Moral Bankruptcy in the left?

So, the way this goes is this... you can attack someone's record during their time voluntarily fighting in a conflict, but its crossing the line to make an issue of the fact that your opponent(s) didn't.

And before it is said, I think it was fair to question Clinton on the same grounds.

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Actually Clinton was berated without mercy on that score. I wonder what the reaction will be when the "Texans for Truth" resurrect Bush's National Guard record? By the way, what ever happened to your qualms about Bush? You seem to have hopped onto his wagon again.

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Draginol

Join Date 03/2001

+137

Not by Kerry.

Kerry is the one making an issue of Cheney's lack of military service. Cheney hasn't said anything negative about Kerry's behavior while he was in Vietnam.

The "Texans for Truth" is going to backfire on Kerry. It's just another example of the left not "getting it". They're totally out of touch with mainstream Americans.

I have qualms with Bush. But I'm totally disgusted with Kerry. There was never a chance I'd vote for Kerry, only that I wouldn't come out and vote for Bush.

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"I'm here personally to express my anger, as a veteran," Kerry told National Public Radio two months before the 1992 election, "that a president who would stand before this nation in his inaugural address and promise to put Vietnam behind us is now breaking yet another promise and trying to use Vietnam and service in order to get himself re-elected."

"That is not an act of leadership, that is an act of shame and cowardice," the Massachusetts Democrat railed.

Link

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Draginol

Join Date 03/2001

+137

Indeed. Like I said, morally bankrupt.

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I am at a loss as to whom to vote for.
I am Republican, but Big GW, has confused the crap out of me.
I was going to abstain this year, but I'll be damned if I Vote for Kerry by NOT Voting for Bush.
What I am so curious about is where are all the Dem's that were griping about Cheneys Heart in 2K, now that Big Bill C. Had the Old Triple Bypass.
Now all of a sudden they have to float a New Smear tactic, because that one is used up.
What's next? Gripe about Economy, Gas, Jobs, Old Boy Network and Kickbacks?
Makes me think of that toy girls played with in school, when I was a kid.
You know the paper thing that you made the choices with and manipulated and picked numbers and eventually got an answer.

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I wonder if it was compulsory to vote in America - would the respective parties focus on real issues rather than back and forth tit for tat pointless arguments?

BAM!!!

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What I am so curious about is where are all the Dem's that were griping about Cheneys Heart in 2K, now that Big Bill C. Had the Old Triple Bypass.

OK, that one wins the "irrelevance of the year award, and, frankly, was nothing more than a cheap shot. Clinton is an EX president, his heart condition will not keep him from filling his job of hitting golf balls on the target range and making "bash bush" speeches at a million dollars a pop for the next four years. The fact that you would find an opportunity to make a dig on a very serious situation like that disturbs me.

Incidentally, Bush acted as a head of state should, and wished the Clintons his best.

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The comments in question:

"I'm tired of these Republicans who spend so much time denigrating Democrats and other peoples' commitment to the defense of our nation,"

"I'm tired of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and a bunch of people who went out of their way to avoid their chance to serve when they had the chance. I went (to Vietnam). I'm not going listen to them talk to me about patriotism."

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the Republicans aren't really taking the high road on this issue either:

It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

hopefully youre not so blinded by partisanship you can overlook the facts of this matter:

the 2000 bush campaign staff claimed cheney received 3 deferments. according to an article published 4/3/91 by the washington post, cheney received 5 deferments: four 2-S student deferments and one 3-A -- "registrant with a child or children; or registrant deferred by reason of extreme hardship to dependents."

cheney testified under oath during his 1991 senate confirmation hearing that he "would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called." during that same hearing, he also testified, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."

im not sure why bringing this to light is evidence of moral bankruptcy on anyone's part but cheney's. i wonder how the families of robert cardenas, walter elmer handy, and douglas tyrone patrick feel about the matter. they were three young men from casper, wyoming who didnt have 'other priorities'.

during an interview with the dallas morning news in 1990, bush 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."

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What is the obsession Kerry has with Vietnam? Does he honestly believe that he'll gain support by focusing on Vietnam to the point that everybody think he has nothing else to offer? A part of me believes he wants to lose the election.

