Let's Sort This Out.

Below is a Thomas Sowell article that expresses my sentiments pretty well on the whole Kerry in Vietnam deal. One key point not made by Sowell is this: Can we get over the four months in Vietnam? Kerry was definitely not Seargent York in Vietnam. He was almost certainly not as bad as some of his critics portray him. He was at the very least a sometimes liar and major league kiss ass and self-promoting operator. Not great qualities but hardly damning. I think what he did after he came home is much worse. While still technically a member of the military he met with and gave aid and comfort to the enemy. This is such a bad idea that it is specifically forbidden in the CONSTITUTION. The constitution does not even specifically address murder for crying out loud. No one disputes this and this is much more damning that kissing butt to get another medal. So far we are in about 1972, trust me Kerry gets worse the further forward in time you go. If we get to talking about the '80's, '90's and '00's Kerry fades down the stretch. This guy would make an unimaginable disaster as commander in chief.

Thomas Sowell


Vets vs. Kerry on Vietnam
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Senator John Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards, has said melodramatically: "Ask the men who served with him in Vietnam!" But now that men who served with Kerry in Vietnam are coming forward and contradicting Kerry's version of what happened there, Senator Edwards is calling it a "smear."

Apparently we are to listen only to those veterans who were hand-picked by the Kerry campaign.

One of the photos used by the Kerry campaign shows Kerry as a young Navy lieutenant, surrounded by 20 of his fellow service men in Vietnam — a "band of brothers." But now a new book says that a majority of the men in that photo have objected to having their pictures used in support of Kerry's candidacy for President.


Nearly 200 Vietnam veterans, including many from Kerry's old unit, have organized as Vietnam Veterans for Truth to actively oppose John Kerry and a new book titled "Unfit for Command" by John O'Neill (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) repeatedly contradicts Kerry's version of events in Vietnam.
There are of course other books with other views on the subject, notably "Tour of Duty" by Douglas Brinkley, with a pro-Kerry slant. If you enjoyed the movie "Rashomon," where different people had radically different memories of the same events, you will love reading O'Neill's book and Brinkley's book together.


The Kerry version of events begins with his volunteering to serve in the Vietnam war. The O'Neill version has Kerry's draft board rejecting his application for a deferment and Kerry then enlisting in the Naval Reserve — not the Navy, as in Brinkley's book.


Enlisting in the Naval Reserves is not very different from enlisting in the National Guard. The big difference is that John Kerry happened to get sent to Vietnam and George Bush did not. But those decisions were made by people far above them in the military chain of command.

Yet some in the media and elsewhere have acted as if it was heroic for John Kerry to have enlisted in the Naval Reserve and cowardly for George Bush to have enlisted in the National Guard. But none has bothered to show what essential difference — if any — there is between these two back-up branches of service.


Both O'Neill's book and Brinkley's book have numerous footnotes to document what they say about very specific events. With all the investigative reporters in this country, someone ought to be able to track down many of the controverted facts and settle these things.


But with Beltway journalists favoring Kerry's election by 12 to 1, according to a New York Times poll, there may not be so much zest for facts this election year.


One discrepancy that does not require much research arises from John Kerry's statement that he was in Cambodia at Christmas time in 1968, while President Nixon was assuring the world that there were no American forces in Cambodia.


Richard Nixon was not yet President of the United States in December 1968. He had been elected in November but, like other Presidents, he did not take office until January 20th.


The ferocity of Kerry's media defenders was exemplified in Chris Matthews' browbeating of columnist Michelle Malkin on his "Hardball" program when she questioned Kerry's Purple Hearts. Matthews repeatedly demanded to know if she was saying that Kerry had deliberately shot himself.


That was never the charge made by the Vietnam Veterans for Truth. Those who were there say that there was no enemy fire, that Kerry on two occasions accidentally injured himself when shrapnel from his own grenades nicked him, and later an enemy mine also got him. The doctor who treated Kerry said that he removed a tiny fragment with tweezers, put a Band-Aid on the spot — and refused to certify it as a wound that merited a Purple Heart.


