Something to read
and think about
www.wintersoldier.com
I would like to talk
on behalf of 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. These were not isolated
incidents but crimes committed on a
day-to-day basis with the full awareness of
officers at all levels of command. It is
impossible to describe to you exactly what
did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the
room and the feelings of the men who were
reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They
relived the absolute horror of what this
country, in a sense, made them do.
They told stories that 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 Ghengis 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.
-- John Kerry,
testifying before the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, April 22, 1971
----------
The exact
sources of that assertion should be tracked
down. Kerry also ought to be asked who,
exactly, told him any such thing, and what
it was, exactly, that they said they did in
Vietnam. Statutes of limitation now protect
these individuals from prosecution for any
such admissions. Or did Senator Kerry merely
hear allegations of that sort as hearsay
bandied about by members of antiwar groups
(much of which has since been discredited)?
To me, this assertion sounds exactly like
the disinformation line that the Soviets
were sowing worldwide throughout the Vietnam
era. KGB priority number one at that time
was to damage American power, judgment, and
credibility. One of its favorite tools was
the fabrication of such evidence as
photographs and "news reports" about
invented American war atrocities. These
tales were purveyed in KGB-operated
magazines that would then flack them to
reputable news organizations. Often enough,
they would be picked up. News organizations
are notoriously sloppy about verifying their
sources. All in all, it was amazingly easy
for Soviet-bloc spy organizations to fake
many such reports and spread them around the
free world.
As a spy chief and a general in the
former Soviet satellite of Romania, I
produced the very same vitriol Kerry
repeated to the U.S. Congress almost word
for word and planted it in leftist movements
throughout Europe. KGB chairman Yuri
Andropov managed our anti-Vietnam War
operation. He often bragged about having
damaged the U.S. foreign-policy consensus,
poisoned domestic debate in the U.S., and
built a credibility gap between America and
European public opinion through our
disinformation operations. Vietnam was, he
once told me, "our most significant
success."
-- Ion Mihai
Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence
officer ever to defect from the Soviet bloc,
in the National Review, February 26, 2004
----------
Mr. Kerry, you said at one time or
another that you think our policies in
Vietnam are tantamount to genocide and that
the responsibility lies at all chains of
command over there. Do you consider that you
personally as a Naval officer committed
atrocities in Vietnam or crimes punishable
by law in this country?
-- Crosby Noyes, Washington Evening Star
There are all kinds
of atrocities, and I would have to say that,
yes, yes, I committed the same kind of
atrocities as thousands of other soldiers
have committed in that I took part in
shootings in free fire zones. I conducted
harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50
calibre machine guns, which we were granted
and ordered to use, which were our only
weapon against people. I took part in search
and destroy missions, in the burning of
villages. All of this is contrary to the
laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to
the Geneva Conventions and all of this is
ordered as a matter of written established
policy by the government of the United
States from the top down. And I believe that
the men who designed these, the men who
designed the free fire zone, the men who
ordered us, the men who signed off the air
raid strike areas, I think these men, by the
letter of the law, the same letter of the
law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war
criminals.
-- John Kerry, on
NBC's "Meet the Press" April 18, 1971
----------
I'm the
daughter of Lt. Col. Roger "Black Bart"
Bartholomew, a First Air Cavalry rocket
artillery helicopter pilot who was killed in
Vietnam on Thanksgiving day 1968 when I was
8 years old.
...
It was bad enough to hear our dads
criticized by those who hated the military,
but to hear vets allege rampant war crimes
and call their fellow soldiers evil before
all the world really twisted the knife. And
Kerry led the way, proud in the company of
Jane Fonda and others we believed had caused
the deaths of good men. This group's
testimony tarnished honorable actions. After
taking the oath to preserve and protect,
they grandstanded, trashing service awards
in a show of defiance that diminished each
sacrifice. Their stories dominated while the
stories of thousands of honorable vets went
untold.
-- Laura
Bartholomew Armstrong
----------
We were sent
to Vietnam to kill Communism. But we found
instead that we were killing women and
children.
-- John Kerry, in
"The New Soldier"
----------
As its
dominant tactic in their battle against the
war, the antiwar movement successfully
demonized Vietnam veterans by calling a
series of "tribunals" or hearings into war
crimes. But... they were packed with
pretenders and liars.
-- B.G. Burkett, in
"Stolen Valor"
----------
I have been
to Paris. I have talked with both
delegations at the peace talks, that is to
say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and
the Provisional Revolutionary Government and
of all eight of Madam Binh's points it has
been stated time and time again, and was
stated by Senator Vance Hartke when he
returned from Paris, and it has been stated
by many other officials of this Government,
if the United States were to set a date for
withdrawal the prisoners of war would be
returned.
I think this negates very clearly the
argument of the President that we have to
maintain a presence in Vietnam, to use as a
negotiating block for the return of those
prisoners. The setting of a date will
accomplish that.
