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|8.25.04 @ 4:55AM|#
Well, that's five minutes of my life I'm never getting back.
|8.25.04 @ 5:00AM|#
I thought it was hilarious!
"Are you saying he tried to drown the hamster?"
|8.25.04 @ 5:09AM|#
I give this discussion five more comments before it degenerates into a debate on the SBVT.
|8.25.04 @ 5:21AM|#
anyone who imagines people to be rational and reasonable should take note of this ridiculous, undying, irrelevant trench warfare.
|8.25.04 @ 5:27AM|#
Here comes the fifth post and maybe it will degenerate into the swift boat argument but I will declare the GOP winners on this. Tell the big lie and let the detractors discredit themselves. We could have videotape backing everything Kerry claims now and they still win.
|8.25.04 @ 5:27AM|#
I thought it was hilarious. And really the whole thing is hilarious. Two men of privelege, each vying to be the most powerful man in the world, and their campaigns can't get past a commercial.
And you wonder why the twentysomethings stay home?
|8.25.04 @ 5:32AM|#
Excellent piece.
And Chris Matthews IS a liberal!!!
|8.25.04 @ 5:32AM|#
rst,
I think your post is true and another reason the GOP wins this round. Supressing voter turnout (especially among the 20 somethings) helps the them.
Jeff Smith|8.25.04 @ 5:37AM|#
Boy does that remind me of one of my colleagues.
Too bad I can't send it to him because I told
him I didn't want to talk about it any more
because he takes it too personally.
Very nice!
Jeff
|8.25.04 @ 5:37AM|#
If I ignore them, will they go away?
|8.25.04 @ 5:58AM|#
Walker, you have totally lost it.
i hope you regain some of your sanity after the elections. DON`T Bogart that thought~pass it along.
|8.25.04 @ 5:58AM|#
I think your post is true and another reason the GOP wins this round.
Absolutely, and the Kerry camp has naught but itself to blame. Kerry knew there was a long-standing controversy surrounding his service in Vietnam. He chose to advertise himself as a Vietnam War Hero on a national level (most likely out of his life-long worship of that other "war hero" with the initials JFK), and in so doing invited his detractors to attack him on the same national level. SBVT has every right to be on the television and in your print media. If you don't like it, it is to you to change the channel or turn the page.
As for me, I'm still waiting for these priveleged ivy league rich boys to talk about some issues.
|8.25.04 @ 6:10AM|#
The only improvement you could have made to that great article would have been to link to Peter Bagge's cartoon (within the past years) on debating politicians, which I was picturing the whole way through.
Jim Henley|8.25.04 @ 6:19AM|#
Jesse, that was just beautiful. These are happy tears.
roxanne|8.25.04 @ 6:41AM|#
Fucking hilarious.
|8.25.04 @ 6:55AM|#
rst,
There is no poll data which demonstrates your assertion. At this point the campaign could strenghten Kerry if he is vindicated; furthermore, it keeps Kerry in the news at a time when Bush should be center-stage. Anyway, you have a situation where it can cut both ways. Indeed, it can be successfully argued that this is a debate largely designed for partisans, and that swing voters will simply ignore it as that.
|8.25.04 @ 6:57AM|#
Rocket fuel!
|8.25.04 @ 7:20AM|#
" furthermore, it keeps Kerry in the news at a time when Bush should be center-stage."
Oh yeah, I'm sure Kerry is *loving* this, every minute of it. It's better than a root canal!
|8.25.04 @ 7:48AM|#
"Kerry knew there was a long-standing controversy surrounding his service in Vietnam."
Um, no he didn't, because there was no such controversy prior to this summer. There was a long-standing controversy about his anti-war activism after he came home. But he was acknowledged as a legitimate war hero in 1971, he was acknowledgede as a legitimate war hero (by several members of SBVT, including Admiral Hoffman) in 1996, and he was universally acknowledged as a legitimate war hero as recently as this Spring.
Anyway, I found the piece hilarious ("You're killing your mother!"), in a Homer Simpson, it's funny cuz it's true sort of way.
|8.25.04 @ 8:15AM|#
Don't be so sure about that, joe. He should have known all along that there would be controversy. There are witnesses who report that the hamster was in John Kerry's hands immediately before it was spotted in the water. There's also some speculation that his daughter might be confused about when the hamster rescue occurred. For more, we turn to an impartial report written by his ex-wife....
|8.25.04 @ 8:19AM|#
...who wasn't actually there that day, but who heard from a guy who knows the veteranarian who treated the hamster...
|8.25.04 @ 10:07AM|#
...for injuries sustained when a Pittsburgh editorial journalist took THK's advice a bit too literally...
|8.26.04 @ 1:01AM|#
How would a POW know that Kerry was lying? How could a guy in a bamboo cage know what soldiers 300 miles away were doing?
I'm sure they BELIEVED the stories Kerry reported were lies. Hell, I don't want to believe my country's military commited atrocities, either. If maintaining my dignity and sanity revolved around believing the righteousness of my country's cause, and the decency of its military, I'd deny, too. But remember, soldiers denied My Lai ever happened, then it was proven to be true. They denied the "wet work" of Operation Phoenix ever took place, then that was proven as well. They denied we had invaded and bombed Cambodia. Whoops. They denied that our troops routinely wiped out villages, then the information about Tiger Force came out.
Those soldiers assumed that our country's military would never do such things. Those assumptions should have been valid. Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger, McNamara - bastards, every one.
|8.26.04 @ 1:03AM|#
I wonder if we decide who to believe based on form in which they present their evidence?
By education and profession I deal with numbers that describe concrete reality. In my world, a person's motivation and intent are largely unknowable and almost never relevant to the problem at hand. I reflexively disregard arguments based on motive and instead focus on the more objective parts of an argument.
I think I find the Swiftvets compelling in large part because they use a lot of numbers in their arguments. For example they say 17 out 23 Kerry's brother officers and all 4 in his chain of command oppose him. In their argument about the bronze star incident they give the width of river (75 yards) the lengths of the boats (50 feet) and the time frame (5 minutes).
By contrast, the pro-Kerry arguments are based on emotion. I'm supposed to not trust the Swiftvets because they don't like Kerry and are just a Republican front job. Motivation and intent are everything.
But if one side of an argument gives me concrete information and the other side does not, regardless of the reason, I will almost always go for the side with the concrete information out of shear habit.
It might be an interesting experiment to lay out the arguments in two forms, one largely concrete and one largely motive based and then compare the acceptance of the arguments by people with different backgrounds, say engineers compared to fiction writers, and see if they find stories credible based on how they are presented.
Just a thought.
|8.26.04 @ 1:07AM|#
Nice work on Gardner, Mona. If the reader wasn't paying attention, she might think you refuted the fact that Gardner wasn't there for the events he claims to describe.
But I'm sure the possibility that your post might mislead someone doesn't bother an old pro like you.
"That'll put the POWs in their place." Nice dodge, hon. Yes, it sure is insulting to a person to say he was systematically lied to and betrayed.
The Bushies used to complain about Kerry "hiding behind veterans." What's the phrase - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?
|8.26.04 @ 1:09AM|#
like the onion blurb: 'hippie will tell you what the real crime is'
what I am pissed off is that Kerry could have avoided going to Viet Nam or been a desk jocket like Gore but instead he volunteers for the special service and goes off and murders a lot of innocent people who did nothing to him, his family or his country.
hes one of the few who I wouldn't mind seeing his name on some wall in Washington, DC...
|8.26.04 @ 1:11AM|#
Shannon,
Does my post count as evidence or do you need to know the size of the document supporting Kerry's claims?
|8.26.04 @ 1:16AM|#
You want some numbers, Shannon?
