Kerry stands by '71 atrocities claim Campaign official insists Democrat was right about war

World Net Daily ^ | 8/23/04

[mcar]

WASHINGTON – John Kerry stands by his claims in 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that U.S. soldiers in Vietnam regularly, and as a matter of official policy, committed war atrocities against innocent civilians, according to a top campaign official.

John Hurley, national director of Veterans for Kerry, denied on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, that Kerry had overstated the case against the war when he returned home as a spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

A new ad by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth targets Kerry's comments in 1971 as giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

"John Kerry testified in 1971 to atrocities being committed in Vietnam," said Hurley. "So also, the Toledo Blade has won a Pulitzer prize this year for the reporting on atrocities in Vietnam. General Tommy Franks has said John Kerry spoke the truth when he testified in 1971. The My Lai massacre was a fact of life back then. What they have done (in this ad) is they've taken a piece of John Kerry's testimony, left out the part that says he was reporting, repeating the testimony that was given in Detroit at the Winter Soldier hearings, and presented it as his. And that's wrong."

Kerry, however, was the national spokesman for the group that conducted the widely discredited investigation. He was also an active participant in the hearings, not just a reporter taking notes. In 1971, Kerry also implicated himself in the commission of war crimes and atrocities.

In fact, Kerry began his testimony to the committee stating that he was representing all those veterans who participated in the hearings.

"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," he told the committee.

Kerry went on to explain: "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."

Kerry added: "The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped."

Yesterday, Hurly agreed with the testimony and said Kerry stands behind it.

"Absolutely," Hurley said. "He's a leader. He came back, and he spoke the truth."

Asked repeatedly by Wallace if Kerry had overstated what happened in his testimony in 1971, Hurley emphatically said no.

"John Kerry says that he regrets the use of the language that may have offended some people," Hurley said. "He is not -- he stands behind the facts of his testimony. He stands behind the facts that atrocities were being committed in Vietnam."

In fact, some of those presenting horror stories at the Jane Fonda-sponsored Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit had misrepresented themselves as Vietnam War vets – even using the names of other veterans who did not attend the hearings. Several veterans provided sworn affidavits that others spoke in their names.

[SuziQ]

General Tommy Franks has said John Kerry spoke the truth when he testified in 1971. The My Lai massacre was a fact of life back then.

Just WHEN did Gen. Franks say this?

I believe the My Lai massacre was so powerful and stunning an event because it was so unusual in the course of US warfare. For how many other massacres were American soldiers tried during and after Vietnam?

[SuziQ]

We will not uphold traditions which decorously memorialize that which was base and grim."

If so, then Kerry shouldn't be running for President based on his 'heroic service' in that 'base and grim' conflict.

[secretagent]

Thanks.

[SuziQ]

THIS is big. The sKerry folks are just so 60s. This will end his chance of being the prez... if he ever had one.

We can only hope that the 'Woodstock generation myth' ends here, too!

[kcar]

Here's the transcript:

Fox News Sunday

[Light Speed]

John Kerry on the right, rich boy ticket punching war criminal, along with Ramsey Clark, Saddam Hussein’s lawyer, and a motley crew of people who’d obviously never been within 50 miles of the military, or they wouldn’t look like gay drugged out hippies, which is what it turns out they were for the most part. I mean, just look at them. Aside from Kerry looking like Alfalfa, none of them even look like they belong to the same species as soldiers, much less having actually worn the uniform.

Of note...*Ramsey Clarke helped set up Dan Rathers interview with Saddam Insane.

Kerry ..Ramsey Clarke and now Jessie Jackson

This is juuuust! creep commie city.

[maro]

Let's get Kerry on the record on film on whether he stands behind his 1971 allegations.

[nopardons]

bttt

[SAMWolf]

Nice find on thhose old article.

[stockpirate]

This is really wild......

The FBI files indicate that VVAW was sending members to NV for indoctrination by the communists this was not an evaluation, but what the leaders of the VVAW were telling its members.

And that the VVAW (Scott Camil)was running arms to the group in IL mentioned in this article you just posted.

[armymarinemom]

Remeber who brought you VVAW and the World Peace Council

Kerry’s Soviet Rhetoric

[Light Speed]

You may have come accross this...a good repost for those on this thread.
PhilDragoo is a keener on the little details...am hoping he chimes in later on this.

