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To: dc-zoo; Libloather
He can run but he can't hide from his written and spoken words. He said it before congress and on Meet The Press and many times at his anti-war rallys. He's busted!

It's on TAPE, FGS!

Lib, can you paste it right here???

42 posted on 02/21/2004 7:43:51 AM PST by Howlin
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To: Libloather; LibWhacker
Yep, this is it, from that thread:

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.

etc.

60 posted on 02/21/2004 8:06:00 AM PST by Howlin
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To: Howlin
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.
70 posted on 02/21/2004 8:15:42 AM PST by thesummerwind (Like painted kites, those days and nights, they went flyin' by)
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To: Howlin
It's on TAPE, FGS!

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

87 posted on 02/21/2004 8:42:01 AM PST by cyncooper
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