Three (3) .30 caliber bullet holes were found in the boat next to Kerry's, after the fight in which he saved Rassman's life. SBVT claim no (0) enemy fire was received that day.
If you have hard evidence disproving a statement, it doesn't really matter how many people you can line up making that statement.
Jesse Walker|8.26.04 @ 1:24AM|#
Matthew wrote:
I think that when the election post mortems are being done, we'll be able to look back and say Kerry hit the point of no return when he sent Senator Cleland out to Pres. Bush's ranch in Texas to demand that Bush call off the Swift Boat Vets.
And you know what? Until I read the rest of the comment, I had no idea whether Matthew was going to say that this was the point of no return for Kerry's victory or for Kerry's defeat. Me, I can't imagine it influencing a single person's vote.
That's why I wrote the piece. Because a lot of people -- sometimes very smart people -- are losing all their perspective. On both sides.
I say this as someone who's actually kind of interested in what happened on those boats, and for that matter in Bush's National Guard unit -- not because it will change my behavior on Election Day but because I think the life of a president is historically significant in its own right. But this debate is largely being conducted by people who couldn't care less about what really happened three decades ago. They're just interested in what facts or fact-like entities can be massaged to help their man win. And all the dupes on both sides then believe whichever set of revelations they find more congenial.
Finally -- at the risk of being sucked into the discussion myself -- contrary to Don's comment, Kerry doesn't appear to have lied about the Martin Luther King assassination. Some of the people who first made that charge are now backing off it.
|8.26.04 @ 1:31AM|#
Jesse,
I agree with you for the most part. However, look at what you are saying. All you have to do is lie about something and then claim that the debate is at a stalemate because both sides can't be trusted with the facts. Are Dems supposed to lie down and take this crap? You couldn't resist it (your last paragraph) in a post where you argued it is all absurd and pointless.
Jesse Walker|8.26.04 @ 1:41AM|#
I don't think the topic itself is absurd and pointless, Mark. What bugs me are the people who come to the discussion with their minds already made up about who must be telling the truth, and/or with a grossly magnified sense of the debate's significance.
|8.26.04 @ 1:53AM|#
Why, exactly, is the image of armed men in body armor protecting George Bush from a triple amputee former Senator with a letter going to hurt John Kerry?
|8.26.04 @ 1:53AM|#
Jesse
And I'm concerned about this tactic. The swifties have manufactured a debate. This is similar to manufactured debates about global warming and evolution. It appears that this is a very even debate when all the evidence so far supports John Kerry. I will admit that I lean towards the Dems coming into it but I would re-evaluate if I saw anything here other than dirty politics.
|8.26.04 @ 2:04AM|#
Jesse,
I have my mind made up that horrors took place in the Gulag. I have my mind made up that women are not genetically programmed for domestic labor only.
I'm not terribly interested in treating these ideas' proponents with anything but the highest level of skepticism. And if I get one whiff that their arguments are as dishonest, self serving and malicious as they appear at first glance, or if evidence keeps coming out about that they're using money and personnel from the CPUSA and Council of Conservative Citizens, my willingness to treat their claims with credibility drops to zero.
Is that wrong of me?
|8.26.04 @ 2:10AM|#
Jesse, you wrote:
I can't imagine it influencing a single person's vote.
Kerry is, by many accounts, floundering about in his counter-attack to the Swift Boat Vets. So what does decide to do to fix things?
He sends Senator Max Cleland to deliver a letter in person to the President's ranch. Moreover, the letter claims that he is shocked, shocked, that Pres. Bush put the Swift Boat Vets up to peddle their dishonorable lies.
This is such a shameless and pathetic stunt on so many levels ("Hey, Osama, this is Pres. Kerry: cut it out right now with all that Holy War stuff or I'll interrupt my lunch with Michael Moore to write you a really nasty letter; and we'll get MoveOn.org to deliver it to you!), that I have only one thing to say:
Have you no sense of irony, sir? At long last, have you no sense of irony?
Jesse Walker|8.26.04 @ 2:27AM|#
Joe, there's a big difference making up your mind about the Gulag and making up your mind about the details of John Kerry's life story. Furthermore, just because I believe atrocities happened in the Gulag doesn't mean I'm going to believe the tales of anyone who pops up out of nowhere and claims to be a Gulag survivor.
But I don't want to get drawn into this.
|8.26.04 @ 3:18AM|#
joe,
"Three (3) .30 caliber bullet holes were found in the boat next to Kerry's, after the fight in which he saved Rassman's life. SBVT claim no (0) enemy fire was received that day."
Wow, "intense enemy fire" coming from both banks of a river 75 yards wide directed at 4 stationary boats and the most damage done is 3 bullet holes in one boat? Doesn't that seem odd to you?
In any case, Thurlow claims the three holes were the result of a sniper attack the previous day when his forward gunner was wounded.
Instead of playing a game of dueling witnesses lets do something more scientific. You provide me a description of piece of evidence that, if true, would change you mind. I will then try to find that evidence.
For example, I think it likely that Kerry lied about being across the Cambodian border on Christmas or Christmas 1968 but if Kerry could present a half dozen witnesses or military documents (orders, after action reports etc) that place him there I would concede the point.
What piece of evidence that, if true, would convince you that Kerry's version of anyone of the contested events was false? Let's test your belief that the Swiftvets are lying.
|8.26.04 @ 3:43AM|#
"As opposed to the bogus charges about Kerry' battlefield actions, falling apart by the day, . . ."
Isn't it Kerry's statements that are falling apart by the day.
Claiming he was in the 'nam when MLK was killed, when he wasn't . . .
Claiming he was in Cambodia, when he wasn't . . .
Recieving his first purple heart BEFORE he ever recieved enemy fire according to his own accounts . . .
Watching Kerry melt is becoming such fun . . .
|8.26.04 @ 3:52AM|#
Shannon,
I think that the burden of proof lies with the Swifties. Does every vet have to question and prove that he or she deserved their medals. Anyway, I take the word of his crew and the guy he pulled out of the water. I understand the main objective of the swifties and the GOP is to cast doubt and suppress voter turnout so in that case, it really doesn't matter what kind of evidence I will accept. They have done what they were paid, I mean what they set out to do.
|8.26.04 @ 4:04AM|#
Mark Anderson,
This shouldn't be about anybody else but yourself. You should be double checking your own assumptions and beliefs on a regular basis. The best way to do that is to create falsify-able assertions and then test them.
If you don't test yourself you don't have rational beliefs your just going on faith and faith in politicians is extraordinarily dangerous.
|8.26.04 @ 4:11AM|#
Anyway, I take the word of his crew and the guy he pulled out of the water.
I'll take the word of the guy he pulled out of the water, that Live Shot really pulled him out of the water. That still bears no relevance to the larger issue of how much of a war hero Kerry wants you to believe he was vs. how much of a war criminal, or at best war nobody, that SBVT wants you to believe he was. And that issue of course bears no relevance to which one if either of these jackasses can fix our country. The only crime here is pretending it is relevant for anything more than credibility. But there is no margin by which Joe, for instance, will be convinced that Kerry was anything but a war hero. People who like Kerry want to believe he's a war hero and Bush dodged the draft; so they shall, and evidence to the contrary automatically has no credibility.