So, the way this goes is this... you can attack someone's record during their time voluntarily fighting in a conflict, but its crossing the line to make an issue of the fact that your opponent(s) didn't.

Has Bush (or Cheney) attacked Kerry's service?

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Big Bill C. Had the Old Triple Bypass

Quadruple actually, and I like how the Newsworld International put it, "No more burger and fries for the former president" I was laughing over that fact but not the surgery itself, which I hoped he would come out alright and everything went well, and it did, proves he's got a tough constitution. No Burger For You Cheney and Clinton, it would literally kill you, take it easy, and watch that stress level, make sure you are on a low-saturated fat diet. I know it's going to be hard for Clinton after all he's from Arkansas and he loves Barbecue like myself (Oklahoman here) along with Mesquite and Hickory.

"I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."

Didn't know family couldn't be a priority, but what exactly was he doing in the 60's partying so hard that it affected his ticker?
I think I would like to hear what he was doing in the 60's before passing judgment on his deferments who knows he could have been some covert CIA operative working against enemy spies. (Joke)

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

I think I would like to hear what he was doing in the 60's before passing judgment on his deferments

cheney was a student at casper college in wyoming in 1963. he married lynn cheney in 1964 following gulf of tonkin incident. their first child was born 9 months after the sss stopped deferring married men who were childless. he later dropped out of yale after he lost his scholarship due to unsatisfactory grades.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

Cheney) attacked Kerry's service?

no. he's not a stupid man. which explains why he didnt serve but has no problem sending others to war.

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Ok, I can prove the Karl Rove attacked Kerry on Vietnam and his actions after he came back(the Wednesday at the RNC when Miller and Cheney spoke)... working on Cheney at the moment.

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no. he's not a stupid man. which explains why he didnt serve but has no problem sending others to war.

Oh how we think that is such an easy decision to make, probably why the guy has had heart problems from stress, and also Clinton from sending soldiers abroad, a lot of stress to be had in those government positions. I read the response on Yale, but what did he do in '65, '66 '67 '68 '69 (WOODSTOCK!!! MAN ON THE MOON!!!) '70 '71 '72 '73, also keep in mind for a draft your draft number had to come up, which even than at least 70% of all soldiers in Vietnam were Volunteer, like Kerry, my Uncle, Family Friends, Sen. McCain.

Ok, I can prove the Karl Rove attacked Kerry on Vietnam and his actions after he came back

Why I don't approve of attacks on Vietnam service, I do support attacks on Kerry's actions when he came back, he fueled the atmosphere that made it terrible for McCain, My Uncle, Close Friends, Family Friends, unbearable to come back too, and that I just don't like.

Kerry cannot talk his way out of that one, he did it for political gain and served up U.S. Soldiers and US Soldiers who were P.O.W. like McCain and some of the veterans used in Swift Boat Vets Second Ad on a freakin' silver platter to the rabid dogs that were readly to pounce on anything, and that should show that he is a TRUE politician at heart, by having no heart, but THREE Purple hearts to replace the empty spot in his chest, thanks alot Kerry for being so caring and helpful to my Uncle, Close Friends, and Family Friends, they really loved your betrayal, heck even McCain is cheering and applauding you for that action, go and attack Cheney on his five deferrements you heartless s.o.b., sorry but you are unfit to even mention having the same initials as the better president than you would make, John F. Kennedy, do you forget his words "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country", so far I see you betraying those words, heck you go so far as even to attack Freedom of Speech just because it is against you and you are not even a President yet, so we can sure count on you to make sure we say the all the right things about you, thanks once again John F. "Omar Quaddafi Clone" Kerry. I would vote for a Mass-Murderer before even thinking of voting for you, because you killed hundreds with words alone, and just because they were suicides does not mean your hands are clean, they died because of you, and the others you helped, you could have taken a stand and said it was wrong and told the truth that the Viet Cong were using the babies and children as bombs to take out US Soldiers, you could have told them that they were teaching 2 and 3 year olds to run into bars where american officers were with bombs strapped to them, and that kid was taught how to press a switch to set off the bomb killing not only the kid but the officers or american servicemen inside, and because you did not take a stand even after showing yourself to be a valiant officer and soldier in the United States Navy and were rightfully awarded so, you are unfit to command, and no amount of rhetoric or harsh speech, or even smear tactics will change that fact. You wanted to run on your Vietnam record, well don't forget the your actions after Vietnam, you brought it up and you will be nailed down because of it, you just make me sick, you need to go to the Vietnam Memorial and to every person who survived and served in Vietnam and apologize to them before you can ever be considered fit to serve as United States President, and you can bet your ass that you will suffer from not apologizing and coming out saying you were wrong.

