry and the one for Bush. The pro-Kerry campaign is nasty and personal. The pro-Bush campaign is nasty, personal and false.
Not limited by the conventions of our colleagues in the newsroom, we can say it outright: These charges against John Kerry are false. Or at least, there is no good evidence that they are true. George Bush, if he were a man of principle, would say the same thing.
Media fails to question Bush camp's spin (again); there is no comparison between SBVT ads and MoveOn ads
In an effort to avoid criticism for not denouncing the SBVT ads -- and for their ties to SBVT -- the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign has taken to arguing that the SBVT ads are no different from ads run by MoveOn.org and other liberal organizations that criticize President George W. Bush. Many media outlets have fallen for this spin, and the MoveOn.org comparisons have flooded the airwaves and news pages in recent days -- with few reporters bothering to examine the similarities and differences between the ads.
Columbia Journalism Review noted the absurdity of the comparisons, and took the media to task for falling for them:
When Kerry called on Bush to condemn the Swift Boat ads, the White House pointed out that the president had himself been the target of harsh attack ads run by independent "527" groups supporting Kerry, and repeated its months-old contention that all such outside advertising should be banned.
The press dutifully reported this argument. But rarely if ever did reporters see fit to assess the validity of the comparison the Bush campaign was making. The anti-Bush ad most often cited by the White House as comparable to the Swift Boat spot was a MoveOn ad that questioned the president's service in the National Guard. But each one of the claims made in the MoveOn ad -- that Bush used family connections to get into the Guard, that he was grounded after failing to show up for a physical, that he wasn't seen at a Guard meeting for months, and that he was released eight months early to attend Harvard Business School -- is not in dispute. The overall tenor of the ad is harsh, to be sure -- so harsh, in fact, that Kerry quickly called it "irresponsible" -- but there's been no real argument that any of its assertions are untrue.
Compare that to the Swift Boat ads. Given that military records support Kerry's version of events, and that the credibility of many of Kerry's accusers is now in doubt, it would seem that if anyone should be on the defensive for lacking corroboration and documentation, it's those defending Bush's service record, not Kerry's. No anti-Bush ad from MoveOn has flown in the face of the preponderance of evidence in the way that the Swift Boat ad does. The press, then, should have pointed out the illogic of grouping the two spots as one and the same.
And, as noted above, the Los Angeles Times editorial board noted the "important difference" between the SBVT ads and the ads critical of Bush: "The pro-Kerry campaign is nasty and personal. The pro-Bush campaign is nasty, personal and false."
First Vietnam, now Cambodia: Swift Boat lies spread through Southeast Asia
The Swift Boat Liars and their accomplices in the media, seeing their attacks about John Kerry's medals fall apart more and more each day, have turned to claiming Kerry lied about being in Cambodia.
The Note, written by the ABC News' Political Unit, Noted on August 24:
Now that the charges of medal inflation and fabrication have been largely discredited by the likes of [ABC's Jake] Tapper, [The Washington Post's Michael] Dobbs, the Los Angeles Times and others, supporters of the book fall back on the Cambodia charge to tar Kerry with the book's central thesis that he's prone to verbal prestidigitation.
One problem: SBVT's lead attack dog on the Cambodia issue has been John O'Neill -- and this week, O'Neill was exposed for lying about his own experience in Cambodia. O'Neill has repeatedly insisted that neither he nor Kerry was ever in Cambodia; but this week, tapes of a 1971 Oval Office conversation between O'Neill and then-President Richard Nixon emerged and demonstrated, once again, that O'Neill is a liar:
O'NEILL: I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water
NIXON: In a swift boat?
O'NEILL: Yes, sir.
For those keeping score at home, O'Neill is now known to have lied about himself, his organization, and his book. He's lied about being a Republican from Texas, lied about his political involvement, lied about his ties to the Nixon White House, lied about his campaign contributions, lied about his co-author, lied about the makeup of SBVT, and lied about whether he was ever in Cambodia.
Given how many lies O'Neill has told about himself, why would anyone believe anything he says about John Kerry?
Why does the media keep paying attention to this two-bit huckster?
Who is Steve Gardner? A liar who wasn't on John Kerry's boat during any of the incidents that led to Kerry's medals
Stephen Gardner is frequently touted as a firsthand witness to John Kerry's Vietnam service because he served on Kerry's swift boat. But, as Media Matters for America revealed this week, Gardner's knowledge of Kerry's service has been overstated:
Stephen Gardner has been touted by the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and by conservative hosts as a singularly authoritative critic with firsthand knowledge of Senator John Kerry's (D-MA) record in Vietnam because Gardner -- unlike all the other members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- actually served on a swift boat that Kerry commanded. Gardner has questioned Kerry's integrity; has claimed personal knowledge of the circumstances leading to Kerry's first Purple Heart; and has spoken with authority about the events leading to Kerry's Bronze Star. Fellow anti-Kerry Swift Boat Vets member Larry Thurlow has also cited Gardner as eyewitness support for his accusations against Kerry and against Kerry's first Purple Heart. Yet while Gardner did serve as a gunner under Kerry's command on PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) 44, he has admitted that he -- just like the rest of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claiming that Kerry is lying about his medals -- was not present for the incidents leading to Kerry's receipt of any medals or any of Kerry's three Purple Hearts.