Mr. Walker seems to think this is relevant to the historical makeup of the president. I think that flies in the face of America being a "land of opportunity," where your history is presumably least among factors determining how far you can go. Kerry might very well be a war hero, or a war criminal. Neither I think has any bearing on the issues we face as a nation.
I get the sense that both sides are playing to a stalemate and trusting that the last person to get a credibility shot in on this topic on the first Monday of November is going to walk away with a victory on the first Tuesday. Between Kerry's business-friendly tax plan, and Bush's business-friendly tax plan, and Kerry's disastrous minimum wage plan, and Bush's disastrous manufacturing sector non-plan, either way we'll be getting different flavors of the same shitsicle. They know this. We know this. Now it's all filler, no killer, til November.
Yay.
|8.26.04 @ 4:22AM|#
Shannon,
Your're damn right. So maybe I'm taking this a little too much to heart. Maybe John Kerry did stretch the truth about his time spent in Viet Nam. I mean, I haven't seen a whole lot of evidence to suggest that but some guys who were there said it on TV; So maybe I should spend a lot of time trying to figure this one out.
So while we are talking about trusting politicians, I think W has really earned my trust. I mean it's not like he ever stretched the truth to get his way. It's not like we are fighting a war based on a lot of stuff that turned out to be untrue. Oops, well it's the CIA's fault I guess.
So if this is about trusting politicians, I'll go with the guy who hasn't started a war on false pretenses. I'll trust someone who hasn't shown utter ineptness in everything he has ever done.
|8.26.04 @ 4:22AM|#
Watching Kerry melt is becoming such fun . . .
While he certainly deservces it, it still sucks. This is like the Clinton impeachment proceedings. Clinton handed over advanced nuclear guidance systems to China so that they could reach California and Bombay with their nukes just a little easier. And the Senate impeached him for lying about a blowjob some slut couldn't help but give out.
China would go on to threaten war over Taiwan, sell long range guidance systems to Iraq, and amass troops in Myanmar just to get the Indians riled up. Good thing we gave them better toys.
Kerry's Vietnam record simply does not matter, and its sole purpose as a topic is as a distraction to build a base among swing voters before we get to debates, where the similarity of the platforms will create little additional shift among voters. It's the political special olympics, and you're invited to watch the retards slug it out for the gold.
|8.26.04 @ 4:27AM|#
I'll go with the guy who hasn't started a war on false pretenses.
He hasn't had the opportunity. Don't think he wouldn't have done the same. Remember, Clinton handed the Iraq mandate down, and Kerry said he'd still have voted for it. Congress has been primed for this for a while.
I'll trust someone who hasn't shown utter ineptness in everything he has ever done.
With a
|8.26.04 @ 4:31AM|#
that should have said
with a < 60% attendance rate pre-campaign, he probably lucked out on the incompetence front. You figure all the guy had to do was vote, occasionally pass some writing assignments on to his staff, maybe talk up something on the floor for the benefit of the C-Span cameras, then go pound martinis next to the pool. He's notoriously all style, no substance. I wouldn't expect any noteworthy competence from the guy above and beyond any other senator.
|8.26.04 @ 4:37AM|#
rst,
Well, I'm willing to give him a try. I voted for Nader in 2000 and Kucinich in the primaries. Kerry is all I got. I agree, if you are looking for substance, Washington is not the place to look. I'm not excited about Kerry but I know what we have in the White House.
|8.26.04 @ 4:40AM|#
Shannon, since I have way of travelling through time to 1968, I have to base my interpretations on the credibility of the witnesses.
Every single person who served on Kerry's boat during the events in question backs his stories. Many of these people have zero history of political activism, including Rassman, who contacted the Kerry campaign for the sole purpose of helping out the man who saved his life under fire. Also, there are few more reliable witnesses to a man's character than enlisted personnel who served under that's man's command. If Kerry was the sort of person his opponents say he was, and if he behaved as his detractors say he behaved, then the men who took orders from him would be the first to denounce him. Instead, they stood on the stage with him in Boston and thanked him for what he had done for the. Think about your old bosses - how many would you do that for? Kerry's stories have been consistent for the past 35 years, and are entirely constistent with the official documents. Basically, the only thing that would tend to impeach Kerry's side's reliability in my eyes in the fact that Kerry himself is an elected official.
On the other hand, many of those involved with SBVT have long histories of supporting Republicans, especially Texas Republicans, and of trying to "get" John Kerry. In many cases, their latest statements contradict earlier statements, such as Admiral Wossname, who called Kerry one of the best, most aggressive skippers in 1996, and now says he was cowardly and lazy. And if defeating a Democrat wasn't enough motivation for lying, they're denouncing the man who denounced the war, and the atrocities committed for that war, on the floor of the Senate, as the country was ferociously divided and approaching a civil war.
Let me ask you, Shannon: if you believed a man was working for the enemy during a time of war, and that man was the leading contender to become the next president, would lie to keep him out of office?
I wasn't at the Cambodian border in 1968. I can only go by which witnesses seem more credible. And in this case, it isn't even close.
|8.26.04 @ 4:41AM|#
Mark Anderson,
"So if this is about trusting politicians,"
No, it is about testing ourselves, about charting the boundaries of our own ignorance. It's about establishing the parameters for what we know is true, what suspect might be true and what we know is false.
This could be about any subject. We all need to exert self-discipline to try to verify the information we make decisions on.
|8.26.04 @ 4:46AM|#
"Kerry's Vietnam record simply does not matter"
From the time Kerry took the nomination, until the SBVT's book came out, this was the Republican line. Then, when the accusations against him looked remotely credible, they did a 180, and suddenly Kerry's Vietnam record was, according to Republicans, the most important thing in the world. Suddenly, we start seeing conservatives reversing course again (like John Kerry going back into fire to save a drowning Green Beret?), and declaring that Kerry's Vietnam record was irrelevant.
You ever go to a beach, and see the line of dried seaweed that marks the high water mark? "Kerry's Vietnam service doesn't matter" is pretty much the same thing, only with SBVT's credibility taking the place of the water.
|8.26.04 @ 5:00AM|#
It's the political special olympics, and you're invited to watch the retards slug it out for the gold.
I think you just described most of our elections!
|8.26.04 @ 5:05AM|#
"This could be about any subject. We all need to exert self-discipline to try to verify the information we make decisions on."
Agreed. I'm trying to tell you that I do think Kerry's story holds up so far. I trust that the basic facts are true. I just feel sorry for those voting for Bush because where he stands on issues such as pre-emptive war, climate change, or stem cell research. I don't believe they have tested the bounds of their own ignorance on these matters. That would be a nuance and nuance is a bad word now.
So again, I will go with the part not sporting anti-intellectualism for cheap votes.
|8.26.04 @ 5:06AM|#
should have read:
So again, I will go with the party not sporting anti-intellectualism for cheap votes.
|8.26.04 @ 5:33AM|#
"Kerry's Vietnam record simply does not matter"
Joe: "From the time Kerry took the nomination, until the SBVT's book came out, this was the Republican line. Then, when the accusations against him looked remotely credible, they did a 180, and suddenly Kerry's Vietnam record was, according to Republicans, the most important thing in the world. Suddenly, we start seeing conservatives reversing course again (like John Kerry going back into fire to save a drowning Green Beret?), and declaring that Kerry's Vietnam record was irrelevant."
Joe, since Kerry seems to be making Vietnam the basis for his campain, he's the one who is making it matter.
Did Kerry go "back into fire". Maybe, maybe not, but it looks like his was the only boat to run away . . .
|8.26.04 @ 5:37AM|#
joe,
"I wasn't at the Cambodian border in 1968. I can only go by which witnesses seem more credible. And in this case, it isn't even close."