That should be all the reason someone ever needs to not vote for Kerry, give one good reason against that to support Kerry, and you will see it pales in comparison.

I may be a Centrist, but I looked at the issue and I can't believe America even considered the man for Presidential Candidate, I would rather have a man who sticks behind our soldiers even if it means sending into a controversial war to protect our country, than a man who killed by his words and actions many returning Vietnam veterans who did none of the actions he said they did, what would he betray the military for, favor from France.

As for the supposed War for Oil, I would rather focus on the Oil for Food problem and get that solved, because that would clear away alot of falsehoods thrown in the way to cover up for the Oil for Food corruption.

Bush wake up and set down a clear plan, both economically and Iraq.
Kerry grow a spine and apologize now for what you did and don't try to use your three purple hearts as an excuse or get out of jail free card, because those purple hearts just say to me more that you should have known better and that you were a valorous soldier and officer, but you turned on the military just so you could get political favor.

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay I am done.

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Threads like this make me sick.

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Me too. It's this kind of garbage that makes me really dislike Kerry. Vietnam this and Vietnam that. Many people in the world dislike Bush, and I'm positive that it isn't because of anything involving Vietnam. Why doesn't Kerry focus on that instead of Vietnam?

Here's some advice to Kerry and his supporters. Divert your attention from Vietnam and from the Swift Boat Veterans. I don't want Kerry to win, but if he does win, I'd much rather have him win for something he offered that Bush didn't than being in another country decades ago.

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What I am so curious about is where are all the Dem's that were griping about Cheneys Heart in 2K, now that Big Bill C. Had the Old Triple Bypass.

OK, that one wins the "irrelevance of the year award, and, frankly, was nothing more than a cheap shot. Clinton is an EX president, his heart condition will not keep him from filling his job of hitting golf balls on the target range and making "bash bush" speeches at a million dollars a pop for the next four years. The fact that you would find an opportunity to make a dig on a very serious situation like that disturbs me.

Gideon you are very correct to a point. At least VP Cheney got his differments "legaly" whereas Ex Pres Clinton did not (draft dodging jerk)! Of course most true Demo's seem to forget that small fact!

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Reply #16 By: ShoZan - 9/8/2004 1:34:13 AM
no. he's not a stupid man. which explains why he didnt serve but has no problem sending others to war.

Oh how we think that is such an easy decision to make, probably why the guy has had heart problems from stress, and also Clinton from sending soldiers abroad, a lot of stress to be had in those government positions. I read the response on Yale, but what did he do in '65, '66 '67 '68 '69 (WOODSTOCK!!! MAN ON THE MOON!!!) '70 '71 '72 '73, also keep in mind for a draft your draft number had to come up, which even than at least 70% of all soldiers in Vietnam were Volunteer, like Kerry, my Uncle, Family Friends, Sen. McCain.

Ok, I can prove the Karl Rove attacked Kerry on Vietnam and his actions after he came back

Why I don't approve of attacks on Vietnam service, I do support attacks on Kerry's actions when he came back, he fueled the atmosphere that made it terrible for McCain, My Uncle, Close Friends, Family Friends, unbearable to come back too, and that I just don't like.