Gardner admitted that "he was not on the boat with Kerry during the incidents for which Kerry got his medals," reported The Columbus Dispatch on August 6.
On the August 2 broadcast of Savage Nation, Gardner himself claimed that all of the wounds for which Kerry received Purple Hearts "were superficial wounds, and I mean very superficial, scratches. The very first one is the only one that I can actually attest to because I was there when that wound happened." But Gardner was not there when Kerry sustained that wound. ... Gardner went on to admit: "I was not on the boat with him but I -- in the next three days following that, I was with him on the boat going to take our new position up down there on the seaward operations."
While false charges from SBVT dominate news coverage, Bush's Vietnam record escapes scrutiny
While the attacks on John Kerry's war record have been covered extensively in recent weeks, the media has devoted comparably little coverage to George Bush's Vietnam record.
A Media Matters for America analysis found 1,924 news reports discussing Kerry and swift boat veterans in 2004 -- compared with only 752 reports about Bush and the Alabama National Guard.
Why the disparate coverage?
As MMFA has extensively documented, SBVT are not credible and do not have evidence to support their claims.
On the other hand, all available documentary evidence indicates that Bush apparently didn't bother to show up for National Guard duty for a lengthy period in 1972-73 -- a period when, according to USA Today, "commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama." In contrast with Kerry, who has shipmates who sing his praises, Bush hasn't been able to produce anyone who can credibly say they remember serving with him in the Alabama Guard.
Though we already know that Bush was grounded from flying for failing to take a physical, other questions about his service still linger; USA Today recently summarized some of those remaining questions:
Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take an annual physical exam required of all pilots?
What explains the apparent gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?
Did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and securing a coveted pilot slot despite poor qualifying scores and arrests, but no convictions, for stealing a Christmas wreath and rowdiness at a football game during his college years.
The Associated Press filed a lawsuit this summer requesting copies of Bush's military records stored in a Texas archive on microfilm. It sought information that might explain why Bush did not take his flight physical and whether he showed up for duty in Alabama in the fall of 1972, AP spokesman John Stokes said.
One might think -- since we already know that Bush skipped a required physical, causing him to be grounded, and that records give no indication that he showed up for duty for several months -- that media coverage of questions about the candidates' Vietnam-era service would focus on Bush's record. But that's not what has happened so far during this presidential campaign.
The media's inconsistent coverage of the controversy around the two candidates' war records is particularly obvious in two examples MMFA identified.
First, many in the media condemned then-Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark for failing to distance himself from criticism of Bush's Guard record made at a Clark event in January -- but the media has given Bush a pass after he thanked a supporter for comments attacking Kerry's Vietnam record at an August campaign event:
In January, during the Democratic primaries, filmmaker Michael Moore, appearing at a rally for then-presidential candidate Ret. General Wesley Clark, called Bush a "deserter," referring to Bush's apparent failure to report for duty in Alabama. A firestorm quickly developed, and Clark was widely condemned in the media for not challenging Moore's comment. During a Democratic primary debate, moderator and ABC News anchor Peter Jennings even suggested that Clark's failure to contradict Moore was an example of poor "ethical behavior."
Fast-forward to August: At a Bush campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon, two Bush supporters attacked John Kerry's military record -- one even suggesting Kerry received his Purple Hearts for "self-inflicted scratches" -- in questions to Bush. Bush did not denounce the comments, or disagree in any way. Instead, he thanked the supporters for their comments.
The media has ignored the Bush event and ignored Bush's tacit endorsement of the attacks on Kerry's military record made in his presence (which, by the way, recalled the 2000 Republican primaries, when, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Bush stood on a stage and listened as a supporter accused McCain, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, of turning his back on veterans").
A LexisNexis search shows only six mentions of the Beaverton incidents: two Washington Post articles, two Washingtonpost.com articles, a column by Gene Lyons in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and a Scripps Howard article. The Bush event is perfectly analogous to the Clark/Moore event (except that Moore had considerably more evidence to support his position than did the questioners at the Bush event) -- and yet the news media, which covered the Clark/Moore event so thoroughly, has ignored the Bush event.
Second, while alleged (and unproven, and apparently baseless) charges that John Kerry has lied about his military service have gotten extensive media coverage this year, two well-documented examples of Bush lying about his own record have been all but ignored:
Bush lied during his 1978 congressional campaign, falsely claiming [in a campaign ad] he had served in the Air Force.
Bush didn't serve in the U.S. Air Force; he served in the National Guard. When confronted with questions about the ad, Bush said, "The facts are I served 600 days in the Air Force," basing his claim on the assertion that National Guard service and Air Force service are the same thing. But the Associated Press reported that [according to the Air Force itself] there is, in fact, a difference between the National Guard and the Air Force.
By claiming to have been in the Air Force, Bush may have been trying to create the impression that he was in -- or could have been sent to -- Vietnam. But when he had the opportunity to volunteer for "overseas" duty, Bush refused, as page 22 of these Bush military records (pdf) reveals. Indeed, Bush once famously explained why he joined the National Guard: "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."