-- John Kerry,
testifying before the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, April 22, 1971
----------
Any citizen
of the United States, wherever he may be,
who, without authority of the United States,
directly or indirectly commences or carries
on any correspondence or intercourse with
any foreign government or any officer or
agent thereof, with intent to influence the
measures or conduct of any foreign
government or of any officer or agent
thereof, in relation to any disputes or
controversies with the United States, or to
defeat the measures of the United States,
shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned not more than three years, or
both.
-- U.S. Code, Title
18, Part I, Chapter 45, Section 953: Private
correspondence with foreign governments
----------
I would think
that if you understood what communism was,
you would hope, you would pray on your knees
that we would someday become communist.
The peace proposal of the Viet Cong is
the only honorable, just, possible way to
achieve peace in Vietnam.
-- Jane Fonda,
speaking at Michigan State University during
a fund-raising tour for AWOL GI's, Vietnam
Veterans Against the War, and the Black
Panther Party, November 22, 1970
----------
My Lai was
not an isolated incident but rather a way of
life for many of our military.
-- Jane Fonda,
speaking at VVAW's "Operation RAW" in Valley
Forge, PA, September 7, 1970
----------
Despite the
"public relations" risk attendant on
torturing [American] prisoners, the primary
purpose for torturing them, especially in
the North, was to obtain written and taped
statements for use in the Communists'
crucially important international propaganda
war against the United States...
-- Henry Mark
Holzer and Erika Holzer, from "Aid and
Comfort, Jane Fonda in North Vietnam"
----------
By Friday
morning when we returned our medals, it was
becoming an emotional thing. We discussed
for a long time how we were going to return
our medals... whether we'd drop them into
shitcans filled with blood... or carry them
up to Congress in body bags. Finally we
decided the best way to show our contempt
was by throwing them over the fence they'd
put up in front of the Capitol steps.
-- Rusty Sachs,
VVAW, in "The New Soldier"
----------
May 3, 1971:
Some twenty Vietnam Veterans Against the War
and several supporters, tossed bags of cow
manure on the steps of the Mall Entrance of
the Pentagon, then offered to clean up the
mess in return for a chance to talk to one
of the Assistant Secretaries of Defense.
Their offer was rejected and some
twenty-eight were arrested. All were charged
with disorderly conduct.
-- from a District
of Columbia government report detailing
demonstrations in the District during 1971
----------
We will not
quickly join those who march on Veterans'
Day waving small flags, calling to memory
those thousands who died for the "greater
glory of the United States." We will not
accept the rhetoric. We will not readily
join the American Legion and the Veterans of
Foreign Wars -- in fact, we will find it
hard to join anything at all and when we do,
we will demand relevancy such as other
organizations have recently been unable to
provide. We will not take solace from the
creation of monuments or the naming of parks
after a select few of the thousands of dead
Americans and Vietnamese. We will not uphold
traditions which decorously memorialize that
which was base and grim.
-- John Kerry, in
"The New Soldier"
----------
Two years
later, [1984] he ran for the U.S. Senate -
dusting off his veteran's credentials by
standing in front of the black Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington to shoot a
TV campaign ad, defying regulations that the
memorial not be used for political purposes.
The ad "was filmed illegally against the
wishes of the National Park Service,"
according to the Boston Globe. Kerry
authorized its broadcast anyway.
-- J. Michael
Waller, Insight Magazine, March 5, 2004
----------
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 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.
-- John Kerry,
testifying before the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, April 22, 1971
----------
No person
shall be a Senator or Representative in
Congress, or elector of President and Vice
President, or hold any office, civil or
military, under the United States, or under
any state, who, having previously taken an
oath, as a member of Congress, or as an
officer of the United States, or as a member
of any state legislature, or as an executive
or judicial officer of any state, to support
the Constitution of the United States, shall
have engaged in insurrection or rebellion
against the same, or given aid or comfort to
the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a
vote of two-thirds of each House, remove
such disability.
-- United States
Constitution, 14th Amendment, Section 3
----------
The Viet Cong
didn't think they had to win the war on the
battlefield, because thanks to these
protestors they were going to win it on the
streets of San Francisco and Washington.
-- Paul Galanti,
P.O.W. from 1966-1973
----------
Then I was
sent on to advanced genocide training down
at Fort Polk, Louisiana. And this is where I
got, you know, this is where I started to
hate, hate anything that wasn't exactly like
me. Anything that wasn't a fighting machine.
Gooks.
-- Jim Weber, VVAW,
in "The New Soldier"
----------
John Kerry's
assault on this country did not rise
fullblown in his mind, like Venus from the
Cypriot Sea. It is the crystallization of an
assault upon America which has been fostered
over the years by an intellectual class
given over to self-doubt and self-hatred,
driven by a cultural disgust with the uses
to which so many people put their freedom.
The assault on the military, the many and
subtle vibrations of which you feel as
keenly as James Baldwin knows the
inflections of racism, is an assault on the
proposition that what we have, in America,
is truly worth defending.
-- William F.
