Debate on Kerry's Military Record Rages

AP on Yahoo ^ | 8/26/04 | Mary Dalrymple - AP

[NormsRevenge]

ANOKA, Minn. - Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) on Thursday lashed out at "the lie that's been put out there" about his Vietnam War service as Republicans and Democrats fiercely debated his military record, sensing a political advantage in keeping the issue alive.

The debate started when a group of critics, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, raised questions about the Democratic presidential candidate's command during the Vietnam War. It has escalated into a tit-for-tat advertising war amid accusations from each campaign that the other side is improperly using independent groups to front their attacks.

Responding to a question at a forum, Kerry said, "All the guys who were with me on my boat, all the guys who were with me in the specific action where they could see it and do it, absolutely document what I said. And as you've seen in the last few days, you're now learning about the lie that's been put out there and how it's been put out there.'

Kerry pointed out that the Navy documented his actions 35 years ago, compared to the recollections of veterans decades later. "Those documents stand, and I am absolutely telling you the God's honest truth about what happened and what took place over there. And so are the other people who've laid it out correctly over the last couple days," he said.

In a television ad, Kerry's campaign hit President Bush (news - web sites) for waging a "smear" campaign by failing to denounce the Swift Boat Veterans' accusations that Kerry didn't deserve his five Vietnam medals.

Bush's 2000 primary campaign rival, Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., was the star of the Democrats' new ad, which shows the senator telling Bush in 2000 "you should be ashamed" for standing by as a "fringe veterans group" questioned McCain's patriotism.

McCain, who supports Bush's re-election, said Thursday that he didn't want the Democrats using his old statements against the president — and the Kerry campaign pulled the ad. But McCain isn't happy about the swift boat veterans' anti-Kerry ads, either.

McCain had called on Bush to condemn those ads.

Kerry and running mate John Edwards (news - web sites) have accused Bush of being behind "lies and smears" by the group. Bush's campaign has denied being behind the swift boat group, whose major financial backer is a Texas Republican with ties to Bush aides.

As the claims of improper coordination flew, one of Bush's top lawyers resigned from the Bush campaign Wednesday, a day after disclosing that he had given legal advice to the Swift Boat Veterans. At the same time, Republicans raised questions about Democratic lawyers working for other organizations.

The Bush-Cheney campaign hit back at Kerry in a sharply worded letter that criticized Kerry's actions after he returned from war, including his testimony before Congress that U.S. soldiers were committing atrocities in Vietnam.

"You accused your fellow veterans of terrible atrocities and, to this day, you have never apologized," said the letter, drafted by the campaign and signed by several veterans. "Even last night, you claimed to be proud of your postwar condemnation of our actions."

Bush has criticized the Swift Boat Veterans group's first commercial and all other outside group attack ads — many of which have targeted his own re-election. But Democrats want him to explicitly condemn the Swift Boat Veterans ad.

At Bush's ranch Wednesday near Crawford, Texas, former Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., who lost three limbs in Vietnam, tried but failed to deliver a letter to the president from nine Senate Democrats that asked Bush to "recognize this blatant attempt at character assassination and publicly condemn it."

The Bush-Cheney campaign Wednesday chastised Kerry for saying all military service should be held above reproach, while he questions Bush's military record.

"You said in 1992, 'We do not need to divide America over who served and how.' Yet you and your surrogates continue to criticize President Bush for his service as a fighter pilot in the National Guard," the campaign said.

The current stage of the battle may have negated any advantage accrued by either side, Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said.

Newhouse said Bush had the advantage when the debate centered on Kerry's actions in Vietnam because the questions raised doubts about Kerry's credibility. Now that the debate has shifted to questions about campaign tactics and political insiders, Newhouse said, Bush lost his advantage.

"Bush gained early, now it's a wash," he said.

William Benoit, professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said McCain, who was a prisoner of war during Vietnam, erased any early advantage that Bush might have had.

McCain has called the anti-Kerry advertisement "dishonest" and "dishonorable."

"When Senator McCain comes out and says he's a hero ... how many Republicans are going to reject it?" Benoit said. "I just think Senator McCain has neutralized that issue in large part."

[Bob]

McCain has called the anti-Kerry advertisement "dishonest" and "dishonorable."

Hey, McLame, how would you know if the Swiftees are being dishonest?

Which of kerry's Swift boats did you serve aboard?

Oh, you didn't? Then you should have just STFU.

[hershey]

Gardner suggested that the few Swift Boat vets supporting Kerry may be hoping for jobs in a Kerry administration...or money.

[meatloaf]

You have to ask? He's an ivory tower academic. Most likely a tower with no window to the outside world.

[Aliska]

What I don't understand is it is his own party that got him and the rest of us into that war.

I'm curious about why he came to hate the Republicans so much, now culminating in his obviously rabidly hatred towards Bush. I don't think he is capable of saying one nice thing about Bush no matter what. Bush, on the other hand, said Kerry's service was honorable and noble or whatever.

Something runs deep here. What is his hatred really about?

I don't want to get into how much of a communist sympathizer he may or may not have been. His lifestyle is the antithesis of communism.

The only communists who had anything, and it wasn't much by our standards, were the top guys. The rest were crammed into apartment blocks and had to stand in line just for bread, never mind meat and the other stuff.

Did his family harbor some deep-seated hatred of something?