MMFA can find only one media mention on LexisNexis since January of this obvious Bush lie about the Air Force.
Another example of a clear-cut Bush lie about his military record that has gone almost completely unnoticed by the media this year is a false claim he made in his autobiography about how long he flew jets for the Guard. The Boston Globe reported: "Bush himself, in his 1999 autobiography, A Charge to Keep, recounts the thrills of his pilot training, which he completed in June 1970. 'I continued flying with my unit for the next several years,' the governor wrote."
But, as USA Today has reported, Bush "stop[ped] flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972" -- less than two years after completing his pilot training. Not only did Bush stop flying in the spring of 1972, he was grounded from flying in August 1972, after refusing to take a required physical.
[T]he media has ignored this clear lie that George W. Bush told in order to advance a political campaign. A search of the LexisNexis database yields only seven hits for 2004 -- three of which are versions of an Eric Alterman column that appeared in multiple newspapers, and one of which is a letter to the editor.
The Washington Post's Dionne, commenting on coverage of Kerry's war record, concluded:
The media have to do more than "he said/he said" reporting. If the charges don't hold up, they don't hold up. And, yes, now that John Kerry's life during his twenties has been put at the heart of this campaign just over two months from Election Day, the media owe the country a comparable review of what Bush was doing at the same time and the same age.
Brand X wrote:As for Kerry's medical condition after the incident, there are more suspicious entries on page 8 of the after action report. Kerry's medical report lists "Kerry suffered shrapnel wounds in his left buttocks and contusions on his right forearm when a mine detonated close aboard PCF-94." We now know that the butt wounds were received earlier in the day when he was playing GI Joe with a hand grenade and there is no reference to any bleeding injury to his arms. He was treated by the Coast Guard medical officer and returned to duty.
Its the bolded part here that makes me so outraged about the kind of attacks the SVFT sympathisers are fielding. Here's the WaPo telling the full story:
Quote:The expedition began to go wrong soon after they inserted the Nung troops into a deserted village off the Dong Cung Canal. As the mercenaries searched from house to house, Rassmann recalled, one reached for a cloth bag at the base of a coconut tree and was blown to pieces. It was a booby trap. Kerry, who arrived on the scene soon after, helped wrap the body in a poncho and drag it back to the boat, diving into a ditch when he thought he was under fire.
"I never want to see anything like it again," Kerry wrote later. "What was left was human, and yet it wasn't -- a person had been there only a few moments earlier and . . . now it was a horrible mass of torn flesh and broken bones." [..]
As they were heading back to the boat, Kerry and Rassmann decided to blow up a five-ton rice bin to deny food to the Vietcong. In an interview last week, Rassmann recalled that they climbed on top of the huge pile and dug a hole in the rice. On the count of three, they tossed their grenades into the hole and ran.
Evidently, Kerry did not run fast enough. "He got some frags and pieces of rice in his rear end," Rassmann said with a laugh. "It was more embarrassing than painful." At the time, the incident did not seem significant, and Kerry did not mention it to anyone when he got back on the boat. An unsigned "personnel casualty report," however, erroneously implies that Kerry suffered "shrapnel wounds in his left buttocks" later in the day, following the mine explosion incident, when he also received "contusions to his right forearm."
Anti-Kerry veterans have accused Kerry of conflating the two injuries to strengthen his case for a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Kerry's Bronze Star citation, however, refers only to his arm injury.
So, let's recap:
- the buttocks injury was erroneously blamed on the mine explosion in the medical report - but NOT in the Bronze Star's citation, and thus the SVFT allegation on Kerry getting his medal on falsified grounds is baseless on this point
- The SVFT (and now Brand X) have been peddling this story about Kerry's buttock injury being the result of him "playing GI Joe". On "Hannity and Colmes", it was O'Neill, saying "[Kerry]'s admitted first he actually wounded himself in a very minor way when he was playing around with a grenade that morning when he was throwing it around, throwing it in a rice field". But in fact it happened when he was blowing up a five-ton rice supply to deny it to the VC - just after one of the men with him had been blown to pieces by a boobytrap.
Shame, shame, shame.
As The New Republic
blog put it:
Quote:While on a dangerous mission with a Special Forces officer Kerry was injured destroying a cache of Vietcong rice. In O'Neill's hands this is turned into a story about Kerry harming himself while "playing around with a grenade...in a rice field." O'Neill is a disgrace.
What I quoted from WaPo just now is actually from a long story surveying the flaws in both Kerry's and the SVFT's stories that I (and others, I'm sure) posted earlier.
It's here.
For the purpose of this thread, I'll lift out the bits reconstructing what actually happened and those focusing on SVFT assertions - still long enough ... (thats probly why I havent seen others quoting this stuff).
Quote:Swift boat accounts incomplete and flawed
For the Massachusetts senator's critics, who include three of the five Swift boat skippers who were present that day, the incident demonstrates why Kerry does not deserve to be commander in chief. They accuse him of cowardice, hogging the limelight and lying. Far from displaying coolness under fire, they say, Kerry was never fired upon and fled the scene at the moment of maximum danger. [..]