My original point was exactly that you don't have to judge rely solely on your assessment of witness credibility. There is somewhere enough physical evidence to make a determination of where Kerry was around Christmas '68. Witness credibility has nothing to due with it.
Likewise, the Bronze star incident has physical parameters that can be tested. The Swiftvet's contention that Kerry's purple hearts were all for trivial wounds can be tested if Kerry releases his military medical records.
If you can't even begin to guess how your ideas might be falsified then your beliefs are held on basis of pure faith. If you can't think of some bit of evidence that would prove your current position wrong then are letting Kerry manipulate you into blind obedience.
|8.26.04 @ 5:47AM|#
"I think that the burden of proof lies with the Swifties. Does every vet have to question and prove that he or she deserved their medals."
Did the burden of proof lie with Kerry when he claimed his fellow vets were baby killers? His fellow Swifties hate him because of his nasty comments circa '71, not because they are in the pay of the Bush campaign.
In any case, since Kerry has used his 'nam hero status as the center piece of his campaign, it is he who is responsible for it being called into question. Since he seems to lack honesty on where he was during the MLK shooting, Xmas, etc., and since his initial purple heart appears to be dubious, he's pretty much painting himself as a lier.
|8.26.04 @ 6:04AM|#
"Since he seems to lack honesty on where he was during the MLK shooting, Xmas, etc., and since his initial purple heart appears to be dubious, he's pretty much painting himself as a lier."
We'll see which lies the American people are more fed up with: Where one was during a Christmas or where weapons of mass destruction are located. Someone told me they were right in the area around Baghdad.
|8.26.04 @ 6:09AM|#
The noted forensics expert (and Vietnam war surgeon) Martin Fackler gives his opinion of Kerry's purple hearts:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040825-085753-2062r.htm
|8.26.04 @ 6:13AM|#
"We'll see which lies the American people are more fed up with: Where one was during a Christmas or where weapons of mass destruction are located. Someone told me they were right in the area around Baghdad."
Kerry clearly is lying about when and where he was during Vietnam for his political gain.
On the other hand, it is very likely Bush wasn't lying about WMD in Iraq. In fact, the Clinton administration very much believed that Iraq had WMD, and Saddam's behaviour would certainly lead you to accept that idea as true. Furthermore, it is clear that some of the evidence suggesting that the Bush administration overstated its case was in fact based upon poor information if not out right lies.
|8.26.04 @ 6:19AM|#
"The Swiftvet's contention that Kerry's purple hearts were all for trivial wounds can be tested if Kerry releases his military medical records."
Kerry so far refuses to release info related to his first purple heart; the testomony of his fellow crew indicates that they did not recieve enemy fire, and that his injury was a splinter from a 40 mm M-79 granade that he himself launched; and his later log reports indicate that up to that point (including the time of his first purple heart) they had not recieved hostile fire.
Maybe there is an honest explination of all this. It just isn't looking very likely.
|8.26.04 @ 6:29AM|#
Kerry clearly is lying about when and where he was during Vietnam for his political gain.
Oh, really. So that's just a known fact? Well, then I guess you're right. I mean you just said it and I guess it's true. Thanks for clearing that up. Please, don't bog me down with any evidence.
|8.26.04 @ 6:35AM|#
"Kerry knew there was a long-standing controversy surrounding his service in Vietnam."
thoreau, Kerry clearly DID know about the trouble brewing (if news reports today can be believed) but was helpless to do anything about it...perhaps because he is simply lying.
Kerry has never been able to campaign on anything other than Viet Nam...at least not with any success. Last year he eschewed running on his bogus war-record for most of the run-up to the Dem primaries (even passing on a chance to slam Dean for taking a conspicuously phony medical deferment)...and after a ton of money and a half-dozen debates he was trailing Dean by double digits.
(Curiously the supposedly "apolitical" Rassman shows up NOW. Doesn't that strike anyone as at all odd? Rassman is SO concerned that Kerry get the nomination? Does that play for you in terms of verisimilitude? Is he just a vet who is - aw shucks! - excited a fellow viet vet may become Pres...or a tool?)
Kerry's whirlwind (Swift?) 90-day combat tour is the only thing that has ever worked for him...and I doubt he will ever stop talking about it- it has become an overlearned addiction.
|8.26.04 @ 6:57AM|#
Andrew-
You quote me as saying: "Kerry knew there was a long-standing controversy surrounding his service in Vietnam."
In fact, I said:
He should have known all along that there would be controversy. There are witnesses who report that the hamster was in John Kerry's hands...
I was making a joke about the hamster, as a follow-up to a joke in the original article that started this thread. I expressed no opinion on whether Kerry knew or should have known that there would be controversy over his war record. I honestly don't know if he has been lying/distorting/exaggerating/etc. about Vietnam, and I really don't care. Now, granted, some people do care, but I'm not one of them. Please don't attribute to me an opinion that I did not express and in fact do not hold.
|8.26.04 @ 7:41AM|#
" Please, don't bog me down with any evidence."
I'll make you the same deal I did for joe. If you tell what evidence you would accept I'll try and find it for you.
|8.26.04 @ 8:03AM|#
"Did Kerry go "back into fire". Maybe, maybe not, but it looks like his was the only boat to run away . . ."
Naval tactics. When your craft is "all fist and no ass," your tactics reflect the fact. Standing and slugging it out is a loser for such boats under heavy fire. When yours is the boat being shot at, you evade the fire, and allow the others craft to return fire.
Which is why his tactics on the day he won the silver star were described, by his commanding officer, as so innovative and resourceful, along with just plain brave. Upon taking fire, he did exactly the opposite of what everyone (including the enemy) expected him to do, and went right at the source of the shooting, to the extent that he beached his craft. This appears to have so surprised the VC that they were quickly routed.
I know, a minor point, useful only, if at all, for demonstrating a fairly minor character point. But you asked. All of this stuff is available with just a little poking around the net, if you're really interested.
|8.26.04 @ 8:07AM|#
Joe,
I was talking about Kerry's bronze star action: another boat hit a mine, Kerry's boat ran away, the other boats stayed around to rescue people, and then Kerry's boat came back and rescued the Green Beanie.
|8.26.04 @ 8:07AM|#
Andrew, first of all, Kerry's second tour was four months. Months have about 30 days in them. 4X30=120
Second, "Kerry has never been able to campaign on anything other than Viet Nam...at least not with any success." Actually, he's had quite a bit of success running on "I'm not a scumbag Republican." Put the two together, and this is an especially auspicious year for his brand.
|8.26.04 @ 8:11AM|#
Mark,
Kerry lied about Xmas in Cambodia--and he clearly did so for political gain.
He lied about being in 'nam when MLK was shot. And I suspect that lie was for political gain as well.
And he obtained his first purple heart from a self-inflicted wound w/o taking enemy fire. That is, he obtained his first purple heart via fraud, to play the system and get out of 'nam ASAP.
|8.26.04 @ 8:11AM|#
Yes, Don, I was talking about the bronze star day as well. Kerry's tactic on silver star day required the element of surprise, which would have been impossible to achieve if his craft had withdrawn, then motored back up the river. He obviously withdrew on bronze star day, and obviously did not on silver star day. I brought up the other event just to make a point about the first. Well, and because this shit makes people like Mona fry their brain cells.
|8.26.04 @ 8:22AM|#
"Andrew, first of all, Kerry's second tour was four months. Months have about 30 days in them. 4X30=120"
He was on swift boat 44 from Dec 68 to Jan 69, and then on swift boat 94 for a total of 48 days starting late in Jan 69. So basically, 3.5 months.
|8.26.04 @ 8:24AM|#
Oh, and he won all of his medals in the 48 days he spent on 94.
|8.26.04 @ 8:29AM|#
You know, something isn't right here. Look at my response to Mona's 11:42 "John Kerry Helped Torture POWs" post, then her response to my response.