Historian: Kerry FBI files stolen

From Phil Hirschkorn
Sunday, March 28, 2004

CNN) -- FBI documents about FBI surveillance of John Kerry in the early 1970s have been stolen, according to their owner, a historian who lives near San Francisco, California.

Gerald Nicosia, who spent more than a decade collecting the information, said three of 14 boxes of documents plus a number of loose folders containing hundreds of pages were stolen from his home Thursday afternoon.

Nicosia reported the theft Friday to the Twin Cities Police Department, which covers Larkspur and Corte Madera in Marin County, where he lives. The police report found no sign of forced entry.

"It was a very clean burglary. They didn't break any glass. They didn't take anything like cameras sitting by. It was a very professional job," Nicosia said.

"Was it a thrill-seeker who wanted a piece of history? It could be," Nicosia said. "You'd think there was a very strong political motivation for taking those files. The odds are in favor of that."

Nicosia, author of "Home At War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans Movement," had obtained about 20,000 pages of FBI documents through Freedom of Information Act requests.

The documents center on FBI surveillance of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), which Kerry represented as national spokesman. In April 1971, the decorated veteran testified in televised hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and led a large protest of veterans in the capital.

Nicosia estimated that 20 percent of his documents are missing.

"It's heartbreaking, after 11 years trying to get them," he said.

[stockpirate]

No, see posting 86 and 90 in link,...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1197337/posts


According to the police, they didn't think they were stolen and there would be no investgation because he sould not let them process the crime scene, there were no signs of forced entry and he failed to advise the police that people from Kerry's campaign had been there like 2-3 days before. It is suspected that he gave the docs to Kerry and callled the police. He told reporters and the police that this is just like Watergate.

[Light Speed]

Great post stock : )

Again...Is the Hill mixed up in this from the restore relations to Vietnam period..McCain and Kerry?
VVAW and their Communist network is so in the open.....one wonders if they have some goods on the admin of that period.....and **Flaunted their power.
Ted Kennedy is in the mix for VVAW,

Is Kerry liason to Ted...right out in the open.....or is their a series of handlers involved here?

The theft of the VVAW files.....who is behind the clean up?

I'm thinking John Kerry is too dimwitted for this.

[stockpirate]

The theft of the VVAW files.....

There was no theft of the FBI files. The person with the files, a supporter of JohnKerry, more than likely just turned them over to him, or left the door unlocked.

There were no signs of forced entry

[stockpirate]

I have a complete copy of the FBI files.

[Dog]

John Hurley was in the protest movement with Kerry......he marched along with Kerry in Dewey Canyon III...a huge protestt march.

[Light Speed]

Am re-visiting info on VVAW and Communist connections.
A REPOST on some FBI files/condensed..from VVAW FBI Files link at Paperlessarchives website.

Excerpt

The coverage of Kerry is mostly intermittently spread across memos dating from 1971. Much of the clandestine surveillance is composed of reporting made by unnamed confidential informants. The files chronicle: John Kerry's rise in status as a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, A growing ideological conflict with the more militant direction the VVAW was heading in, Travel to Paris for talks with North Vietnamese peace talk delegation, the "Kansas City" meeting, Kerry's pitched battle with VVAW leader Al Hubbard, and Kerry's dissolution as a leader of the VVAW in 1971.

The files document FBI accusations of a conspiracy to riot during the 1972 Republican National Convention, the passing of classified information to a Japanese communist leader. A member of the Connecticut chapter of the VVAW was arrested with an explosive device en route to a speech given by Vice President Spiro Agnew.

After the United States withdrew from Vietnam, the focus of the VVAW moved towards seeking amnesty for those who were jailed for resisting the draft and other anti-war crimes.

Do you have a link to a website which focuses on VVAW and North Vietnam?

[ultima ratio]

"He said that the 'graphic' war crimes happened every day with knowledge of same by superiors at all levels. Very different from official policy."

But, in fact, Kerry went on to blame the United States itself, unambiguously and directly. He does not at the same time blame the enemy, but only the United States and its government. That sounds pretty damned official to me. There is something profoundly traitorous in such an attitude.

[stockpirate]

Do you have a link to a website which focuses on VVAW and North Vietnam?

No, I am reading the FBI files myself.

I am interested in the A member of the Connecticut chapter of the VVAW was arrested with an explosive device en route to a speech given by Vice President Spiro Agnew.