Posted on 02/21/2004 6:45:10 AM PST by thesummerwind
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."
Speaking under oath, Kerry continued:
"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."
The future presidential candidate added:
"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."
Kerry continued:
"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.
There was another thread on this yesterday from another source:
Kerry's Denials at Odds With 1971 Book He Authored [Kerry denies calling vets war criminals]
El Toast-o !
Soooo, Mr. (Scary) Kerry, were you lying then, or are you lying now?
Hugh Hewitt played Kerry's entire Congressional testimony on his radio program this past week. I know my husband heard most of it on his way home from work, and the next day in my car I heard Hewitt talking to Mark Steyn about how he had played the entire thing and he mocked the phony accent and played some key excerpts.
BTW, yesterday on Hardball Charlie Black (for the republicans) said Kerry did serve in Vietnam and that's great, but then Kerry turned around and came home and denounced fellow soldiers. Chris Matthews said "So are you denying what he said was true?" and Black said "Yes!" and Matthews argued that Kerry's original testimony stands up to this very day. I wonder what he'll do when he finds Kerry denying he said what Chris Matthews said he said! LOL
I hope Chris Matthews gets wind of Kerry's denials. He was defending Kerry's original statements last night! How dare anyone question Kerry's testimony, he said, if they weren't there to see for themselves.
Yesterday (Friday), as you suggested, or Thursday, as the article says? Just wondering if the denial will be denied!!
Blue states "in the bag" for Kerry, you say? I think FReeper analysis has pointed out his lead in those states is very slim indeed. Bush has the red states pretty securely and the blue are up for grabs, in other words. Though of course nobody should cavalierly assume any state is "in the bag".
My beef is that Newsmax is sometimes not accurate, and sometimes incorrigibly lazy.
As only one of many examples, last week it reported without any followup Ollie North's TV assertion that North Vietnam's General Giap had written favorably about Vietnam Vets Against the War (Kerry) in a 1985 autobiography.
Now, if true, that would be a huge story. But Newsmax offered no followup with North, no mention of the name of the book, no mention of Giap's actual quote, nothing. Just a recitation of North's claim. Zero followup, zero digging.
That (like many of their stories) would not have passed muster in a real newsroom. A serious news editor would say "What, you're reporting from TV talk shows now? Go get the rest of the dam**d story!"
That's my beef.
He's a LIAR. Toast, dead meat - if the mainstream media has the balls to let American voters see this!!
WOODRUFF: Two other very quick things, Senator. One is, it's been reported that, well you're aware of this, Vietnam veterans upset with the fact that when you came back from the war, you went to Capitol Hill, and you testified in so many words against the kinds of things that U.S. soldiers were doing over there...
KERRY: Yes, I did.
WOODRUFF: To the Vietnamese.
KERRY: Yes, I did.
WOODRUFF: They are saying, in effect, you were accusing American troops of war crimes.
KERRY: 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. In fact, not only did we oppose the war, but we proudly stood up and fought for the additions to the GI 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.
I'm proud of the record of fighting for soldiers and for veterans. And the fact is if we want to redebate 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.
The whole National Guard AWOL BS was a designed play trying to get someone on the Republican side to say "but this was 30 years ago, it's not fair to bring up something 30 years ago!" 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. The White House didn't cooperate and go the "move on" route. They dealt with each new accusation deliberately, calmly and reasonably. The press whores tried to twist that into a failure on the White House's part. All but the most fanatic Bush haters uttered a collective "what the John F'n Kerry are you talking about?"
Harold Ford Jr., a Democrat Congressman from my area (though not my congress critter) who I actually like kind of tipped this plan on one of the morning news shows (maybe Fox and Friends?) when Kerry's anti-American record came up in passing. He immediately jumped on the attack and said "well, if you bring up John Kerry's past we'll bring up George Bush going AWOL fromt he Guard. I don't want to do that so let's just not talk about John Kerry's past." As if the Democrats haven't been pushing this every time they open their mouths!
This is one we DON'T want being played out now. We want Kerry to be the nominee. Karl Rove is saving this for after the dims convention, when they're committed to Kerry and can't back down or pull a Torriccelli and swap in someone without the baggage. Edwards is a cipher without a paper trail. He can claim any position on any issue and there's almost no way to prove him wrong. He's much more photogenic than Kerry and has the practiced skills of a trial lawyer. Kerry talks like a pull string doll on Qualudes. After Rove is done with him he won't even win Massachussettes.
We need to catalog this stuff and VERIFY IT so that there's no possible way that the dims can discredit anything that comes up. I'm almost convinced that the Kerry/Fonda fake photo flap was perpretated by the dims intentionally to try to blunt the real picture. I know that it appears the photoshop work may have come from someone on our side, but I'm willing to bet that it was circulated to the news media by the dims. They knew it was a paste up and they used that to cover up the real picture that was already out there. We have to be careful not to make that mistake again.
Trust buy verify. And don't spread stuff we can't prove.
As the saying goes, I love the smell of Democrats burning in the morning!
Yes, Ford made the threat on Fox and Friends.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.