posted on February 21, 2004 12:25:24 PM new
Kerry's Denials at Odds With 1971 Book He Authored
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
February 20, 2004
(CNSNews.com) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has denied ever accusing American troops of committing war crimes in Vietnam. But his remarks during an interview on CNN Thursday are at odds with the excerpts of a book Kerry authored in 1971, a copy of which CNSNews.com obtained this week.
The New Soldier, which is currently so difficult to find that it was selling on the Internet for about $850, featured the following passage by Kerry about his experiences in Vietnam. "We were sent to Vietnam to kill Communism. But we found instead that we were killing women and children."
In the book, Kerry stated that Vietnamese citizens "didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy" and he instead blamed the United States for causing chaos in Vietnam.
"In the process we created a nation of refugees, bomb craters, amputees, orphans, widows, and prostitutes, and we gave new meaning to the words of the Roman historian Tacitus: 'Where they made a desert they called it peace,'" Kerry explained.
But when asked by CNN anchor Judy Woodruff on Thursday about allegations that he had accused "American troops of war crimes," Kerry issued a denial.
"No, I was accusing American leaders of abandoning the troops. And if you read what I said, it is very clearly an indictment of leadership. I said to the Senate, where is the leadership of our country? And it's the leaders who are responsible, not the soldiers. I never said that. I've always fought for the soldiers," he said.
Kerry was referring to his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April of 1971 as part of his involvement with the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
But The New Soldier reveals Kerry's direct criticism of American soldiers, including charges that they committed atrocities against the Vietnamese while on patrol.
In the book, Kerry said he "saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search-and-destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism..." He added that his combat duty in Vietnam irrevocably transformed his outlook on the military.
"Because of all that I saw in Vietnam, the treatment of civilians, the ravaging of their countryside, the needless, useless deaths, the deception and duplicity of our policy, I changed," Kerry wrote.
The cover of the book displays long-haired, bearded men carrying an upside down American flag in an apparent mockery of the famous planting of the American flag on Iwo Jima during World War II.
Kerry's former brother-in-law and current campaign adviser, David Thorne and documentary maker George Butler were credited with editing the book.
A defiant Kerry told CNN's Woodruff that he did not regret his anti-war activism, but also shifted the conversation to his activities on behalf of veterans many years after his own service in Vietnam, his anti-war activities and the publication of his 1971 book.
"In fact, not only did we oppose the war, but we proudly stood up and fought for the additions to the G.I. Bill so that vets would be able to use it. We fought for the V.A. Hospitals. I wrote the Agent Orange legislation with Tom Daschle. I helped with the post-Vietnam stress syndrome outreach centers," Kerry said.
"...The fact is if we want to re-debate the war on Vietnam in 2004, I'm ready for that. It was a mistake, and I'm proud of having stood up and shared with America my perceptions of what was happening," Kerry added.
"An old, long-whiskered man once said to Teddy Roosevelt: 'I am a Democrat, my father was a Democrat, my grandfather was a Democrat.' Roosevelt then said: 'Then if your father had been a horse thief and your grandfather had been a horse thief, you would be a horse thief?'" --Will Rogers
[ edited by Bear1949 on Feb 21, 2004 12:31 PM ]
posted on February 21, 2004 12:37:48 PM newBut The New Soldier reveals Kerry's direct criticism of American soldiers, including charges that they committed atrocities against the Vietnamese while on patrol.
He's such a liar. Anyone who reads the transcript from his 1971 testimony can quite clearly see what he accused American soldiers of doing. To deny he said our soldiers were committing those atrocities....only shows him for who he really is.
No matter one's stand on the Vietnam war - for or against - anyone can read quoted transcripts and see he's lying about what he actually said.
I'm glad to see that some, like CNN's Judy Woodruff, are at least willing to bring the subject up during interviews. Hope this trend continues as this process makes it way to the Presidential election. It WILL make a difference.
posted on February 21, 2004 01:17:34 PM new
I just started reading a new book that Snowy mentioned, "Tour of Duty" by Historian, Douglas Brinkley. I wish that I could copy the prologue to that book here because it explains Kerry's statement made before the Foreign Relations committee in 1971. I recommend the book to anyone who really wants to know the truth.