I'm just curious. Bush, whatever faults he may possess, does not come across as being hateful, except toward Saddam and the terrorists.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Ramsey Clark to Join Panel for Saddam’s Defense

arabnews press release 25 August 2004

NOTE :
Ramsey Clark is pictured below with Kerry and
Vietnam phony vet Al Hubbard
Who was head of the
Vietnam Veterans Against the War movement.



NEW:
FReeper smith288 has an online version of
Kerry's "The New Soldier"
You can read it without downloading pdf files!
CLICK HERE

From Kerry's "The New Soldier":
Al Hubbard Sgt., 22 Troop Carrier Squadron Aug. ’65-June ’66

Emotions: Walking down the flight line at Saigon past stacks of aluminum cases containing American bodies and past stacks of aluminum luggage containing American currency. Seeing the tight, sad face of an Airman loading the bodies aboard a dirty Air Force Transport and the wide smiling face of a stewardess greeting the passengers aboard a clean Pan American Clipper Jet. Hearing a Vietnamese beg you to leave his country and an American colonel tells you to bomb his country. Hearing a Vietnamese invite you to live in his home, after the war and an American explain why you can’t live in his block, after the war. Flying over barren, brown, safe American held terrain and over lush, green unsafe enemy terrain. Feeling happy to be leaving a country in which you do not belong and sad to be returning to a country in which you are not allowed to belong. Sacrificing a portion of your consciousness so you won’t have to deal with being there and building mental blocks so you won’t have to deal with having been there.

- Al Hubbard, proven fraud who never set foot in Viet Nam. The only Vietnamese he ever met was when he was collaborating with the North Vietnamese in Paris
on the American Communist Party's nickel.
John Kerry's explanation: "He (Hubbard) simply exaggarated his particular position.
But nobody knew it at the time. And those things happen."

The New Soldier, (46 pages)
By John Kerry
and Vietnam Veterans
Against the War
PART I (pdf file)
PART II (pdf file)
PART III (pdf file)

Kerry hopes everyone
in the USA gets this book!

NEW:
“Without question,
we were held captive longer
because of the anti-war people,
the Kerrys, the Fondas and Haydens,
the names we knew over there -
they encouraged the enemy to hang on.”
Excerpt from “Stolen Honor” website
- Leo Thorsness
Former Vietnam POW
CLICK HERE



Send this url for the online version

http://ejsmithweb.com/fr/newsoldier/

Send this url for the Stolen Honor website

http://www.stolenhonor.com/

Print this out (46 pages) and disribute it,
especially to the liberals you know.

Copy and paste the links to everyone you know.

http://nomayo.mu.nu/archives/New%20Soldier%20Inro.pdf

http://nomayo.mu.nu/archives/New%20Soldier.pdf

http://nomayo.mu.nu/archives/New%20Soldier%20Epilogue.pdf

[Republic]

The only reason I can think of is no doubt shallow and stupid to most...but I believe the republican and democrats seem to operate like a dysfunctional family. The Republcians represent the parents in this family-protective, fully grown-up, shocked at the behavior of their children (the democrats), and as parents, present a more dignified and thoughtful demeanor and are less willing to do anything to win, understanding that the route to the win dictates the value of the win.

The democrats-the children-are not yet governed by rules of ethical and moral behavior-they are spoiled because somewhere along the line-the parents were quiet when they should have been noisy.

The democrats use any means to win, do not understand the foundations of moral and ethical rules of law, rebell against those rules, are subject to the whims of friends that give them cookie money in return for a loyalty to nefarious and often down right un-American objectives, and perhaps, worst of all, though these children see what their parents believe in, and on some level know it is good, they cannot resist the temptation to to acquaint themselves with the more outrageous, 'fun' way of doing things, shock value appeals to them and good character is boring....down right 'parental'.

These children, even grown up age-wise now (to about teenage level), are often in positions of power, but are still mental midgets in the ethical, moral and visionary departments.

Stuck in the 60's teenage mentality, and love to call everyone stupid but themselves. As all teenagers do.

It used to be democrats and republicans differed in the means to achieve equally worthy goals in most cases. Now, they differ in three deep ways- they do not care about good character, in once held noble objectives and the means of attaining said objectives has become a constant free for all for them. Making every thing difficult to bridge.

[SkyPilot]

Bingo! Steve Gardner was on talk radio today and he totally blew away Kerry's latest lie, to wit:

Kerry said, "All the guys who were with me on my boat, all the guys who were with me in the specific action where they could see it and do it, absolutely document what I said.

Here is what Gardner said:

1. Gardner served more time with Kerry than any other crewman under his command--ever. This was 2 1/2 months out of Kerry's 4 months and 12 days in combat. He was ON THE BOAT as well.

2. Kerry was the worst skipper and officer the man ever served under. Kerry fell asleep at the radar scope in the pilot house or he was negligent in his duty to warn them of an approaching Sandpan while their boat was sitting with its motor off. When the Vietcong-supporter Sandpan caught them by surprise, Gardner had no choice but to fire on a man aiming an SKS rifle at him. During this exchange, Garner admits he inadvertantly shot a small boy crouched in front of the man who was about to fire.

3. Kerry took credit for his boat killing 5 Vietcong militia and taking 2 captives. This was a lie Kerry perpetrated to cover up his negligence on duty--there were only 2 people killed (including the boy). The CIA (Captured in Action) were a mother and her infant crouched at the bow of the Sandpan.

4. Kerry was never in Cambodia in Christmas 1968, or in January 1969. There was not magic CIA hat. Kerry is caught in this lie and wants to ignore it (and hopes the Media does as well).