Kerry cannot talk his way out of that one, he did it for political gain and served up U.S. Soldiers and US Soldiers who were P.O.W. like McCain and some of the veterans used in Swift Boat Vets Second Ad on a freakin' silver platter to the rabid dogs that were readly to pounce on anything, and that should show that he is a TRUE politician at heart, by having no heart, but THREE Purple hearts to replace the empty spot in his chest, thanks alot Kerry for being so caring and helpful to my Uncle, Close Friends, and Family Friends, they really loved your betrayal, heck even McCain is cheering and applauding you for that action, go and attack Cheney on his five deferrements you heartless s.o.b., sorry but you are unfit to even mention having the same initials as the better president than you would make, John F. Kennedy, do you forget his words "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country", so far I see you betraying those words, heck you go so far as even to attack Freedom of Speech just because it is against you and you are not even a President yet, so we can sure count on you to make sure we say the all the right things about you, thanks once again John F. "Omar Quaddafi Clone" Kerry. I would vote for a Mass-Murderer before even thinking of voting for you, because you killed hundreds with words alone, and just because they were suicides does not mean your hands are clean, they died because of you, and the others you helped, you could have taken a stand and said it was wrong and told the truth that the Viet Cong were using the babies and children as bombs to take out US Soldiers, you could have told them that they were teaching 2 and 3 year olds to run into bars where american officers were with bombs strapped to them, and that kid was taught how to press a switch to set off the bomb killing not only the kid but the officers or american servicemen inside, and because you did not take a stand even after showing yourself to be a valiant officer and soldier in the United States Navy and were rightfully awarded so, you are unfit to command, and no amount of rhetoric or harsh speech, or even smear tactics will change that fact. You wanted to run on your Vietnam record, well don't forget the your actions after Vietnam, you brought it up and you will be nailed down because of it, you just make me sick, you need to go to the Vietnam Memorial and to every person who survived and served in Vietnam and apologize to them before you can ever be considered fit to serve as United States President, and you can bet your ass that you will suffer from not apologizing and coming out saying you were wrong.

That should be all the reason someone ever needs to not vote for Kerry, give one good reason against that to support Kerry, and you will see it pales in comparison.

I may be a Centrist, but I looked at the issue and I can't believe America even considered the man for Presidential Candidate, I would rather have a man who sticks behind our soldiers even if it means sending into a controversial war to protect our country, than a man who killed by his words and actions many returning Vietnam veterans who did none of the actions he said they did, what would he betray the military for, favor from France.

As for the supposed War for Oil, I would rather focus on the Oil for Food problem and get that solved, because that would clear away alot of falsehoods thrown in the way to cover up for the Oil for Food corruption.

Bush wake up and set down a clear plan, both economically and Iraq.
Kerry grow a spine and apologize now for what you did and don't try to use your three purple hearts as an excuse or get out of jail free card, because those purple hearts just say to me more that you should have known better and that you were a valorous soldier and officer, but you turned on the military just so you could get political favor.

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay I am done.

ShoZan......you da man!!!! Okay now it's time for mop-up!

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

Kerry cannot talk his way out of that one,

do you have even a clue to what kerry testified before the senate committee? or why? you might want to look into it before you embarass yourself again. woodstock, moonlanding indeed.

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Reply #21 By: kingbee - 9/8/2004 2:30:04 AM
Kerry cannot talk his way out of that one,

do you have even a clue to what kerry testified before the senate committee? or why? you might want to look into it before you embarass yourself again. woodstock, moonlanding indeed.

Actually I do and here it is:

Statement of Mr. John Kerry

...I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of 1,000 which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony....

WINTER SOLDIER INVESTIGATION

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....

They told the stories at times they had personally 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, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

We call this investigation the "Winter Soldier Investigation." The term "Winter Soldier" is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we f eel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.

FEELINGS OF MEN COMING BACK FROM VIETNAM

...In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart....

WHAT WAS FOUND AND LEARNED IN VIETNAM

We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.

We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone on peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North Vietnamese, or American.

We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong terrorism, and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.

We watched the U.S. falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against "oriental human beings," with quotation marks around that. We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater or let us say a non-third-world people theater, and so we watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the high for the reoccupation by the North Vietnamese because we watched pride allow the most unimportant of battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point. And so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 881's and Fire Base 6's and so many others.