'joe writes: "It's a terrible thing when our country is on the wrong side of the truth, not least because of the ammunition it gives to our enemies."
'Good. Let's see more of that from Kerry partisans, as the issue of POWs now moves front and center. That'll put those POWs in their place -- it wasn't Kerry' fault they were tortured in tandem with Kerry's words, it was their country's fault. Go joe!
--Mona--'
Look at what I wrote - "It's a terrible thing when our country is on the wrong side of the truth, not least..."
She responds by accusing me of going after POWs. I do not believe that anyone of any political persuasion, acting in good faith, could possibly read my words as being anti-POW.
Here's what I think: Mona knew she was going to accuse the first person to argue with her by accusing them of attacking POWs. She didn't even have to read it to know what argument came next. She didn't accuse me of putting POWs in their place because she honestly thought I was doing such a thing, but because that was the talking points from the latest SVBT strategy. And this is part of a pattern.
Her first post on the Swift Boat accusations, from August 17, began with "I was initially ill when I heard there were vets "out there" attacking Kerry on his war record. It seemed to me a sure fire way to hand him the election.
After I googled the Swift Vets, I did a 180 degree turn. They have Kerry in well-documented lies..."
Reasonoids, you've been reading Mona on SBVT for ten days now. There are a lot of people I disagree with on this board (rst, Dan, Don...), but I trust that their posts are actually attempts to speak the truth as they see it. I don't think that's true of Mona, and I don't appreciate the manipulative astroturf shilling. I don't think there's any place for it.
|8.26.04 @ 9:10AM|#
I dunno spur, while Kerry was clearly a high-quality warrior, it's a bit of a stretch to claim that having some other poor bastard put there in his place would have saved anyone's life.
|8.26.04 @ 10:49AM|#
Political zealots might be crippled in their ability to evaluate information on it's own merits but I think they are absolutely vital to the functioning of a democracy.
Zealots function like lawyers at a trial. A good lawyer argues as strongly as he can for his side while his counterpart does the same going the other way. Each side digs up and presents every piece of negative evidence it can on the other side and brings it into public view. This brutal contest brings more information to light than a single viewpoint dispassionate analysis would.
All of us have some matter on which we are irrationally passionate about and cannot objectively make good decisions about but our maniacal pursuit of self-justification uncovers information that others can use to make better rational decisions.
|8.26.04 @ 11:30AM|#
while Kerry was clearly a high-quality warrior,
Clearly? I think that's the matter under debate in this whole thing. I wouldn't take Live Shot's war stories at face value, joe. People are polarized to think he was either a war hero or a war criminal, but it is evident (if the telegraph story is accurate) that he like every other young man of privelege did what he could to avoid service, then acquiesced, did his job and came back. Laudable, but hardly a qualification for service in the White House above any other Vietnam veteran.
|8.26.04 @ 11:33AM|#
This brutal contest brings more information to light than a single viewpoint dispassionate analysis would.
I used to think that was true. I don't anymore. All the shouting and attacks and counter-attacks, amplified by the 24-hour news cycle, leave me disgusted and tired. I don't have the time or the energy to pick through mountains of garbage looking for little nuggets of truth. I have job and a life outside of MSNBC and blogs.
Our elections drag on for far too long. The shouting is too loud, and the lies are too thick for me to get anything of value from the process. I think from now on I'll leave politics to the zealots.
|8.26.04 @ 11:37AM|#
"I wouldn't take Live Shot's war stories at face value, joe."
Well then, it's a good thing they're backed up by the official Navy record and EVERYONE WHO WAS ON HIS BOAT AT THE TIME.
|8.26.04 @ 11:42AM|#
Cute satire. However, phase two of the Swift Vets' expose of Kerry, which is the second section of O'Neill's book, looks at the effect of Kerry's behavior after coming home. The Swiftees' second ad gives us the testimony of two of these POWs. But they are soon to be joined by other, non-Swift vets groups, constituted of former POWs.
Today's WSJ carry's one of the best analyses of how Kerry broke the national truce with regard to treating the Viet Nam War, and explains how he invited former POWs to come forward. Excerpt and link:
"Jim Warner, also a POW for five years, personally experienced the direct effects of Mr. Kerry's antiwar activities:
In late May [1971], two months after our arrival in the punishment camp, I was called out for interrogation. I entered the interrogation room to find a junior officer, a Communist's helper, whom we called "Boris." For some time, Boris rambled on about the anti-war movement and of my "crimes." . . .
We sparred for about an hour. Then Boris reached behind his back and pulled out some clippings from a left wing newspaper in the U.S. He showed me several articles about an event, which had been held in Detroit, called "The Winter Soldier Hearings." He left me to read the articles while he left the room. The articles reported alleged "testimony" from people who claimed to be Vietnam veterans who allegedly claimed that they had done things which, if true, would have lead to courts martial for each of them. That is, they were typical communist propaganda. . . .
When Boris returned he asked me what I thought. I told him that I was from Detroit, but did not recognize any of the names so I assumed that they were Communists brought in from around the country. "Not so," he cried. Look at this. He showed me a picture of an unforgettable face. "This man was an officer in your navy. He says that the war is illegal, immoral and unjust. Read what he says." I read the words of John Kerry.
What John Kerry said, according to the clippings, was that the U.S. should abandon South East Asia, unilaterally and immediately. This, of course, would not only leave the Prisoners of War in the hands of the Communists, but far worse, there was not a sane person in the universe who did not know that the instant the countries of South East Asia were abandoned, the blood bath would begin. I told Boris "this man should be punished. He says that he did criminal things. America is a free country and a free people do not allow such crimes. We are not like Communists." I told Boris that there would be a blood bath if we pulled out unilaterally.
Boris got angry and began threatening me. He said that my own countrymen, Jane Fonda, Sen. Fulbright, and the subject of the article, John Kerry, insisted that the threatened "blood bath" was a myth invented by the reactionary government of the United States. He told me that Kerry had admitted that we were criminals, as the communists never ceased to tell us, and that we should be punished. The interrogation continued for another hour. Finally, Boris, frustrated, put me back in my cell, while still muttering threats at me. It was the longest interrogation I had without torture. . . .
When John Kerry said that Vietnam vets were criminals, did he not know that the Communists would use his words against the POWs? He feels insulted when someone questions his patriotism. What other conclusion would you come to, if you were in my shoes?"
--------------
Indeed, if we were in his shoes, what conclusion would we reach? Whole essay here:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005524
Additionally, after Labor Day a two hour documentary will be released examining how Kerry's claims that American soldiers were depraved war criminals were used to torment POWs. You can learn more about that at this very new site, still somewhat under construction:
http://stolenhonor.com/
I truly doubt these men and their testimonials will lend themselves to parody or satire.
--Mona--
|8.26.04 @ 11:50AM|#
So this election has degenerated to a question about which plutocrat is a better Viet Cong killer? Cuz the big Viet Cong infestation we've been having, right?
Whatever.
|8.26.04 @ 12:00PM|#
"We could have videotape backing everything Kerry claims now and they still win."
