Campaign sniping over Vietnam War grows more strident

Seattle Times ^ | August 21, 2004

[Moderate right-winger]

Bush and Cheney are far more competent than any possible Dem opponents.

[pettifogger]

The new ad by the Republican-backed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth depicts three former Vietnam POWs condemning Kerry's April 22, 1971, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where he described alleged U.S. atrocities and called for an end to the war.

"He betrayed us in the past. How could we be loyal to him now?" Ken Cordier, a retired Air Force colonel who was a POW for seven years, asks in the ad.

I noticed with interest that the Seattle Times did not use Galanti's much more evocative quote about Kerry giving the North Vietnamese for free, what he and his fellow POWs withstood torture to avoid saying. Cordier's quote makes the ad look as though the vets are merely bitter about Kerry's anti-war activities.

The focus on the vets' bitterness "after 33 years" is a transparent attempt to put the best possible spin on this devastating ad. It allows those favorably disposed to Kerry to hold onto their mythological view that Kerry's anti-war activities somehow saved lives in Vietnam. Had the Seattle Times used Galanti's quote, there would have been no doubt about the real effect of Kerry's treason.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Why James Rassman Is Honestly Mistaken About John Kerry Saving His Life And How John Kerry Is Shamelessly Exploiting The Situation***....Here are my findings:.........

[goldstategop]

Seattle isn't called the San Francisco of the Pacific Northwest for nothing. Its full of brain-dead liberals. And their newspaper is a reflection of the mindset of the types who dwell there.

[Drango]

"...The words were honest, but on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top,"

Senator Kerry, American POWs have said they were tortured 'cause of what you said.

[risk]

The more Kerry's camp attacks the swift vets the more they remind America how visciously unscrupulous Jane Fonda, John Kerry, and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War were in their opposition to the war. Opposing the war on basic grounds would have been fair, but they used smear tactics, atrocity propaganda, and outright lies to sell their positions.

The reason the swift vets won't be silcenced is the guilt Americans feel for what happened to our Vietnam vets during after the war. Every Kerry camp barb against the swift vets drives those shards of guilt deeper into our memories. So Kerry campaigners, just remember, when you blame O'Neil for standing with the swift vets, just remember that his defense of the war, his defense of the vietnamization policy for the Nixon administration, and his words of support for veterans everywhere sound better and better to saddened American ears.

The picture that launched a thousand anti-war activist organizations, the Kim Phuc "napalm girl" photo, was enlisted in this campaign of hate and lies. Unlike the vile legends spread by the left, and associates of groups like VVAW, Kim Phuc was hit by South Vietnamese air force and targeted by South Vietnamese strategic air commanders, not those heartless Americans as is almost always believed.

As Ronald N. Timberlake writes in 1999:

The Girl In The Photo was accidentally burned by her own countrymen, who were fighting her future countrymen. The only American participants of any nature were the journalists who reported the event and made her famous, and the doctors who saved her life.

After the war, Phuc was inducted into the communist cause by agents and eventually moved to Moscow, where she eventually managed to escape the system and defect to the capitalist west.

The legacy of America's involvement in Vietnam will continually work against John Kerry. His camp would have been better off never to say a word about our president's coldwar serivce to country, and even restrain themselves from addressing the swift vets at all.

But that's just not like them. They want to keep misleading Americans about the real price of defending our country -- and misleading them about the cost of not defending it.

Unsurprisingly, Peter Arnett was involved with "breaking" the story, but was forthcoming regarding ARVN and VNAF involvement in his Stars and Stripes coverage as far as I can tell.

[igoramus987]

[Chieftain]

Freeper N. Theknow says:
"It’s faster than a checkbook, more powerful than a Democratic demagogue, able to lay waste to a liar Kerry with the single click of a mouse. It's a little bird of truth, it's plain to see Kerry's unfit... it's... it's...SuperFReep!

Want to join in the fun? Click the logo to donate to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!

[syriacus]

That's a very, very good presentation of the crux of the matter.