VIETNAMIZATION

Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese....

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doen'st have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say they we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."

We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? But we are trying to do that, and we are doing it with thousands of rationalizations, and if you read carefully the President's last speech to the people of this country, you can see that he says and says clearly:

But the issue, gentlemen, the issue is communism, and the question is whether or not we will leave that country to the Communists or whether or not we will try to give it hope to be a free people.

But the point is they are not a free people now under us. They are not a free people, and we cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now....

REQUEST FOR ACTION BY CONGRESS

We are asking here in Washington for some action, action from the Congress of the United States of America which as the power to raise and maintain armies, and which by the Constitution also has the power to declare war.

We have come here, not to the President, because we believe that this body can be responsive to the will of the people, and we believe that the will of the people says that we should be out of Vietnam now....

WHERE IS THE LEADERSHIP?

We are also here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We are here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric, and so many others. Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded.

The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching begin them in the sun in this country....

Editorial Note: 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.

Following his formal testimony, the committee members questioned him during their discussion of some of the legislative proposals under consideration. In the course of this discussion, Kerry spoke with considerable familiarity and understanding about disengagement and withdrawal proposals being considered. In response to a question from Senator Aiken, Kerry endorsed "extensive reparations to the people of Indochina" as a "very definite obligation" of the U.S. (p. 191).
Kerry also commented on growth of American opposition to the war, the actions of Lt. Calley at My Lai, and strategic implications of the war.

...It is my opinion that the United States is still reacting in very much the 1945 mood and postwar cold-war period when we reacted to the forces which were at work in World War II and came out of it with this paranoia about the Russians and how the world was going to be divided up between the super powers, and the foreign policy of John Foster Dulles which was responsible for the created of the SEATO treaty, which was, in fact, a direct reaction to this so-called Communist monolith. And I think we are reacting under cold-war precepts which are no longer applicable.

I say that because so long as we have the kind of strike force we have, and I am not party to the secret statistics which you gentlemen have here, but as long as we have the ones which we of the public know we have, I think we have a strike force of such capability and I think we have a strike force simply in our Polaris submarines, in the 62 or some Polaris submarines, which are constantly roaming around under the sea. And I know as a Navy man that underwater detection is the hardest kind in the world, and they have not perfected it, that we have the ability to destroy the human race. Why do we have to, therefore, consider and keep considering threats?

At any time that an actual threat is posed to this country or to the security and freedom I will be one of the first people to pick up a gun and defend it, but right now we are reacting with paranoia t this question of peace and the people taking over the world. I think if were are ever going to get down to the question of dropping those bombs most of us in my generation simply don't want to be alive afterwards because of the kind of world that it would be with mutations and the genetic probabilities of freaks and everything else.

Therefore, I think it is ridiculous to assume we have to play this power game based on total warfare. I think there will be guerrilla wars and I think we must have a capability to fight those. And we may have to fight them somewhere based on legitimate threats, but we must learn, in this country, how to define those threats and that is what I would say to the question of world peace. I think it is bogus, totally artificial. There is no threat. The Communists are not about to take over our McDonald hamburger stands. [Laughter.]...

Editorial Note: Kerry's exchange with the senators consumed two complete hours, ranging from earlier French experiences in Indochina to the status of the war in 1971. Kerry faulted the electronic press for failure to report a recent antiwar conference because of its lack of "visual" appeal and entertainment value. He also cited the "exorbitant" power of the Executive, faulting Congress.

In response to Senator Symington's inquiry about American men and women still in Vietnam and their attitude toward opposition to the war within Congress, Kerry offered the following comments.

...I don't want to get into the game of saying I represent everybody over there, but let me try to say as straightforwardly as I can, we had an advertisement, ran full page, to show you what the troops read. It ran in Playboy and the response to it within two and a half weeks from Vietnam was 1,200 members. We received initially about 50 to 80 letters a day from troops arriving at our New York office. Some of these letters -- and I wanted to bring some down, I didn't know we were going to be testifying here and I can make them available to you -- are very, very moving, some of them written by hospital corpsmen on things, on casualty report sheets which say, you know, "Get us out of here." "You are the only hope he have got." "You have got to get us back; it is crazy." We received recently 80 members of the 101st Airborne signed up in one letter. Forty members from a helicopter assault squadron, crash and rescue mission signed up in another one.