Buckley, Jr., commencement address at West
Point, June 8, 1971
----------
Vietnam
Veterans Against the War Anti-Imperialist is
part of a network of anti-imperialist
veterans who are proud of our resistance to
U.S. aggression around the world. In the
1970s, to be a Vietnam veteran was to be
against the war. That proud legacy must be
carried forward into the new millennium. As
veterans, we have been to the edge and seen
the viciousness of Amerikkka unmasked.
-- from the VVAWAI
web site
----------
Normally to
side with the enemy in wartime is considered
an act of treason. But if was one of the
many bizarre features of the Vietnam War
that Americans were able to side with the
enemy with complete impunity. Demonstrators
marched under Vietcong flags, organnizations
urged soldiers to throw down their arms and
desert, and Americans even visited North
Vietnam and made broadcasts from there
endorsing enemy propaganda -- all without
being subjected to any legal penalty or even
much public censure. On the contrary, in the
intellectual community the people who did
these things were often treated as heroes
and even patriots, while those who
criticized them were excoriated and
ridiculed.
-- Norman
Podhoretz, "Why We Were in Vietnam"
----------
[Vietnam
Veterans Against the War] was a group of
thoughtful people, moderate people who
wanted to end the war.
-- Michael Meehan,
Senior Advisor to John Kerry Campaign, on
CNN, April 20, 2004
----------
My plan was
that, on the last day we would go into the
[congressional] offices we would schedule
the most hardcore hawks for last -- and we
would shoot them all.
-- VVAW leader
Scott Camil, in the University of Florida
Oral History Archive, October 20, 1992
----------
We
established an American presence in most
cases by showing the flag and firing at
sampans and villages along the banks. Those
were our instructions, but they seemed so
out of line that we finally began to go
ashore, against our orders, and investigate
the villages that were supposed to be our
targets. We discovered we were butchering a
lot of innocent people, and morale became so
low among the officers on those 'swift
boats' that we were called back to Saigon
for special instructions from Gen. Abrams.
He told us we were doing the right thing. He
said our efforts would help win the war in
the long run. That's when I realized I could
never remain silent about the realities of
the war in Vietnam.
-- John Kerry in
the Washington Star, June 6, 1971
----------
I served with
these guys. I went on missions with them,
and these men served honorably. Up and down
the chain of command there was no
acquiescence to atrocities. It was not
condoned, it did not happen, and it was not
reported to me verbally or in writing by any
of these men including Lt.(jg) Kerry.
-- Captain George
Elliott, USN (retired)
----------
In my
specific, personal experience in both
coastal and river patrols over a 12-month
period, I never once saw or heard anything
remotely resembling the atrocities described
by Senator Kerry. If I had, it would have
been my obligation to report them in writing
to a higher authority, and I would certainly
have done that. If Senator Kerry actually
witnessed or participated in these
atrocities or, as he described them, "war
crimes," he was obligated to report them.
That he did not until later when it suited
his political purposes strikes me as
opportunism of the worst kind. That he would
malign my service and that of his fellow
sailors with no regard for the truth makes
him totally unqualified to serve as
Commander-in-Chief.
-- Jeffrey
Wainscott
----------
I do not
believe John Kerry is fit to be
Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of
the United States. This is not a political
issue. It is a matter of his judgment,
truthfulness, reliability, loyalty and trust
-- all absolute tenets of command. His
biography, "Tour of Duty," by Douglas
Brinkley, is replete with gross
exaggerations, distortions of fact,
contradictions and slanderous lies. His
contempt for the military and authority is
evident by even a most casual review of this
biography. He arrived in-country with a
strong anti-Vietnam War bias and a
self-serving determination to build a
foundation for his political future. He was
aggressive, but vain and prone to impulsive
judgment, often with disregard for specific
tactical assignments. He was a "loose
cannon." In an abbreviated tour of four
months and 12 days, and with his specious
medals secure, Lt.(jg) Kerry bugged out and
began his infamous betrayal of all United
States forces in the Vietnam War. That
included our soldiers, our marines, our
sailors, our coast guardsmen, our airmen,
and our POWs. His leadership within the
so-called Vietnam Veterans Against the War
and testimony before Congress in 1971
charging us with unspeakable atrocities
remain an undocumented but nevertheless
meticulous stain on the men and women who
honorably stayed the course. Senator Kerry
is not fit for command.
-- Rear Admiral Roy
Hoffman, USN (retired)
----------
Losing a war
is a state of mind.
-- Tom Hayden,
co-founder, Students for a Democratic
Society, after attending the Winter Soldier
Investigation.
----------
The
willingness with which our young people are
likely to serve in any war, no matter how
justified, shall be directly proportional as
to how they perceive the veterans of earlier
wars were Treated and Appreciated by their
nation.
-- George
Washington
----------
Audio
Clips:
o
John Kerry testifies about American "war
crimes" in Vietnam -- April 22, 1971 (1:32)
o
John Kerry admits to committing atrocities
in Vietnam -- April 18, 1971 (0:31)
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