On the core issue of whether Kerry was wounded under enemy fire that day, thereby qualifying for a third Purple Heart, the Navy records clearly favor Kerry. Several documents, including the after-action report and the Bronze Star citation for a Swift boat skipper who has accused Kerry of lying, refer to "all units" coming under "automatic and small-weapons fire."
The eyewitness accounts, on the other hand, are conflicting. Kerry's former crew members support his version, as does Rassmann, the Special Forces officer rescued from the river. But many of the other skippers and enlisted men who were on the river that day dispute Kerry's account and have signed up with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth [..]
Boats thrown into fight
[..] Taking a 50-foot aluminum boat up a river or canal was replete with danger, ranging from ambushes to booby traps to mines. Kerry and his comrades would experience all these risks on March 13, 1969. The purpose of the mission was twofold: to insert pro-government forces upriver in a group of Vietcong-controlled villages; and more generally to show the flag, keeping the waterways free for commerce.
In some ways, it was a day like any other. The previous day, Kerry had taken part in a Swift boat expedition that had come under fire and several windows of Kerry's boat were blown out. A friend, Lt. j.g. William B. Rood, almost lost an eye in the ambush. [Now an editor with the Chicago Tribune, Rood yesterday broke three decades of public silence to support Kerry's version of how he won the Silver Star on Feb. 28. Rood has no first-hand knowledge of the Bronze Star incident.] [..]
<snipping part already quoted above>
At 2.45 p.m., according to Navy records, Kerry was joined by four other Swift boats for the Bay Hap trip. Kerry led the way on the right-hand side of the river, in PCF-94, followed 15 yards behind by one of his best friends in Vietnam, Don Droz, in PCF-43. A procession of three boats on the left side of the river was led by Richard Pees on PCF-3, followed by Jack Chenoweth on PCF-23 and Thurlow on PCF-51.
Ahead of them was a fishing weir, a series of wooden posts across the river. That morning, the Swiftees had noticed Vietnamese children in sampans attaching nets to the posts and had thought little of it. To get through the weir, their boats had to pass to the left or to the right of the fishing nets.
Just as the Kerry and Pees boats reached the weir, there was a devastating explosion, lifting Pees's boat, PCF-3, three feet out of the water.
Witness accounts diverge
"My God, I've never seen anything like it," Chenoweth wrote in what he says is a diary recorded soon after the events. "There was a fantastic flash, a boom, then the 3 boat disappeared in a fountain of water and debris. I was only 30 yards behind." Assuming that they had run into a Vietcong ambush, Chenoweth wrote, "we unleashed everything into the banks."
A later intelligence report established that the mine was probably detonated by a Vietcong sympathizer in a foxhole who hit a plunger as the Swift boats passed through the fishing weir.
Aboard the 3 boat, Pees remembered in an interview being "thrown up in the air" into the windscreen of his pilothouse and landing "kind of dazed," his legs numb, lap covered with blood. When it was over, Pees and three members of his crew would be medevaced to a Coast Guard cutter offshore with serious head and back injuries.
"When the mine went off, we were still going full speed," recalled Michael Medeiros, one of Kerry's crew members. Kerry's boat raced off down the river, away from the ambush zone.
It is at this point that the eyewitness accounts begin to diverge sharply. Everybody agrees that a mine exploded under the 3 boat. There is no argument that Rassmann fell into the river and that Kerry fished him out. Nor is there any dispute that Kerry was hurt in the arm, although the anti-Kerry camp claims he exaggerated the nature of his injury. Much else is hotly contested.
When the first explosion occurred, Rassmann was seated next to the pilothouse on the starboard, or right, side of Kerry's boat, munching a chocolate chip cookie that he recalls having "ripped off from someone's Care package." He saw the 3 boat lift out of the water. Almost simultaneously, Kerry's forward gunner, Tommy Belodeau, began screaming for a replacement for his machine gun, which had jammed. Rassmann grabbed an M-16 and worked his way sideways along the deck, which was only seven inches wide in places.
At this point, Kerry crew members say their boat was hit by a second explosion. Although Kerry's injury report speaks of a mine that "detonated close aboard PCF-94," helmsman Del Sandusky believes it was more likely a rocket or rocket-propelled grenade, as a mine would have inflicted more damage. Whatever it was, the explosion rammed Kerry into the wall of his pilothouse, injuring his right forearm.
The second explosion "blew me right off the boat," Rassmann recalled. Frightened that he might be struck by the propellers of one of the boats, he dived to the bottom of the river, where he dumped his weapons and rucksack. When he surfaced, he said, bullets were "snapping overhead," as well as hitting the water around him.
At first, nobody noticed what had happened to Rassmann. But then Medeiros, who was standing at the stern, saw him bobbing up and down in the water and shouted, "Man overboard." Around this time, crew members said, Kerry decided to go back to help the crippled 3 boat. It is unclear how far down the river Kerry's boat was when he turned around. It could have been anywhere from a few hundred yards to a mile.