I think they are expressing, some of these troops, solidarity with us, right now by wearing black arm bands and Vietnam Veterans Against the War buttons. They want to come out and I think they are looking at the people who want to try to get them out as a help.

However, I do recognize there are some men who are in the military for life. The job in the military is to fight wars. When they have a war to fight, they are just as happy in a sense, and I am sure that these men feel they are being stabbed in the back. But, at the same time, I think to most of them the realization of the emptiness, the hollowness, the absurdity of Vietnam has finally hit home, and I feel is they did come home the recrimination would certainly not come from the right, from the military. I don't think there would be that problem....

Editorial Note: Kerry returned to the theme of the mood of troops in Vietnam and back home as he concluded his testimony.

...You see the mind is changing over there and a search and destroy mission is a search and avoid mission, and troops don't -- you know, like that revolt that took place that was mentioned in the New York Times when they refused to go in after a piece of dead machinery, because it doesn't have any value. They are making their own judgments.

There is a GI movement in this country now as well as over there, and soon these people, these men, who are prescribing wars for these young men to fight are going to find out they are going to have to find some other men to fight them because we are going to change prescriptions. They are going to have to change doctors, because we are not going to fight for them. that is what they are going to realize. There is now a more militant attitude even within the military itself....

Editorial Note: Later as Democratic senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry joined 61 others in favor of a nonbinding resolution to lift the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam. The original embargo began against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1964 and extended to the united Socialist Republic of Vietnam in April 1975. Following the nonbinding senate resolution, President Clinton repealed the embargo 4 February 1994.

Plain, pure and simple......."treason"!

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He "gave" the North Vietnamese for free "exactly" what they were looking for! And they proceeded to use it against "our" POW's! Get a grip!

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Seriously. That "Texas for Truth" thing will blow up in Kerry face and Kerry is not that stupid to go after Bush's record. I am really gald that most of the Democrat here aren't working for Kerry, otherwise he is really scared. Yes, I am a Republican, but that is not the reason why I don't think it will work. The reason it will not work to attack Bush's military reocrd is that Bush never make a big deal at his national guard record, so it is an attack at nothing. Attacking Kerry's Vietanim War record is different, because Kerry make a big deal out of his military record and ran his entire Democrat speech based on that.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

He "gave" the North Vietnamese for free "exactly" what they were looking for! And they proceeded to use it against "our" POW's! Get a grip!

first of all, this belongs on another thread. i really didnt anticipate anyone posting even the abridged version of kerry's testimony here (you do realize that is only a portion of the hearing transcript?) secondly, when was the last time a senate hearing published treasonable or even potentially damaging statements? if the information was truly unknown to anyone and everyone involved in the conflict (on either side) dont you think it might have been classified?

if you read this with anything close to some objectivity, you might understand that kerry was telling the committee about the failures of the administration and the defense department in prosecuting the war in vietnam and the damage those failures were doing to the troops engaged in combat. the excesses there--just as those recently exposed in abu gharib--were the results of flawed policy for which he blamed the president, his advisers and the way those policies were executed by top level of command. his motivation was sympathy for the ordinary combat soldiers who were not only having to fight a determined enemy but at the same time deal with ranking officers who frequently were so caught up in racking up body counts to advance their own careers, they needlessly and frequently puttheir troops' lives in danger. the violations of geneva accords he refers to were not committed by rogue soldiers (things like freefire zones, use of inappropriate weapons in areas proximate to civilian noncombatants, etc) they were part and parcel of officially authorized (and therefore 'orders') rules of engagement. his ultimate intent was to provide the senators with a non-whitewashed view of what was happening in vietnam--as opposed to the pie-in-the-sky coverups they received from the command--in hopes of getting them to bring the war to an end and the troops home and out of harms way.

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Moral Bankruptcy in the left?

Now they care about war experience?