Except that we continue to gain evidence undermining Kerry. His stay in Cambodia in Xmas '68, his reference to having not yet recieved any enemy fire AFTER his first purple heart, his claim to have heard of the MLK assasination from 'nam, which occured BEFORE he went, and so on.
|8.26.04 @ 12:10PM|#
Jeo: "I dunno spur, while Kerry was clearly a high-quality warrior, it's a bit of a stretch to claim that having some other poor bastard put there in his place would have saved anyone's life."
If Kerry had stayed true to his fellow vets after he came home, it is likely they would have been more than willing to give him a pass on the dubious nature of his "heroics".
By the way, does Kerry admit his boat "ran away" (while the other boats stayed) before he came back to rescue the Green Beanie, or does he contest that point?
|8.26.04 @ 12:13PM|#
Don - exactly. and just as the Swift vets have claimed, the disparity between their recollections and the "official Navy records" is due to Kerry usually having written the spot reports and after-action reports. There has now been discovered Kerry's own admission to this. Excerpt and link:
--According to the testimony , which is available in the Congressional Record, Sen. Symington asked Kerry, "Mr. Kerry, from your experience in Vietnam do you think it is possible for the President or Congress to get accurate and undistorted information through official military channels.[?]"
Kerry responded, "I had direct experience with that. Senator, I had direct experience with that and I can recall often sending in the spot reports which we made after each mission; and including the GDA, gunfire damage assessments, in which we would say, maybe 15 sampans sunk or whatever it was. And I often read about my own missions in the Stars and Stripes and the very mission we had been on had been doubled in figures and tripled in figures.
Kerry later added, "I also think men in the military, sir, as do men in many other things, have a tendency to report what they want to report and see what they want to see."
The 34-year-old testimony could shed light on the present debate over who wrote key battlefield reports that critics of Kerry say allowed him to win awards. --
http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewNation.asp?Page=Nationarchive200408NAT20040826a.html
|8.26.04 @ 12:29PM|#
Mona,
So the eyewitnesses supporting Kerry are lying and the swift boat vets for "truth" are telling the truth because Kerry admitted that commanders wrote their own accounts of what happened? I hope you never have to rely on such evidence for any defense you someday may have to make in court.
|8.26.04 @ 12:33PM|#
As opposed to the bogus charges about Kerry' battlefield actions, falling apart by the day, the question of whether anti-war activities were good or bad for the country is actually a legitimate topic that people of good conscience can disagree about. It also illuminates important differences between the parties on questions of foreign policy, government accountability, and transparency. Conservatives in this country continue to defend our actions in Vietnam, deny that our troops committed atrocities, and villify those who spoke up and opposed the war. Liberals support the anti-Vietnam War movement.
It's not terribly suprising that an American POW wouldn't believe stories about American atrocities presented to him by his captors. He probably would have dismissed the My Lai accounts as well, if "Boris" had given them to him. Poor bastard, what a terrible waste of a man's youth.
It's a terrible thing when our country is on the wrong side of the truth, not least because of the ammunition it gives to our enemies.
|8.26.04 @ 12:34PM|#
Mona, why do have so much faith in the word of people whose best spin on the events is, "I signed fraudulent reports?"
|8.26.04 @ 12:35PM|#
Mark Anderson asks: "So the eyewitnesses supporting Kerry are lying and the swift boat vets for "truth" are telling the truth because Kerry admitted that commanders wrote their own accounts of what happened?"
No Mark, because Kerry admitted that *he* often wrote them, which is the crux of the Swift Vets' argument. Swift boats patrolled, almost always, in groups of 2-6. And of all the commanders involved in the events Kerry ballyhoos, Kerry usually wrote the spot reports. That is why we cannot see most of them -- they are in Kerry's records, the ones he will not release.
More importantly, the POWS say Kerry lied, and that his lies were used by their tormentors.
--Mona--
|8.26.04 @ 12:38PM|#
For those not keeping track, every member of Kerry's crew who was present at the events, every single one, backs up his version of the stories. Of every man who served under John Kerry while he commanded swift boats, the only one to dispute his version (John Gardner, of SBVT) didn't join his crew until after the firefights for which Kerry won his purple hearts, bronze star, and silver star.
Maybe Kerry was more cautious later in his career than when he first got there - not an uncommon occurance. Or maybe Gardner is yet another embittered vet willing to lie to discredit a man whose antiwar activities he resented. Regardless of his motivations, he did not witness the events he presumes to describe.
|8.26.04 @ 12:39PM|#
joe writes: "It's a terrible thing when our country is on the wrong side of the truth, not least because of the ammunition it gives to our enemies."
Good. Let's see more of that from Kerry partisans, as the issue of POWs now moves front and center. That'll put those POWs in their place -- it wasn't Kerry' fault they were tortured in tandem with Kerry's words, it was their country's fault. Go joe!
--Mona--
|8.26.04 @ 12:43PM|#
joe, you keep getting the name wrong -- it is not "John" Garnder. His name is Steve. And of all those on a boat with Kerry, he was there the longest.
And btw, the testimonies of Kerry's Swift vet supporters do not, in fact, all support Kerry in many impt details.
--Mona--
|8.26.04 @ 12:56PM|#
I think that when the election post mortems are being done, we'll be able to look back and say Kerry hit the point of no return when he sent Senator Cleland out to Pres. Bush's ranch in Texas to demand that Bush call off the Swift Boat Vets.
What the heck was Kerry thinking? This is something straight out of The Onion.
In the space of a week he's jumped from "Bring. It. On." to "Help! Please, help!" Anyone who votes for Kerry now has got to be at least a little embarassed by his desperate writhings.
|8.26.04 @ 12:59PM|#
Mona,
I found this article from the AP that you may want to read. Here are some interesting snippets.
Whole thing here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/08/24/politics0131EDT0406.DTL
The Navy task force overseeing John Kerry's swift boat squadron in Vietnam reported that his group of boats came under enemy fire during a March 13, 1969, incident that three decades later is being challenged by the Democratic presidential nominee's critics.
The anti-Kerry group has not produced any official Navy documents supporting that claim, however. The man Kerry rescued, Jim Rassmann, and the crew of Kerry's boat all say there was gunfire from both banks of the river at the time.
We can do this all day and I suppose you won't be convinced that Kerry is telling the truth.
|8.27.04 @ 2:18AM|#
Here's a couple of ironies to ponder.
First, John Kerry goes home from Vietnam about eight months early because he got three Purple Hearts for light injuries. His Vietnam-veteran spokesman and letter-bearer, Max Cleland, goes home early because an accident with a grenade destroys his arms and legs, but how many purple hearts did he receive? None, because his injuries were not strictly combat-related.
Here's a second, more important irony:
Reprinted from the website, "OneHandClapping", by Donald Sensing, at
http://www.donaldsensing.com/2004_08_01_archive.html
Mud on one is mud on all, eh John?
[Posted by Donald Sensing, 8/26/04, 3:00pm]
Yesterday, as most everyone already knows, former Democratic Congressman and Vietnam disabled veteran Max Cleland delivered a letter from John Kerry nine Democatic senators to President Bush, claiming that Bush owes "a special duty" to condemn the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth.
Set aside that the Cleland delivery was pure PR, visual demogoguery. And set aside that Cleland would not accept a response letter to carry to John Kerry. It's the political season ya know. What I find breathtaking in its brazenness is the letter's assertion,
"... if one veteran's record is called into question, the service of all American veterans is questioned."
Did these guys not even read their own letter? And did they not even consider the record of the candidate whom they tried to represent? For here is what Kerry said about veterans' records in 1971:
"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-caliber 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 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."