O'Neill claims that Kerry "fled the scene" despite the absence of hostile fire. Kerry, in a purported journal entry cited in Brinkley's "Tour of Duty," maintains that he wanted to get his troops ashore "on the outskirts of the ambush."
The Kerry/Rassmann version of what happened next has been retold many times, in TV advertisements and campaign appearances: Rassmann struggling to climb up a scramble net, Kerry leaning over the bow of the boat and pulling him up with his injured arm. As Kerry later recalled, in notes cited by Brinkley, "Somehow we got him on board and I didn't get the bullet in the head that I expected, and we managed to move down near the 3 boat that was still crawling a snail-like zig-zag through the river."
Rassmann remembers several boats coming back up the river toward him. But Chenoweth believes that the rescue must have taken place fairly close to the other boats, which had been drifting slowly downriver. In his diary, he said, he wrote that "we spotted a man overboard, started to pick him up, but 94 [Kerry's boat] got there first."
While Kerry was rescuing Rassmann, the other Swift boats had gone to the assistance of Pees and the 3 boat. Thurlow, in particular, distinguished himself by leaping onto the 3 boat and administering first aid, according to his Bronze Star citation. At one point, he, too, was knocked overboard when the boat hit a sandbar, but he was rescued by crewmates.
The Kerry and anti-Kerry camps differ sharply on whether the flotilla came under enemy fire after the explosion that crippled the 3 boat. Everybody aboard Kerry's boat, including Rassmann, says there was fire from both riverbanks, and the official after-action report speaks of all boats receiving "heavy a/w [automatic weapons] and s/a [small arms] from both banks." The Bronze Star citations for Kerry and Thurlow also speak of prolonged enemy fire.
A report on "battle damage" to Thurlow's boat mentions "three 30 cal bullet holes about super structure." According to Thurlow, at least one of the bullet holes was the result of action the previous day, when he ran into another Vietcong ambush.
Thurlow, Chenoweth, Pees and several of their crew members who belong to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say neither they nor Kerry came under fire. "If there was fire, I would have made some notation in my journal," Chenoweth said. "But it didn't happen that way. There wasn't any fire." Although he read his diary entry to a reporter over the phone, he declined to supply a copy.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Rassmann said, "are not just questioning Kerry's account, they are questioning my account. I take that very personally. No one can tell me that we were not under fire. I saw it, I heard the splashes, and I was scared to death. For them to come back 35 years after the fact to tarnish not only Kerry's record, but my veracity, is unconscionable."
Up until now, eyewitness evidence supporting Kerry's version had come only from his own crewmen. But yesterday, The Post independently contacted a participant who has not spoken out so far in favor of either camp who remembers coming under enemy fire. "There was a lot of firing going on, and it came from both sides of the river," said Wayne D. Langhofer, who manned a machine gun aboard PCF-43, the boat that was directly behind Kerry's.
Langhofer said he distinctly remembered the "clack, clack, clack" of enemy AK-47s, as well as muzzle flashes from the riverbanks. Langhofer, who now works at a Kansas gunpowder plant , said he was approached several months ago by leaders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but declined their requests to speak out against Kerry.
Who initialed Navy report?
Much of the debate over who is telling the truth boils down to whether the two-page after-action report and other Navy records are accurate or whether they have been embellished by Kerry or someone else. In "Unfit for Command," O'Neill describes the after-action report as "Kerry's report." He contends that language in Thurlow's Bronze Star citation referring to "enemy bullets flying about him" must also have come from "Kerry's after-action report."
O'Neill has said that the initials "KJW" on the bottom of the report "identified" it as having been written by Kerry. It is unclear why this should be so, as Kerry's initials are JFK. A review of other Swift boat after-action reports at the Naval Historical Center here reveals several that include the initials "KJW" but describe incidents at which Kerry was not present.
Other Swift boat veterans, including Thurlow and Chenoweth, have said they believe that Kerry wrote the March 13 report. "I didn't like to write reports," said Thurlow, who was the senior officer in the five-boat flotilla. "John would write the thing up in longhand, and it would then be typed up and sent up the line."
Even if Kerry did write the March 13 after-action report, it seems unlikely that he would have been the source of the information about "enemy bullets" flying around Thurlow. The official witness to those events, according to Thurlow's medal recommendation form, was his own leading petty officer, Robert Lambert, who himself won a Bronze Star for "courage under fire" in going to Thurlow's rescue after he fell into the river. Lambert, who lives in California, declined comment.
In a telephone interview, the head of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, who commanded all Swift boats in Vietnam, said he believed that Kerry wrote the March 13 after-action report on the basis of numerical identifiers at the top of the form. He later acknowledged that the numbers referred to the Swift boat unit, and not to Kerry personally. "It's not cast-iron," he said. [..]
Some felt betrayed
[..] The anti-Kerry veterans began mobilizing earlier this year, following publication of the Brinkley biography and the nationwide publicity given to Kerry's emotional reunion with Rassmann. Many of the veterans were contacted personally by Hoffmann, a gung-ho naval officer compared unflatteringly in "Tour of Duty" with the out-of-control lieutenant colonel in the movie "Apocalypse Now" who talked about how he loved "the smell of napalm in the morning." [..]
