Kerry’s Swift Boat Vets: Aye, Matey, T’is Mutiny!

OpinionEditorials.com ^ | August 7, 2004 | Bob Newman

[Cincinatus' Wife]

There’s dissention in the ranks and the smell of mutiny on deck as a parade of Vietnam veterans who served with and/or knew John Kerry in Vietnam come forward to denounce him as a leader, officer and veteran. This situation has helped becalm Kerry’s already some say foundering campaign warship, which got little if any boost from the Democratic National Convention and which also got about the same result from Kerry’s selection of John Edwards as his vice-presidential running mate.

Kerry’s latest headache is followed by frustrating events like Shove-It-Gate, Sandy Berger’s light-fingers episode in the National Archives, and Kerry’s voting to send the United States to war and then voting to not authorize funds earmarked to buy those troops weapons and equipment for that war.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, founded in May 2004, consists of hundreds of Vietnam veterans who served in Swift Boat units there. This group has released an anti-Kerry ad in which a host of vets, some saying they knew Kerry personally and others saying they served with him and saw him in action, call him a liar, a fraud and an all-around untrustworthy officer.

This annoys Kerry because far more of his fellow Swift Boats vets have lined up against him than have signed up for him. It doesn’t help matters when only two of the officers in Kerry’s division, out of twenty-some-odd men, endorse him for president. Nor does it help when the rear admiral who was Kerry’s boss vehemently says Kerry is unfit to be our commander in chief. And when a superior officer of Kerry’s steps up and says one of Kerry’s Purple Hearts was bogus, i.e., it was a miniscule (fixed with a Band-Aid) self-inflicted wound that Kerry got in a “firefight” that involved no enemy fire whatsoever, that isn’t good, either. (According to this officer, Kerry improperly fired a grenade at some Vietnamese he thought were the enemy. The grenade hit too close to Kerry and a tiny piece of shrapnel nicked him. No enemy were involved in the incident. Kerry asked this superior officer to put him in for a Purple Heart, but the officer refused. But Kerry somehow ended up with the medal anyway. Some vets have insinuated Kerry put himself in for the medal, but that is unproven.)

Sen. John McCain, also a Vietnam veteran but who never served with Kerry, is calling the ad “dishonest and dishonorable.” Many vets want to know why McCain thinks this way, as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did serve with Kerry. Why are these vets the bad guys if they served with Kerry and have a different opinion of him?

What do I think of Kerry’s medals? I have not and will not form an opinion, because I was not there. No veteran who did not serve with Kerry should say a damn word about Kerry’s medals. And the Bush campaign is right not to comment on Kerry’s medals. But these other vets who served with Kerry and who now oppose him have the right to voice their opinions, and McCain is wrong to attack and degrade them simply because their opinions differ from his.

###

Bob Newman, a decorated, retired US Marine, is co-host of "Redmond & Newman http://www.khow.com/hosts/redmond_newman.html on 630 KHOW in Denver. His “Global Positioning Statement,” a daily insider’s update on the war on terror, is carried by various Clear Channel radio stations from coast to coast. A ground-combat veteran, “Gunny Bob” is the director of international security & counterterrorism services for The GeoScope Group and is the military & terrorism columnist for The Denver Daily News.

bobnewman@clearchannel.com

[Conservative_boy_in_Bangkok]

The truth will always make it self known. Always.

[GeronL]

The GeoScope Group and is the military & terrorism columnist for The Denver Daily News.

What in the world is the Denver Daily News??

I thought they had the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post??

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Swift-Boat "Journalism."

As dominant media tracking
the claims of the spokespeople flacking
against or in favor
of viewpoints we savor,
we're balanced reporting such flacking.

We're equally quick to disfavor
attackers of viewpoints we favor
as when we condemn
the ones who defend
attacks from the viewpoints we favor.

So therefore, we cannot perceive
the reason so many believe
we're biased not fair
in print or on air
on viewpoints in which we believe.

We're sure 'twas our duty to push
the claims charging "AWOL" by Bush
and equally sure
critiques from the tours
of Swift Boats we needn't have pushed.

In choosing the news to be pandered,
we're Media "Swift Boat" Commanders
obliged to suppress
the views we detest
and pacify those of our camber.