Now, though, Kerry says, "I wish I had found a way to say it is a less abrasive way." Note he'd still say it, mind you, just not so bluntly. In the most read-worthy piece on the internet today, Herman Jacobs documents,
"As the SwiftVets have now reminded us, in preening Senate testimony before the eyes of the nation, Mr. Kerry publicized accusations that his comrades had:
'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 Genghis Khan . . . . not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.'
"And specifically with regard to the actions of the Swifties with whom he served, here's what Mr. Kerry said in 1971 about their service:
'We established an American presence in most cases by showing the flag and firing at sampans and villages along the banks. Those were our instructions, but they seemed so out of line that we finally began to go ashore, against our orders, and investigate the villages that were supposed to be our targets. We discovered we were butchering a lot of innocent people.'"
What was it again that the Cleland letter said? If one veteran's record is called into question, the service of all American veterans is questioned. So were Cleland and the letter's writer defending American veterans or just trying to play politics as usual? Oh, take a guess.
|8.27.04 @ 2:21AM|#
Don writes (in various posts):
Claiming he was in the 'nam when MLK was killed, when he wasn't . . .'
The campaign to strip people who served on the USS Gridley of their Vietnam service medals starts here!
Claiming he was in Cambodia, when he wasn't . . .
If you have proof of this, you ought to present it.
Recieving his first purple heart BEFORE he ever recieved enemy fire according to his own accounts . . .
Aside from the minor fact that you can receive a Purple Heart without being fired upon by the enemy, Kerry of course wrote no such thing in his own account. He was describing the mood of his crew - only one of whom, by the way, was with him when he earned his first Purple Heart.
"A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky."
Did the burden of proof lie with Kerry when he claimed his fellow vets were baby killers?
Present quotes of Kerry calling his fellow vets baby killers, please.
His fellow Swifties hate him because of his nasty comments circa '71
Which is why they've been opposing him ever since he started running for public offices. In fact, in 1996 Elliott, Lonsdale, and Hoffmann... No, scratch that. [whistles]
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040825-085753-2062r.htm
Ah, the venerable Moonie Times. Let's have a look at what they have to say:
There you have it: the claim that Kerry volunteered misleads because... he volunteered. And please, pay no attention to how Kerry was serving on the USS Gridley and applied for Swift boat duty, where he could expect to see a lot more action. Because that would be misleading.
I never knew Louis Letson was an antiwar physician happy to become an accomplice to a fraud! (Assuming he ever treated Kerry, of course, which is a big assumption indeed.)
Says Swift Boat Veteran for Truth (so you know you can trust him) George Elliott, "There were an awful lot of Purple Hearts - from shrapnel, some of those might have been M-40 grenades. The Purple Hearts were coming down in boxes. Kerry, he had three Purple Hearts. None of them took him off duty. Not to belittle it, that was more the rule than the exception."
Hmm. I guess Louis Letson was the most antiwar physician of all the antiwar physicians in Vietnam.
Got to love the Moonie Times.
On the other hand, it is very likely Bush wasn't lying about WMD in Iraq.
Regardless, Bush did lie about his service. He claimed to have served in the US Air Force, and to have kept flying for several years after completing his training. Neither claim is true. Are you outraged, Don?
Kerry so far refuses to release info related to his first purple heart; the testomony of his fellow crew indicates that they did not recieve enemy fire, and that his injury was a splinter from a 40 mm M-79 granade that he himself launched
Crewmate #1:
Crewmate #2:
Maybe there is an honest explination of all this. It just isn't looking very likely.
It sure isn't.
He was on swift boat 44 from Dec 68 to Jan 69, and then on swift boat 94 for a total of 48 days starting late in Jan 69. So basically, 3.5 months.
He was with Coastal Divisions 14 and 11 from November 8th, 1968, to March 26th, 1969, which amounts to about 139 days by my count. So, basically, 4.5 months. (This was on his second tour of duty, by the way. He had already served in the war onboard USS Gridley.)
Oh, and he won all of his medals in the 48 days he spent on 94.
This is wrong. He won his first Purple Heart on 2 December 1968. He won his second Purple Heart on 20 February 1969. He won his Silver Star on 28 February 1969. He won his Bronze Star and third Purple Heart on 13 March 1969. There are more than 48 days from December 2nd to March 13th.
|8.27.04 @ 2:31AM|#
Shannon Love writes:
I think I find the Swiftvets compelling in large part because they use a lot of numbers in their arguments. [...] . In their argument about the bronze star incident they give the width of river (75 yards) the lengths of the boats (50 feet) and the time frame (5 minutes).
People who were on the river that day and have come forward to say there wasn't enemy fire: 3 (Thurlow, Chenoweth, Odell).
People who were on the river that day and have come forward to say there was enemy fire: 5 (Kerry, Rassmann, Sandusky, Langhofer, Lambert)
I'm leaving out various other Kerry crew members and Dick Pees because a quick search didn't turn up quotes from them. Had I done a more thorough investigation, the people on the side of the Navy records would probably be ahead by more.
I'm supposed to not trust the Swiftvets because they don't like Kerry and are just a Republican front job.
You're supposed to not trust the SBV for Bush because the balance of eye-witnesses and contemporary Navy records disagree with their stories.
The Swiftvet's contention that Kerry's purple hearts were all for trivial wounds can be tested if Kerry releases his military medical records.
I don't understand why the SBV for Bush think that's important. Plainly Kerry's injuries required medical treatment and were incurred in action against the enemy. That's enough to qualify him for those Purple Hearts. (If they want to argue that he didn't suffer them in action against the enemy, they're welcome to try, but I don't think they'll get far.) Of course, if they're just trying to get out the meme that there's something fishy about Kerry's Purple Hearts - damn the actual criteria - then more power to them.
|8.27.04 @ 2:45AM|#
Mona writes:
No Mark, because Kerry admitted that *he* often wrote them
"I can recall often sending in the spot reports which *we* made after each mission; and including the GDA, gunfire damage assessments, in which *we* would say, maybe 15 sampans sunk or whatever it was." [emphasis mine]
Says Robert E Lambert who was on Thurlow's boat:
More importantly, the POWS say Kerry lied,
They said they didn't believe what their captors were telling them. How would they know whether what Kerry had said was true? Had they heard of My Lai or Thonh Phang before being captured? You can't expect them to have known about Tiger Force, I suppose. Did they have access to the testimonies given by veterans in the Winter Soldier Investigation?
I like the arguments you hear from various vets of how, since they never saw anything like what Kerry described going on, it mustn't have happened. Well, I haven't seen any crimes being committed in this town all summer, but that doesn't mean that everyone has become a law-abiding citizen.
And btw, the testimonies of Kerry's Swift vet supporters do not, in fact, all support Kerry in many impt details.
They're a damn sight closer to Kerry's recollections than the stories made up by the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush. Besides, show me a group whose testimonies on something that occurred thirty years ago agree on every detail - even important ones, such as what caused the explosion near PCF 94 in the Bronze Star incident - and I'll show you a group who got together to work out a common story.
|8.27.04 @ 2:46AM|#
joe writes:
the only one to dispute his version (John Gardner, of SBVT) didn't join his crew until after the firefights for which Kerry won his purple hearts, bronze star, and silver star.
This is incorrect. Steve Gardner was in Kerry's crew after he earned his first Purple Heart, but before he earned the rest of his medals.
|8.27.04 @ 2:48AM|#
Matthew Goggins writes:
Senator Cleland out to Pres. Bush's ranch in Texas to demand that Bush call off the Swift Boat Vets.