With the exception of a sailor named Stephen Gardner, who served with Kerry in late 1968 on PCF-44, Kerry's own crew members have remained loyal to him. "If it wasn't for some of his decisions, we would probably be some of the names in that wall," said Gene Thorson, the engineman on PCF-94, referring to the Vietnam War Memorial. "I respect him very much."
Others who served on boats that operated alongside Kerry on that fateful day in March 1969 say they cannot stand the man who is now challenging George W. Bush for the presidency.
"I think that Kerry's behavior was abominable," said Pees, the commander of the boat that hit the mine. "His actions after the war were particularly disgusting. He distorted the truth when he talked about atrocities. We went out of our way to protect civilians. To suggest otherwise is a grotesque lie. As far as I am concerned, he did not speak the truth about how we conducted operations in Vietnam."
"A lot of people just can't forgive and forget," countered Kerry crew member Medeiros. "He was a great commander. I would have no trouble following him anywhere."
Cycloptichorn wrote:It's understandable. But, O'neil was highly praised as a front man for Nixon's attack on Kerry. Is he not tarred with the same brush?
Cycloptichorn
If he was acting out of love for Richard Nixon, yes; if he was acting out of dislike for Kerry, no.
I don't picture anybody ever having loved Dick Nixon, even his mother. There used to be bumper stickers which read "Dick Nixon, Before He Dicks You..."
In other words, I don't easily picture O'Neil being any sort of of a hard-core Nixonite, particularly when you look at his voting record. Apparently he voted for Perot in 96 and for Algor last time around. This thing you're seeing with the swiftboat vets is not a rightwing conspiracy of any sort, near as I can tell.
swolf wrote:
In other words, I don't easily picture O'Neil being any sort of of a hard-core Nixonite, particularly when you look at his voting record. Apparently he voted for Perot in 96 and for Algor last time around. This thing you're seeing with the swiftboat vets is not a rightwing conspiracy of any sort, near as I can tell.
if there is an "official" voting record of who voted for who or what as a private citizen, something not right is going on here. if the only thing to go on is what o'neill says, there's every reason for me to doubt him.
first he tells nixon he Was in cambodia. then he tells us now he WASN"T.
sorry. can't see homeboy voting for gore. nope. not at all.
however, it is possible, if just a little (?), that maybe o'neill is simply an opportunist.
O'Neill has been trying to set the record straight ever since then. You couldn't very well let Kerry go around spewing his lies without getting the other point of view out.. That's is what O'Neill was about. He didn't gain anything from doing what he did.. He did it because he knew Kerry was saying things that didn't happen in Vietnam. Nixon wasn't there, O'Neill was. He has the right now as do the other 250 + vets speaking out.
I goes beyond the awards and medals, the record still needs to set straight about our military and how they conducted themselves back then. Old wounds, Kerry HAD to get the nomination.. That is what the book and the interviews are all about. He in their eyes and millions of others is UNFIT FOR COMMAND...
Aug. 28, 2004 | The Bush campaign claims no connections to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and their mission against John Kerry. It's just one big happy coincidence. Those Republicans just have all the luck.
But it is a politically fatal form of naiveté to think senior Bush political strategist Karl Rove has been sitting idly in his West Wing office hoping that a group might spontaneously arise to question John Kerry's credibility as a commander. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the whisper campaign against Ann Richards that questioned her sexuality, the attacks on John McCain's mental health in South Carolina, and the questioning of his environmental record in the New York primary were all products of the fastidious work of Karl Rove. And it does not take an FBI agent to make the connections.
The big moneyman behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is Bob Perry and, not surprisingly, the only visible connection between Perry and Swift Boat accuser John O'Neill is their mutual relationship with Karl Rove. Perry worked with Rove early in the consultant's political ascension. The Houston homebuilder, who has developed into the biggest giver to Republican causes and candidates in Texas, was the finance chairman of the 1986 Texas gubernatorial campaign of Bill Clements. Rove managed that race for Clements and Perry was an important fundraiser, helping Rove generate the donor lists he used to rebuild the Texas Republican Party, and, ultimately, finance the climb of his prize client, George W. Bush.
Rove had already convinced Perry to begin raising money to elect state judges -- funds used to help launch the Texas Civil Justice League. The Civil Justice League was Rove's initial surrogate organization and carried the message that trial lawyers were bad people who were screwing up the business climate with frivolous lawsuits. The chorus singing about the evils of lawyers in Texas was later joined by Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (an organization that Rove helped grow and with which he maintains close contact today), and yet another front group called Texans for Lawsuit Reform. As they chanted their messages across the state about the horrors of litigation, Rove's political clients were able to publicly acknowledge the concerns of these groups. Thus an entirely artificial movement, conceived and funded by Rove, was used to change the state's judicial system and, of course, became an essential step in Rove's master plan to elect Bush governor and then president.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is nothing more than another example of Rove's tactic of using surrogates to do his candidate's dirty work and there is a clear, bright line running from the current headlines back to Texas. When it came time for an organization like SBVT to magically appear, Rove already was the acknowledged master of the third-party surrogate slur. As he was rebuilding the Republican Party in Texas, Rove developed a template for smearing opponents. The goal was to have his candidates hover above the fray while urging their opponents to concentrate on issues, thereby constantly putting them in a position of having to play defense and deny unfounded accusations. Eventually, the Rove client, according to the script, would step out to demand an end to the ugliness. Of course, Rove wrote the narrative of these plans in such a way that calling for a truce would not occur until the damage had already been done to his opposition.
