They have no sense of morality!
Posted on 09/23/2004 9:18:29 PM PDT by Rokke
This thread is a good example to us. When an issue that needs research comes up, please stay with the thread until the research is completed before shooting off e-mails to O'Reilly, Rush, etc. It undermines our credibility to jump the gun.
I've read posts 282 and 333, and I still have problems with the articles quoted there.
Post 282 is a continuation of an article cited in post 240, from the Boston Globe on March 17th 1991, which states:
"The delegation swooped down in glistening helicopters on the border outpost of Safwan, Iraq, to meet with the US Army's 1st Armored Division, which helped spearhead the allied ground offensive against
Iraq and tangled with the Republican "
This is what the senior military commander in Iraq at the time, General Fred Franks commanding the US and British (and at that time, a French battalion of attack helicopters) had to say about the arrangement of his forces at that time, in his personal account of the war, "Into the Storm":
"We had already divided the occupied area into unit sectors, with each unit responsible for its particular sector--usually where the individual units had ended the war. Thus 1st INF Division was in Safwan. The remainder of the units, however, were still in the desert, where there was no populated area, and so we shifted them. First we moved 1st CAV into the area south of the Euphrates that had been vacated by the 24th Division. Next we put 2nd ACR in the west, and the 1st INF northwest of the 1st CAV along Highway 8." (Essentially south of the Hawr al Hammer, from An Nasiriyah to Talil.) "South of them we assigned the entire western sector to the 11th Aviation Brigade, with the French Regiment (actually it was battalion sized) under their operational control. When the 1st CAV left, soon after the departure of XVIII Corps, we assigned the 1st AD to Highway 8 west of Basra." (Rumayla area) "And when 1st INF left to fill the more western area, we assigned the Safwan area to the 3rd AD.
Our work fell into two periods. The first lasted from the beginning of refugee influx, on about 15 March, to the signing of the UN-sponsored peace treaty on 12 April. The second lasted from 12 April to 9 May, when all refugees under U.S. protection were settled in a camp in Saudi Arabia."
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the 1st AD never was in Safwan which leaves us with only a few mathematical posibilities:
1. The Boston Globe made an honest mistake, got the unit wrong (hard to believe, given any soldier's usual pride in his unit), and Kerry really was in Safwan on or around March 17th.
2. The Boston Globe had the unit right, 1st Armored Division, and Kerry was not in Safwan, but instead was in or around Ramayla.
3. General Franks didn't know where his divisions were.
Further questions regarding Kerry's claim arise if there was no "second signing" of a cease fire in Iraq. From the above account, Franks makes it clear that the formal cease fire was adopted not by military or political figures, but instead by the UN on April 12th, 1991. From "Crusade", we have:
"Three days after the UN Security Council adopted cease fire terms in early April, Iraq accepted."
Are we to believe that the UN Security Council flew, en masse, to Safwan, Iraq in order to formalize a ceasefire which Kerry attended?
From this website:
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Iraq_disarmament_crisis_timeline_1990-1996#1991
we have:
April 3, 1991
The UN Security Council passes the Cease Fire Agreement, Resolution 687. The resolution also called for the
destruction, or removal of all chemical and biological weapons, all stocks of agents and components, all research,
development, support and manufacturing facilities for ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150km and related repair
and production facilities, recognize Kuwait, account for missing Kuwaitis, return Kuwaiti property and end its support for
international terrorism. This resolution created a special commission, UNSCOM, to inspect Iraq's chemical, biological
and nuclear facilities. Iraq was required to turn over all biological and chemical weapons to Unscom for destruction, and
ordered to respect the 1968 Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty."
and
"April 6, 1991
Iraq accepts Resolution 687. "
Going back to Kerry's quote that began this thread:
"I mean, I was in Safwan. I went there when the signing
of the armistice took place at the end of the war."
On the basis of thousands of hours of research, from at least four historical texts, "Crusade", "Triumph Without Victory", "Into The Storm", and "Every Man a Tiger", plus 4 Schwartzkopf biographies, "In the Eye of the Storm", "It Doesn't Take a Hero", "Schwartzkopf In His Own Words", and "Stormin' Norman", plus over 150 hours of distilled videotape archived live from broadcast news, I have yet to find any evidence of any "signing" of a ceasefire, armistice or peace accord except the initial ceasefire which took place at Safwan, Iraq, on March 3 1991, and the UN Security Council Resolution 687 which was passed on April 3, 1991, almost certainly at UN Headquarters in New York City, and officially accepted by Iraq on April 6th, 1991.
I have seen no evidence to suggest that any politician attended the March 3 signing at Safwan, or was within 50 miles of that event, including John Kerry.
I do not believe that the UN Security Council passed resolution 687 in Iraq, or Kuwait, or anywhere other than their headquarters in New York.
Finally, I have legitimate doubts as to whether John Kerry was ever in Safwan, given the news accounts which specify units that were never deployed in that village.
In my considered opinion, Kerry's statement is a demonstrable lie.
He was in Cambodia, so I guess he could have been in Safwan.
I doesn't matter to Kerry voters, they will still support him and call Bush the liar.
They have no sense of morality!
Wow- this thread is still alive?! ..Good
What a pompous, phoney @$$ this guy is!
(Like I really concealed THAT word, right?)
I heard him!
He said he was a the signing.
He said he was at signing.
I heard it!
Dan Rather & CBS wanted so desperately to believe the documents, that they disregarded any standards of objective research. CBS concluded that the documents were genuine, and ridiculed objections as traceable to "partisan political operatives" or amateurs in pajamas. Sadly, that attitude has been witnessed in this thread. Because Kerry embellished the details of his Iraq junket, some posters desperately want to believe that he truly claimed to have been in Safwan 3 Mar 91, which would have pinned him again as an egregious liar. There are enough examples of Kerry's lying, without beating this issue to death. The New Media can compete with and often overwhelm the Old Media, but only if facts are accepted and not dismissed as being inconvenient.
Monday bump
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