Briefly, Kerry was speaking on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War who had come to Washington to make their feelings known. In order to get the attention of the Committee, Kerry used that shocking information. He did not intend to blame the veterans but to blame the administration. He was accusing the U.S. government of war crimes as ordained through such practices as free fire zones, harassment and interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, carpet bombings and the torture and execution of prisoners.
He was in effect doing a bit of consciousness raising among the Senators who were out of touch with war by addressing the atrocities committed in Vietnam. Kerry was placing the blame on the U.S. government for instituting such immoral policies. He offered his own experiences as a swift boat captain as an example...Kerry detailed how he had been instructed to shoot anyting that moved on the Mekong Delta rivers during the U.S. set curfew hours.
From the book..."After this breathless recounting of U.S. violations of the Geneva Conventions, Kerry remarked that the foregoing indictment didn't even include the tens of thousands of Vietnamese deaths caused by the Johnson and Nixon administrations' bombing campaigns."
Kerry was able to get the senators rapt attention on what was so desperately wrong with the war,
I wish that you could read the book. I will not take part in your effort to denigrate this Vietnam veteran simply because he is running for president against a guy who couldn't even handle the reserves without political support from the Bush dynasty.
posted on February 21, 2004 01:38:36 PM new
Help me out here...what part of the direct Kerry quotes mentioned above are untrue ?
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posted on February 21, 2004 01:46:05 PM newI had gone searching for the prologue, Helen; sometimes Amazon.com and others upload sections of books featured on their websites. No such luck with this book, but there were some information-packed reviews of it.
Historian Douglas Brinkley's insightful Tour of Duty covers John Kerry's heroic Vietnam service (where he won the Silver and Bronze Stars and three Purple Hearts) and the fervent antiwar campaign it eventually spawned. Born to Boston Brahmin heritage, the son of an American diplomat, John Forbes Kerry was a child of good fortune--an eventual Yalie whose personal hero (John Fitzgerald Kennedy) shared his initials. However, Kerry's privileged upbringing instilled in him not a sense of entitlement, but a burning sense of public service. Though equally obsessed and revulsed by the burgeoning Vietnam conflict, Kerry's sense of duty led him to enlist in the Navy (after graduating Yale), and then volunteer for training as captain of a Swift boat (small aluminum vessels that patrolled the coastal waters and narrow, dangerous tributaries of Vietnam's massive Mekong delta). Brinkley's meticulous research relies on Kerry's detailed wartime diaries, logs, and interviews, (published here for the first time) as well as a wealth of accounts of the Navy's first extensive "brown water" riverine campaign since the Civil War. Those harrowing months only deepened Kerry's antipathy to the war, and he returned to become one of the most articulate leaders of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Brinkley's account gives crucial human dimensions to a man whose seeming aloofness has long plagued him. With Americans again dying in a controversial war halfway around the world, one cannot help but wonder if Kerry will yet again be able to pose the haunting question first put to a Congressional panel thirty years ago: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -Jerry McCulley
Covering more than four decades, Tour of Duty is the definitive account of John Kerry's journey from war to peace. Written by acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley, this is the first full-scale, intimate account of Kerry's naval career. In writing this riveting narrative, Brinkley has drawn on extensive interviews with virtually everyone who knew Kerry well in Vietnam, including all the men still living who served under him. Kerry also entrusted to Brinkley his letters home from Vietnam and his voluminous "War Notes" -- journals, notebooks, and personal reminiscences written during and shortly after the war. This material was provided without restriction, to be used at Brinkley's discretion, and has never before been published.