The attacks on John Kerry's war record fit like a mass production mold with Rove's political campaigning. While great armies probe an enemy's defenses for weaknesses, "Bush's Brain" has always tried to batter his opponents where they are strongest. Kerry's profile as a combat-tested officer ready to assume the role of commander in chief was a problem for the Bush campaign. So Rove went after it. "Look, I don't attack people on their weaknesses," he once told reporters in Texas during a campaign. "That usually doesn't get the job done. Voters already perceive weaknesses. You've got to go after the other guy's strengths. That's how you win."
Further reading of 2 page article at Salon. Also goes into details of Ann Richards, McClellan and McCain smears.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/28/moore_rove_swift_boat/index.html
It would be comical if this wasn't so important. Rove got 250 + vets to "go along with him" in attacking Kerry. WoW! The mans a genius!
Just because a mans a vet, doesn't make him a hero. He is no hero in the eyes of a majority of vets. I would assume the vets against Bush were caught up in the moment of the 60s or influenced by the history they learned by the anti-war leftovers of today. Kerry lied about the atrocities then and still stands by those lies.
The support for S Vietnam in Congress was taken away because of people like Kerry and his ilk. It was a miracle they lasted as long as they did. We let down the south, they did not want to live in a dictatorship. The only shame was us pulling out. The shame of our country in not supporting democracy. Kerrys picture in the war museum is proudly displayed because if it wasn't for him, communist N Vietnam would have lost and millions would live in freedom today. If there was support instead of protests, the war wouldn't have lasted as long as it did. Our military wouldn't have been spit on when they returned from war.
No, we weren't the bad guys then and we are not the bad guys now.
The man is a disgrace. If you think he is going tax "the rich" and you will be better off is another lie. He will raise taxes on everything else you can imagine. Any breaks you think you're going to get is smoke and mirrors.
Xena wrote:It would be comical if this wasn't so important. Rove got 250 + vets to "go along with him" in attacking Kerry. WoW! The mans a genius!
Actually, he is a bit of a political genius. You might want to look into how he got GWB elected as governor of Texas and nominated for the Republican ticket.
Quote:
The support for S Vietnam in Congress was taken away because of people like Kerry and his ilk. It was a miracle they lasted as long as they did. We let down the south, they did not want to live in a dictatorship. The only shame was us pulling out. The shame of our country in not supporting democracy. Kerrys picture in the war museum is proudly displayed because if it wasn't for him, communist N Vietnam would have lost and millions would live in freedom today. If there was support instead of protests, the war wouldn't have lasted as long as it did. Our military wouldn't have been spit on when they returned from war.
First, it wasn't a democracy we were protecting, it was a government that we installed. Second, we hadn't won by bombing the living sh__t out of the tiny place and killing 3 million people, what do you think we could have done to win it militarily? There wasn't support for the war because the American people didn't like their sons being forced to fight and die for something they couldn't comprehend.
Quote:"Look, I don't attack people on their weaknesses," he once told reporters in Texas during a campaign. "That usually doesn't get the job done. Voters already perceive weaknesses. You've got to go after the other guy's strengths. That's how you win."
I thought this was really interesting. I started thinking what someone like Rove, but working for the Democrats, could attack Bush for and realized he doesn't really have any strengths. It's so curious to me that our political climate right now pretty much ensures that we get a candidate with no strengths.
According to this writer, the SVFT are barking up the wrong tree also on the issue that
really motivates them: Kerry's performance in the Winter Soldier Investigation. A fraud it was, conservative commentators now claim. Not so, says Prados, a historian of the Vietnam war:
Quote: DAILY EXPRESS
Winter Whether
by John Prados
Only at The New Republic Online
Post date: 08.30.04
To suggest that John Kerry lied in describing American atrocities when he returned home from Vietnam, a number of conservative commentators have noted that he relied on the testimony of the Winter Soldier Investigation, a meeting of antiwar vets that took place in 1971. Last week, National Review editor Rich Lowry described the investigation as a "since-discredited project that gathered first-person accounts of alleged atrocities from American vets." Earlier this month, Eric Fettman wrote in The New York Post that the investigation was hatched by a "conspiracy crackpot" and later exposed as a "mass of fabrications." And a host of conservative websites piled on, explaining to readers that the winter soldiers had long since been exposed as frauds.
The problem with this line of analysis is that the Winter Soldier Investigation was never discredited. [..]
