When John Kerry slandered an entire generation of men who fought in Vietnam he branded them as "war criminals." Today, much of the same thing is being said about our young men and women in Iraq.
Now, a lawsuit filed in Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas will test the very foundation of Kerry's anti-war persona for the first time. It isn't dubious medals or Kerry's disputed service record in Vietnam that is being called into question. This time Kerry may finally be forced to answer for the events that launched his public career, one that made him an anti-war hero for many American liberals and a turncoat for millions of Vietnam veterans.
The lawsuit (Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation, et al. v. Kenneth Campbell, et al.) challenges the basis, the factual accuracy of then Lt. (j.g.) Kerry's acrimonious testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971. It was there Kerry's public career was catapulted with his now ubiquitous portrayal of American soldiers as murderers, rapists and torturers "who ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam . . . [and] razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan."
For the anti-war, anti-American protesters, the American soldiers are the "terrorists," and the enemies are the victims of a barbaric U.S. military which tortures and murders defenseless civilians.
That false premise, one of the most vicious and enduring smears spawned by Kerry 35 years ago, will also be put to the test once Kerry's true "Band of Brothers" are put under oath in a Philadelphia courtroom.
http://www.vvlf.org/default.php?page_id=77
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