The dominant media have demonstrated greater credulity in propagandistic allegations by Michael Moore than first-person assertions by Swift-Boat Veterans who served on missions with, although not under, Kerry in Vietnam. The dominant media do not view the Democrats' treatment of Michael Moore as an honored guest (seated with Jimmy Carter) at their convention in Boston as being mean-spirited, yet they are prepared to view as mean-spirited the inability of Bush to silence the Swift-Boat Veterans. Furthermore, if Kerry's service to his country in Vietnam entitles him to be heard about his service there and to defame the service of others as he has done, the Swift-Boat Veterans' service to their country entitles them to be heard regarding their first-person observations of his service as well as what they deem to have been his post-Vietnam defamation of virtually all who served in Vietnam.

http://polisat.com/DailyPoliticalSatire-Commentary/du20y04m08d06-01.htm

[Jet Jaguar]

Aye matey. I am the last one left who supports Hanoi John Kerry.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Comment and discussion: Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Respond to Boston Globe Retraction

[greasepaint]

Has Kerry, himself, made any remarks about
the Swift Boat Vets?

[Conservative_boy_in_Bangkok]

The liberal media is doing there best to silence the real swift boat hero's (those opposing Kerry the Coward Hearted) but this is a true grass roots movement. As long they stay the course they will get the message out. Hang in there Guys! The trust must be told.

[Jet Jaguar]

ping

[Rose in RoseBear]

Pingpingping!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Has Kerry, himself, made any remarks about the Swift Boat Vets?

Not that I've heard. He'll let his surrogates speak for him.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Like father, like son: Kerry's World: Father Knows Best***"Americans," he writes, "are inclined to see the world and foreign affairs in black and white." They celebrate their own form of government and denigrate all others, making them guilty of what he calls "ethnocentric accommodation -- everyone ought to be like us." As a result, America has committed the "fatal error" of "propagating democracy" and fallen prey to "the siren's song of promoting human rights," falsely assuming that our values and institutions are a good fit in the Third World. And, just as Americans exaggerate their own goodness, they exaggerate their enemies' badness. The Soviet Union wasn't nearly as imperialistic as American politicians warned, Kerry argues. "Seeing the Soviet Union as the aggressor in every instance, and the U.S. as only reacting defensively, relieves an American observer from the need to see any parallel between our use of military power in distant parts of the world, and the Soviet use of military power outside the Soviet Union," he writes. He further claims that "Third world Marxist movements were autonomous national movements" -- outside Moscow's orbit. The book culminates in a plea for a hardheaded, realist foreign policy that removes any pretense of U.S. moral superiority.***

[patj]

Good to see you back again, CW, and posting. We are going to need you in the next few months. You find such interesting articles.

[greasepaint]

We've got to pin him (Kerry) down on this issue.
Somebody needs to ask Kerry if he thinks any of the
SB Vets are untruthful. We need to force Kerry to
personally refute the allegations (of the SBVs).

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thanks patj.

[CyberAnt]

He left out the dismissal of Joseph Wilson (after being caught lying through his teeth), along with Richard Clarke.

So far, that's 3 major members of the campaign have been removed and the little wifey had a filthy mouth.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

What can Kerry say? He won't tell the truth and ruin his dream to live in the White House and be king of the world.

***As the candidate made note of all the young children staying up late to greet him, the crowd cleaved into choruses of ''We want Bush" and ''Kerry!"

Kerry then said: ''That's all right. Let 'em chant, ladies and gentlemen, because they've only got three more months to chant. They don't want to hear the truth! . . . But John Edwards and I are going to tell America the truth."

Yet even the four-term senator from Massachusetts seemed a bit rattled, making an odd promise that ''graduate school is going to be there" someday for the children who turned out that night to see a man who would be president.*** Source Boston Globe

[C210N]

RE: Kerry not speaking directly to the SBV's

The analogy that comes to mind is a trial where the defendant or defendant's lawyer must make the decision to personally testify or not. Generally, if the defendant is actually guilty, the decision is to not testify.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Oh, but then you're always told that it is the prosecutions business to prove guilt and that, by not testifying, it should in no way be considered a sign of the perps guilt.

Yeah, right.