The Winter Soldier Investigation took place in Detroit in 1971. For three days, beginning on January 31, members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) related their personal experiences of events that constituted war crimes or violations of international law. VVAW had carefully prepared this public testimony, asking speakers only to relate events of which they had direct knowledge. Veterans wrote preliminary accounts of their testimonies on questionnaires; VVAW staff then went through huge numbers of these questionnaires before selecting the individuals who would be asked to present evidence. Every veteran who presented in Detroit had to show a copy of his military papers (the military form known as DD-214) to demonstrate that he had actually been present at the places and times he was speaking about. The papers of VVAW today contain boxes upon boxes of the questionnaires and records of this event. They show not only that the testimonies were prepared meticulously, but that the evidence actually presented in Detroit in early 1971 represented only a small percentage of the total number of questionable events these soldiers witnessed in Vietnam.
The veterans who appeared at the Winter Soldier Investigation included both officers and enlisted men--more than a hundred in all--with service dates from 1963 through 1970. They represented a wide array of units: the Special Forces (Green Berets); the 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions; the 1st Cavalry Division; the 101st Airborne Division; the 173rd Airborne Brigade; the 4th 9th, 25th, and Americal Infantry Divisions; and other units as well. Soldiers in Detroit testified to civilians killed in "reconnaissance by fire," that is, gunfire aimed at a village before troops entered it; brutal interrogations; people's heads or ears cut off to frighten others; villagers forcibly relocated and their homes destroyed; prisoners mistreated; and numerous other abuses.
Later that year, John Kerry carried these stories to the public in both his congressional testimony and in his public appearances. The allegations were hotly disputed at the time by veterans such as John O'Neill, who has now resurfaced as a leader of the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. O'Neill and Kerry debated each other on the "Dick Cavett Show" on June 30, 1971, with O'Neill demanding that the winter soldiers give "depositions" in order to prove the veracity of their allegations.
But the current claim by conservatives that the Winter Soldier Investigation was discredited can be most directly traced to a 1978 book by Guenther Lewy called America in Vietnam, which attempted an early form of the argument that the U.S. won the Vietnam war. In the main, Lewy merely reprised John O'Neill's objections from the "Dick Cavett Show." Lewy's primary evidence consists of noting that VVAW members refused to give depositions. When the Naval Investigative Service tried to pull VVAW members into an inquiry, it found one Marine who either could not or would not give details of what he had seen and allegedly located several other veterans who said they had never gone to Detroit. (O'Neill had cited this same information in his televised debate with Kerry.) But even if true, these incidents were far too limited to establish anything in particular about the Winter Soldier Investigation; the fact that some of the winter soldiers declined to give depositions does not prove or disprove the legitimacy of the entire project. The VVAW leadership left it up to individual members to decide how to respond to requests for depositions. And veterans had good reasons to decline. For one thing, they argued that their purpose was to protest U.S. policy, not to draw attention to individual soldiers. What's more, with the VVAW under direct assault from the Nixon administration, it's understandable that the group's members were loathe to cooperate with government investigators.
The remaining plank in Lewy's case against the winter soldiers consists merely of noting the participation in Detroit of JFK assassination conspiracy theorist Mark Lane. And even in attempting to cast doubt on the veracity of the winter soldiers' allegations, Lewy also wrote that "incidents similar to some of those described at the VVAW hearing undoubtedly did occur"; that policies such as the military's emphasis on "body count" certainly "created an atmosphere conducive to atrocities"; that in 1967 Vietnam field commander General William Westmoreland had to issue orders prohibiting cutting ears or fingers off the bodies of the dead; and that the conduct of a war without fronts "created a setting especially conducive to atrocities."
Other claims put forward at the Winter Soldier Investigation--such as an allegation that the Marines made an incursion into Laos (Operation Dewey Canyon) that was illegal under U.S. law--were later shown to be true. And in the years since the winter soldiers convened in Detroit, the general premise of their gathering has been validated: American soldiers did indeed commit atrocities in Vietnam; the most famous, the My Lai massacre of March 1968, was merely the starting point. The names of villages like Son Thang and Thanh Phong, locales of other acknowledged atrocities, are now burned into the memory of historians. The actions of Tiger Force of the 327th Airborne Infantry in the Central Highlands in 1967 are still today under investigation as war crimes. (Indeed veterans of Tiger Force have acknowledged the atrocities and have appeared on television to describe their roles and remorse.) And the Phoenix Program led to thousands of deaths despite efforts by the CIA's William Colby to impose legal strictures on program activities. As an historian of the Vietnam war, over the decades I have myself heard veterans tell innumerable stories of incidents they saw and would prefer to forget. The truth is that American military tactics and the nature of the war conditioned the ferocity of field operations, while widespread U.S. attitudes of contempt toward the Vietnamese made atrocities all the more difficult to prevent.
The only thing that analysts like Guenther Lewy have shown is that it is difficult to establish precisely how many atrocities took place, or how many Vietnamese, innocent or otherwise, perished as a result of them. Thirty years later polemicists like John O'Neill continue to cloud reality with obfuscation. None of this changes the fact that far from being discredited, the Winter Soldier Investigation has been largely validated. Conservative commentators should stop pretending otherwise.
John Prados is a senior analyst with the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., and editor, with Margaret Pratt-Porter, of the book Inside the Pentagon Papers (University of Kansas Press).