Okay, so you get a triple-amputee Vietnam vet, an ex-Senator no less, with a letter from several Senators coming to see you... and you have your armed guards stop him? Sheesh.
|8.27.04 @ 2:50AM|#
rst writes:
People who like Kerry want to believe he's a war hero
He has the medals, after all.
and Bush dodged the draft; so they shall, and evidence to the contrary automatically has no credibility.
Bush has admitted that he joined the Texas Air National Guard to avoid serving in Vietnam. To wit, he said, "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."
Whether you consider that as draft dodging is of course up to you.
Kerry's Vietnam record simply does not matter, and its sole purpose as a topic is as a distraction to build a base among swing voters before we get to debates,
It's also useful in energizing the base. Your loyalists are likely to give you a lot more leeway if they hate and fear the other guy. (Witness the amount rope Kerry has been given by the left wing of the Democratic party, for another example.)
|8.27.04 @ 2:51AM|#
Andrew writes:
Curiously the supposedly "apolitical" Rassman shows up NOW.
It's almost as curious as Elliott, Lonsdale, and Hoffmann reversing their course from 1996.
...
Okay, okay - it's not nearly as curious. That was sarcasm, people.
|8.27.04 @ 3:24AM|#
Ralph Peters is a military analyst, and he had an opinion piece in Tuesday's New York Post about John Kerry's character. You can find it at:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/29339.htm
He comes to the conclusion that John Kerry is not trustworthy:
"Kerry says many of the right things. But I can't believe a word of it. I just can't trust John Kerry. I can't trust him to fight -- and I can't trust him to make the right kind of peace. I have reservations about voting for George W. Bush. But I have no reservations about voting against John Kerry. And I'm not alone."
Peters reaches this conclusion mainly by looking at Kerry's Senate career and at his current campaign. But to his mind, the Swift Boat Vets are providing dramatic and damning corroboration for his opinion. And so far, I wholeheartedly agree with him.
Complaints about the Swift Boat Vets often seem to miss the point.
John Kerry has come before us and said: trust me, I'm not George Bush, I'm a responsible leader, a better decision-maker.
The Swift Boat Vets have come before us and said: hold on there, buddy - you're no leader, John Kerry; you left your "band of brothers" behind about eight months early, and then accused them of war crimes they didn't commit while they were still fighting and still being held in enemy prison camps.
Both John Kerry and the Swift Boat Vets have the right (some would say duty) to present their cases. It's up to us to figure out who's right (maybe both sides own part of the truth), and vote accordingly.
The questions the Swift Boat Vets raise are certainly relevant to me, and I will continue to pay close attention to them and to Kerry's responses.
|8.27.04 @ 5:01AM|#
A small point...but as I understand it, one month of Kerry's tour involved training in Cam Ranh Bay, which was then considered a safer billet than Saigon. His patrol time was actually only a little over three months.
All the focus has gone a long way toward educating the public on the point that Kerry took a swift tour thru 'Nam, and left at his own request.
Other officers stayed after receiving three Purple Hearts, and some stayed even when entitled to compassionate re-assignment due to family tragedy...
...but the devoted leader of this beloved band of brothers bailed after he collected enough tin to qualify (and impress the rubes) although he was fit for duty. TRY making THAT one play in an HBO episode!
|8.27.04 @ 7:46AM|#
Matthew Goggins quotes Q. Random NYPostColumnist:
The Swift Boat Vets have come before us and said: hold on there, buddy - you're no leader, John Kerry;
Right. And the reason the people he actually led support him overwhelmingly is... mind-control, probably. Or bribery. Take your pick.
you left your "band of brothers" behind about eight months early,
It's true: the guy didn't complete his second tour of duty. What a shirker!
and then accused them of war crimes they didn't commit
As everyone knows, Kerry accused the men of Coastal Divisions 11 and 14 of killing babies, naming all of them in his Senate testimony. And he spit on them when they returned home. And he camped outside Roy Hoffmann's home for weeks with 'Hanoi' Jane Fonda and they chanted, "Hey hey, Bodycount Roy, how many babies did you kill today?" - which doesn't even rhyme!
Oh, and Kerry also committed war crimes while in Vietnam. So there!
while they were still fighting
What? He didn't wait till the war was over to protest it? The traitor! The first rule of uncovering atrocities is that you should never talk about them in public while there's a chance that they're still being committed.
|8.27.04 @ 10:58AM|#
Maybe Kerry didn't want to be the last man to die for a mistake.
Jesse Walker|8.27.04 @ 12:09PM|#
Don, you've now claimed four times that Kerry lied about where he was when MLK was killed. All but one of those times came after I linked to what is, in my view, a substantial counterargument.
You don't have to agree with me that the charge is weak, but at least you could acknowledge that someone's challenged you on it.
|8.28.04 @ 5:49AM|#
Matthew Goggins writes:
O.K., some sailors who served under Kerry vs. some 260 or so Swift Boat Vets are supposed to represent "the balance of eye-witnesses".
Not even close. For any given incident, the SBVT can muster from none to three eye-witnesses. In fact, the Bronze Star incident which I covered in a previous post is the one in which the balance (they lose five to three) is most favorable to them. In the first Purple Heart incident the teams are Kerry, Zaladonis, and Runyon for naval records and Schachte (who Zaladonis and Runyon say wasn't present) for SBVT. In the Silver Star incident naval records have at least Kerry, Sandusky, Short, Belodeau, and Rood to back them up, whereas the SBVT have no one at all.
And contemporary Navy records that John Kerry wrote himself are supposed to be dispositive
There's absolutely no proof that Kerry wrote the records for the Bronze Star incident, to take the most often quoted example, himself. The after-action report does not have his initials on it, and it contains information about what was going on in the other boats that he in all likelihood wouldn't have witnessed. Furthermore, when the Navy awards three Bronze Stars for one incident, you can be damn sure that they don't rely on the word of one man.
when there are many dozens of contemporaneous Navy records that John Kerry refuses to allow the Department of Defense to release? Now why is that, Mr. Fodderstompf???
It's for the same reason Dubya refuses to release his full military records, of course. It's also the reason why Larry Thurlow refuses to release his military records.
"Kerry states:
[soldiers] 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 Genghis Khan . . . . not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."
Ah, the ellipsis - the faithful friend of many a Swift Boat Veteran for Truth. The "not isolated incidents" bit was before the "raped" bit. Here's what Kerry actually said:
Read the whole thing to see who he's really attacking. (Hint: it ain't the vets.)
|8.28.04 @ 12:32PM|#
Well then, Mr. Fodderstompf, I guess we won't be seeing you vote for Pres. Bush this time around, will we?
Fodderstompf writes:
You're supposed to not trust the SBV for Bush because the balance of eye-witnesses and contemporary Navy records disagree with their stories.
O.K., some sailors who served under Kerry vs. some 260 or so Swift Boat Vets are supposed to represent "the balance of eye-witnesses". And contemporary Navy records that John Kerry wrote himself are supposed to be dispositive when there are many dozens of contemporaneous Navy records that John Kerry refuses to allow the Department of Defense to release? Now why is that, Mr. Fodderstompf???
How about applying your skepticism to some of the outrageous claims of atrocities and war crimes that John Kerry seared, seared into the national consciousness back in 1971 and 1972, and which he refuses to disavow even today?
How about it? When will we see a post along the lines of:
"Kerry states:
[soldiers] 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 Genghis Khan . . . . not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."