Kerry's commanding officer at the time likewise rejected Kerry's application for a Purple Heart, according to O'Neill. Later, Kerry got a Purple Heart through another commanding officer who knew nothing about the incident and took Kerry's word for it.


Maybe the media could put some of the energy that they spend trying to discredit Kerry's critics into finding out what the facts are. Or don't they dare risk
finding out?

Thomas Sowell



Vets vs. Kerry on Vietnam, Part II

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | In addition to two key books about John Kerry -- Douglas Brinkley's pro-Kerry book "Tour of Duty" and John O'Neill's anti-Kerry book "Unfit for Command" (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) -- there is another book that would be well worth reading -- if you can find a copy.


It is John Kerry's own book, written in 1971, titled "The New Soldier." It is out of print and Senator Kerry will not let it be reprinted.


The book's front cover shows protesters carrying the American flag upside down, and inside are photos of members of Kerry's group -- Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- with clenched fist salutes and some of the guys done up to look like Che Guevara.


Also included are photographs of Ramsey Clark, who was a lawyer for Kerry's group. Clark went to North Vietnam and returned to report that American prisoners of war were being well treated there. Those POWs who were finally released after the war told a very different and very bitter story.


No wonder Kerry doesn't want his 1971 book reprinted during an election year. It would not fit in with the image he is trying to create today.


Those in the media who are looking for some kind of political conspiracy to explain why so many Vietnam veterans have organized into a group that has come out publicly against Kerry are overlooking the very obvious fact of what Kerry himself said and did when he returned to the United States after his abbreviated tour of combat duty in Vietnam.


Kerry was not simply part of the "anti-war" movement of the 1960s. Many of us opposed the Vietnam war then for a variety of reasons. What Kerry did was accuse Americans still fighting in Vietnam of widespread atrocities on a daily basis, atrocities authorized all the way up the chain of command, atrocities committed for racial reasons, doing things to the Vietnamese that we would never do to Europeans.


This will no doubt come as some surprise to those Germans whose cities were fire-bombed to rubble in World War II. In John Kerry's speeches and public appearances, however, he said that Americans deliberately killed innocent Vietnamese civilians, raped Vietnamese women wholesale and had "free-fire zones" where troops were under orders to shoot anything that moved.


Decades later, Kerry is now trying to back away from some of those statements, saying that they were the words of "an angry young man." Anger is one thing. Lies are another. If what Kerry said was true then, it is still true now. And if it was a lie then, it is still a lie. His anger cannot change that.


Back then, many in the media repeated such sweeping charges without proof being asked for or given. They disregarded other Vietnam vets who flatly contradicted what Kerry and other activists were saying. The Senate committee that gave Kerry's testimony national publicity refused to allow John O'Neill, who served in the same unit, to testify with a contrary view.

John O'Neill defines free-fire zones as "discretion to fire first if threatened or when confronting enemy forces," rather than waiting to be fired on first. Surely there is some official definition of free-fire zones and some military experts and military historians around to say what it has meant in practice. But the media show no interest in seeking such facts.

What John Kerry and many similar 1960s activists said, amplified by the media, created an atmosphere in which men who had risked their lives for this country in Vietnam returned to find themselves pariahs in their native land, denounced as "baby killers" and spat upon.


A veteran named William Franke said: "I will tell you in all candor that the only baby killer I knew in Vietnam was John F. Kerry."


Do you wonder that these veterans are bitter at what Kerry said about them and horrified at the thought that he might become President of the United States? Is it necessary to dream up some conspiracy theory to explain what they are doing?


America's reputation suffered lasting damage, making it harder to gain international cooperation in life and death struggles, then and now. But Senator Kerry seems to care no more about the repercussions of his words today than he did then.


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