Kennedy, Kerry, Walinsky -- the Axis of Liars deserves public scrutiny. (Fulbright having gone on to his reward.)

IMHO, in his Senate testimony, Kerry doesn't really sound like an angry young man, as much as he sounds like someone reading a speech.

Even his words of self-justification in later years, ("I think some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an anger."), show an odd disconnect from his own alleged anger.

Charlie McCarthy shows more honesty and true emotion than "Kalkulating John" Kerry.

[syriacus]

Opposing the war on basic grounds would have been fair,
but they used smear tactics, atrocity propaganda, and outright lies to sell their positions.

Bears repeating.

[syriacus]

The Girl In The Photo was accidentally burned by her own countrymen, who were fighting her future countrymen.

My gosh! I hadn't heard this. Thanks for telling us what really happened.

[risk]

It doesn't make it less tragic, but it does reveal the agenda of the "pacifist" opponents of the war when they accuse us of harming the poor girl. Without a doubt it was VC incursion into her village that led to the harm that befell her, as sad as the VNAF's mistakes were.

[Ladysmith]

Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot went on CNN and said the Kerry campaign has come "unhinged," and that Kerry himself "looks wild-eyed." White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Kerry is "losing his cool." The Bush campaign used similar language in 2000 to portray rival Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as potentially too unstable to run the country.

Hey, if the shoe fits...

[mtntop3]

The second Swift Boat Vets ad impacts the hardest Monday when this wonderful ad starts.

For today: three lengthy excerpts from Unfit for Command have been published in the Washington Times. All three are available to download or forward from today's edition, Saturday, Aug. 21, at www.washtimes.com.

Go to them if you haven't. All three, especially the third, are incredibly powerful.

The availability of this to-be-a-classic book is still looked forward to for most of us. But some of the essential excerpts ARE NOW, AS OF TODAY, IN THE PUBLIC REALM. There is no ambiguity about the Swift Boat Vet's testimonies being overwhelming.

This cannot be a happy day in the life of John Kerry - but yet another day in history that shows that good people of courage will triumph over evil. Count on it - always.

[oldironsides]

Going after President Bush is the only avenue open to them.
They are not going to go after the veterans harmed and angered by the Kerry Fonda betrayal. You have no idea how many Vietnam veterans have been waiting to settle the score with the liar John Forbes Kerry. He put many veterans on the defensive for honorbale service. He tainted every single one of us with the stench of his political ambitions.
John Forbes Kerry deserves all this and more. His ambition and need for the spotlight brought us all to this moment.
Thank God for the brave veterans leading this fight.

[Freedom4US]

Successful indoctrination with leftist bilge is ONLY effective when the purveyors have exclusive control of the terms of the debate. No dissent is allowed, "free speech" and "tolerance" indeed.

[Freedom4US]

What's being ignored, it was the communists who were the nasties in that war. The single most evil philosophy to ever come down the pike, responsible for untold misery and the slaughter of millions and millions, and Sen. Kerry and his ilk were on the wrong side of history. Oops.

[SunkenCiv]

Kerry's opposition to the war and claims that U.S. troops had engaged in atrocities have reopened a split

and that's the operative sentence for the entire campaign. KERRY reopened the split. He's cheered on only by people who agreed with his 1971 turncoat activity.

George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thanks you mtntop3.

I've read my copy of "Unfit for Command."

It is Kerry's political tombstone.

[Krodg]

Kerry's opposition to the war and claims that U.S. troops had engaged in atrocities have reopened a split between veterans who salute his service as a skipper of a Navy Swift boat in Vietnam and those who object to his subsequent protests.

I guess Kerry thought 30 yrs would be enough time for everyone to forget what he said and that it would be safe for him to run for president.

Concluding his formal statement, Kerry commented about administration attempts to disown veterans and looked forward thirty years (to 2001) when the nation could look back proudly to a time when it turned from this war and the hate and fears driving us in Vietnam.

http://www.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/JohnKerryTestimony.html