Kerry Denies Quotes Accusing U.S. Soliders of War Crimes

In a stark about-face, Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry is now denying that he ever accused U.S. soldiers of committing war crimes in Vietnam, despite amply documented comments - some televised, others delivered while under oath - where he did exactly that.

Asked on Thursday whether he had accused his fellow soldiers of committing war crimes in Vietnam during his April 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry told CNN's Judy Woodruff:

"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."

However, a transcript of Kerry's April 22, 1971 testimony contains accusations that his brother-soldiers committed all manner of atrocities; charges he based on interviews of returning Vietnam vets earlier that year at the Winter Soldier Investigation, an event Kerry organized with anti-American actress Jane Fonda.

Kerry told the Senate that Winter Soldier witnesses "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 stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires with 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."

A few days before his Senate testimony, Kerry gave the following account on NBC's "Meet the Press":

"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."

Appearing on "The Dick Cavett Show" in July 1971, Kerry admitted that he'd never actually seen some of the atrocities he testified about, but still maintained that U.S. soldiers fighting in Vietnam routinely violated the Nuremberg Principles.

"I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that," he told Cavett. "However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I did take part in harassment and interdiction fire, I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground."

"And all of these acts, I find out later on, are contrary to the Hague and Geneva conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the application of the Nuremberg Principles, is in fact guilty."

CNN's Woodruff declined to confront Kerry with his previous comments accusing his brother soldiers of committing war crimes in Vietnam.

I was also struck at how eloquent he was at only 27 years old...

Yes he was. Those expensive private school educations do work well sometimes.

He even seemed to have a soft, gentle heart apparently back then too. He once had a pet bird in a cage in his dormroom at Yale, it got out the window, and he climbed a tree to retreive the bird. Nice.

Now that's the good part. Aparently his "softness" could not take what he saw in Vietnam, and he reacted very destructively when he got home. He grandstanded. He lied and exaggerated and defamed. There were other ways to get out his feelings of disillusionment for the war without doing what he did to all Vietnam era vets (of which I am one).

His words darkened the reputations of most who served. Most of us were treated as "pigs" and "baby killers" because of his actions. I will never forget coming back home, in the airport in Pittsburgh. The looks on the faces of the people (mostly the young, as a matter of fact) told me I was not liked. That behavior went on for a very long time.

Kerry eats s**t!

p.s. Here's wondering if America will find out about his phantom bandaid wounds too!

We have to sharpen the key questions to Kerry. Woodruff and Russert and all the others want to let him wave off his 1971 Senate testimony. My key qestion:

"Senator Kerry, in your 1971 Senate testimony, you cited as your main reference for American atrocities the 'Winter Soldier Investigation'.

"Since then, several of the witnesses in the WSI have suffered exposure as frauds. They lied about their time of service, their rank, and other details. Some hadn't served in Vietnam, some hadn't even served in the military at all, and others stole the identities of men who did serve.

" One of the imposters, Al Hubbard, even appeared with you on "Meet the Press" in 1971.

"Do you now wish to amend any of your 1971 testimony, and if so how?"

"I read somewhere that Kerry should have been disciplined for leaving his boat like he did..."

I haven't read that, but in my opinion he should have been court marshalled for what he did.

Joe Klein interview with Kerry in 2002,for the New Yorker magazine:

"Admiral Elmo Zumwalt later joked that he wasn't sure if he should give Kerry the Silver Star or court-martial him for his actions on February 28, 1969. Kerry had ignored standard operating procedure as his squadron ferried troops up the river that day."
"He had talked to me about trying something different," Mike Medeiros, a crew member from San Leandro, California, said. "He said he was tired of just going up the river and getting shot at. He asked me what I thought about turning to attack the enemy positions if we took fire and no one was hurt. I said it might not be a bad idea."

"If he turned his boats toward the shore, Kerry believed, he would transform a long, horizontal target into a narrower, vertical one."
"It would concentrate both of our machine guns directly on the point of fire and surprise the hell out of them," and it would keep the twenty soldiers each boat was carrying astern out of the line of fire, Kerry recalled."
"When the firing began, I gave the order to turn and—phoom!—we just went in and beached and took them by complete surprise, and we routed them ( Kerry's own , the 3 boats routed 20 VC,plus the one he finished off ) and we didn't take a wound."

"As Kerry's boat crashed ashore, a lone Vietcong stood up holding a B-40 rocket-propelled grenade launcher."
"When he first stood up, he froze, because he didn't expect to see us staring him in the face, literally ten yards away." The man was wounded by one of Kerry's crewmates and began to run; Kerry leaped off the boat and chased him."

"... and a Silver Star. The latter, a medal awarded only for significant acts of courage, was the result of a three-boat counterattack Kerry had led against a Vietcong position on a riverbank.
He had chased down, shot, and killed a man that day. The man had been carrying a B-40 rocket-propelled grenade launcher."

Still don't understand why this action qualified Kerry for the Silver Star. Maybe the Kerry camp will enlighten us.

Here's the version from Kerry's own website:

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving with Coastal Division ELEVEN engaged in armed conflict with Viet Cong insurgents in An Xuyen Province, Republic of Vietnam, on 28 February 1969.
Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry was serving as Officer in Charge of Patrol Craft Fast 94 and Officer in Tactical Command of a three-boat mission.
As the force approached the target area on the narrow Dong Cung River, all units came under intense automatic weapons and small arms fire from an entrenched enemy force less than fifty-feet away.
Unhesitatingly, Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry ordered his boat to attack as all units opened fire and beached directly in front of the enemy ambushers. The daring and courageous tactic surprised the enemy and succeeded in routing a score of enemy soldiers.
The PCF gunners captured many enemy weapons in the battle that followed. On a request from U.S. Army advisors ashore, Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry ordered PCFs 94 and 23 further up river to suppress enemy sniper fire.
After proceeding approximately eight hundred yards, the boats again were taken under fire from a heavily foliated area and B-40 rocket exploded close aboard PCF-94;
with utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his boat only ten feet from the VC rocket position, and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy.
Upon sweeping the area an immediate search uncovered an enemy rest and supply area which was destroyed.
The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire were responsible for the highly successful mission. His actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service."

" Then the dims and their presstitute allies will refuse to touch the Kerry treason because "well, if we can't go after Bush for his being AWOL 30 years ago then we sure can't go after a real war hero for things he said 30 years ago!" So far it's not working."

I agree. The Dems seem a little nervous about any scrutiny of Kerry's Vietnam era activities. Tony Coehlo declared on Hannity and Colmes the other night-that "no one can question Kerry's military service ". Period. End of discussion.Don't go there.It's off the table.I expect that if anyone asks any questions about Kerry's PHs and "chestful of medals," they will be branded unpatriotic and trying to tarnish a true "war hero." I also think that one of the unplanned consequences of all the AWOL crap, was that it forced the media to show photos of President Bush in uniform-which I am sure was news to a lot of Americans.

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