John Kerry enlisted in the Navy in February 1966, months before he graduated from Yale. In December 1967 Ensign Kerry was assigned to the frigate U.S.S. Gridley; after five months of service in the Pacific, with a brief stop in Vietnam, he returned to the United States and underwent training to command a Swift boat, a small craft deployed in Vietnam's rivers. In June 1968 Kerry was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade), and by the end of that year he was back in Vietnam, where he commanded, over time, two Swift boats. Throughout Tour of Duty Brinkley deftly deals with such explosive issues as U.S. atrocities in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia. In a series of unforgettable combat-action sequences, he recounts how Kerry won the Purple Heart three times for wounds suffered in action and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Navy’s Silver Star for gallantry in action.
When Kerry returned from Southeast Asia, he joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), becoming a prominent antiwar spokesperson. He challenged the Nixon administration on Capitol Hill with the antiwar movementcheering him on. As Kerry's public popularity soared in April-May 1971, the FBI considered him a subversive. Brinkley -- using new information acquired from the recently released Nixon tapes -- reveals how White House aides Charles Colson and H. R. Haldeman tried to discredit Kerry. Refusing to be intimidated, Kerry started running for public office, eventually becoming a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. But he never forgot his fallen comrades. Working with his friend Senator John McCain, he returned to Vietnam numerous times looking for MIAs and POWs. By the time Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, Kerry was the leading proponent of "normalization" of relations with Vietnam. When President Clinton officially recognized Vietnam in 1995, Kerry's three-decade-long tour of duty had at long last ended. - Amazon book description
Popular historian Brinkley's account of John Kerry's Vietnam experience could easily serve as the first part of a multivolume biography, examining the senator and presidential candidate's early life in rigorous detail. Entering the U.S. Navy soon after graduating from Yale in 1966, Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry commanded two Swift boat crews on river patrols in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts. He kept "voluminous" notes during his service, maintained extensive correspondence with friends and family, and tape-recorded interviews with combat-seasoned comrades. With unrestricted access to this archival material and interviews with Kerry and surviving crewmates, Brinkley (coauthor with Stephen Ambrose of The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation) depicts war in riveting detail, down to what music the crew of PCF-94 listened to on patrol. Though clearly centering his attention on Kerry, Brinkley also stresses the navy's under-recognized role in Vietnam while emphasizing the "true battlefield heroism" of American forces. Kerry's combat experiences make for gripping reading, and later sections on his high-profile role in the antiwar movement are equally engrossing, including the Nixon White House's efforts (involving a young Armistead Maupin) to discredit veteran-turned-antiwar-activist Kerry as a "phony." Final chapters fully address Kerry's political failures in the early 1970s while quickly summarizing later successes and how these successes were shaped by his Vietnam experience and ongoing relationships with fellow veterans. Though never intended as a political biography, this book offers perhaps the most insightful examination available of the character of this or any other Democratic candidate. - Publishers Weekly
Oh, and this one 'reader comment' left by Twelvepole (using the alias 'Hungry for knowledge' LOL! ) at Amazon.com:
"I didn't read the book. I heard that everyone in Woodbridge, NJ eats women and babies and was hoping this book would be a culinary adventure story. Is it true."
posted on February 21, 2004 02:16:24 PM new
Any way you look at it Kerry either lied in 1971 or is lying now by saying "I didn't mean what I said in 1971, I only did it for the shock value".
"An old, long-whiskered man once said to Teddy Roosevelt: 'I am a Democrat, my father was a Democrat, my grandfather was a Democrat.' Roosevelt then said: 'Then if your father had been a horse thief and your grandfather had been a horse thief, you would be a horse thief?'" --Will Rogers
posted on February 21, 2004 03:17:45 PM new
Tut, tut, Profe. You know it's considered outright treason if you ask Bear or Linda or Twelveturds to 'cite a reference'.
Please, sir, try to remember where you are!
posted on February 21, 2004 05:51:40 PM new
"so that I can decide if he's really lying..."
Who -- Bear or Kerry?
Good night, Profe. I'm not up for competeing with Helen for the Bang Your Head Against The Wall award tonight (see ever-bloated gay marriage thread) so I am headed for some horizontal mind numbing. (TV in bed.)
