Mark Steyn: Who's to blame for nation's Vietnam wounds? Kerry

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | August 29, 2004 | Mark Steyn

[Puzzleman]

Every serious nation, in the course of history, loses a war here and there. You hope it's there rather than here -- somewhere far away, a small conflict in a distant land, not central to your country's sense of itself. During America's ''Vietnam era,'' Britain grappled with a number of nasty colonial struggles. Some they won -- Malaya -- and others they lost -- Aden -- or, at any rate, concluded that the cost of achieving whatever it was they wanted to achieve was no longer worth it.

[Puzzleman]

Steyn at his best.

[Two Thirds Vote Aye]

PING!

[Elkiejg]

snip........

Kerry didn't just call for U.S. withdrawal, he impugned the honor of every man he served with.

In his testimony to Congress in 1971, Kerry asserted a scale of routine war crimes unparalleled in American history -- his ''band of brothers'' (as he now calls them) ''personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads . . . razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.'' Almost all these claims were unsupported. Indeed, the only specific example of a U.S. war criminal that Kerry gave was himself. As he said on ''Meet The Press'' in April 1971, ''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 used 50-caliber machineguns, which we were granted and ordered to use.''

Really? And when was that? On your top-secret Christmas Eve mission in Cambodia? If they'd taken him at his word, when the senator said ''I'm John Kerry reporting for duty,'' the delegates at the Democratic Convention should have dived for cover.

But they didn't. So Kerry is now the first self-confessed war criminal in the history of the Republic to be nominated for president. Normally this would be considered an electoral plus only in the more cynical banana republics. But the Democrats seemed to think they could run an anti-war anti-hero as a war hero and nobody would mind. As we now know, a lot of people -- a lot of veterans -- do mind, very much. They understand that, whether or not he ever mowed down civilians with his 50-caliber machinegun, Kerry is responsible for a lot of wounds closer to home.

In the usual course of events, Kerry's terrible judgment in the '70s would render him unelectable. Instead, over two decades he morphed into a respectably dull run-of-the-mill pompous senatorial windbag. Had he run for president in the '90s or 2000, he might even have pulled it off. But the Democrats turned to him this time because the tortured contradictions of his resume suited an anti-war party that didn't dare run as such. Ever since the first cries of ''Quagmire!'' back in the early days of the Afghan liberation in 2001, the left have been trying to Vietnamize the war on terror. They failed in that, but they succeeded in the Vietnamization of the election campaign, and that's turned out just swell, hasn't it? Remember that formulation a lot of Democrats were using last year? They oppose the war but ''of course'' they support our troops. Kerry's campaign is a walking illustration of the deficiencies of that straddle: When you divorce the heroism of soldiering from the justice of the cause, what's left but a hollow braggart?

[ScaniaBoy]

So Kerry is now the first self-confessed war criminal in the history of the Republic to be nominated for president. Normally this would be considered an electoral plus only the more cynical banana republics.

SNIP

In the usual course of events, Kerry's terrible judgment in the 70's would render him unelectable.

SNIP

but in Hanoi Kerry's psychodrama-queen performance is a gift that keeps on giving

BUMP to the top.

[solzhenitsyn]

Brilliant column from Mr. Steyn. Thanks, Puzzleman.

[shrinkermd]

Great post! Steyn must not sleep. I do not know how he can write so often and so well.

[metesky]

Ingpay!

[DugwayDuke]

''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 used 50-caliber machineguns, which we were granted and ordered to use.''

These are not atrocities. Nor are they war-crimes.

[bronxboy]

As usual, Steyn is right on. I am a little young, 42, to remember Sen. flip flop's testimony, but I remember the embarrassment of my older sister's friends acting like fools. From the comfort of NYC they were talking about baby killers, etc. This happened even though I was named after my uncle who died fighting for Britain against the Nazis. To this day it bothers me. The thought of this man being the president makes my skin crawl. How can dims be so stupid? Do they hate America that much?

[hershey]

One nice thing about Steyn, among many, is that he sees things with objectivity and calls a spade a spade.

[Kay Syrah]

kerry's bald opportunism laid bare. Who would trust this man with the lives of our sons and daughters? What seems to be the most glaring failure of his character, is his own unwillingness to confront the consequences of his actions. And no, the wound will not heal till it is lanced, and the shrapnel removed. If kerry wins, the nation will find that an inconsequential sliver of a man can infect and lay low a great nation. Yeah, he scares me.

[Rep-for-real]

When you divorce the heroism of soldiering from the justice of the cause, what's left but a hollow braggart?

Well, that about sums it up.

[Bob]

The ''wounds'' McCain complains of aren't from losing Vietnam, but from the manner in which it was lost. Today Sen. Kerry says he's proud of his anti-war activism, but that's not what it was. Every war has pacifists and conscientious objectors and even disenchanted veterans, but there's simply no precedent for what John Kerry did: a man who put his combat credentials to the service of smearing his country's entire armed forces as rapists, decapitators and baby killers. That's the ''wound,'' Sen. McCain.

Now, THAT says it all.

[Bahbah]

Pinging you to make up for last time. :)

[shezza]

...in Hanoi Kerry's psychodrama-queen performance is a gift that keeps on giving.

[Bahbah]

Steyn identifies the issue quite well.

[Bob]

''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 used 50-caliber machineguns, which we were granted and ordered to use.''

These are not atrocities. Nor are they war-crimes.

Kerry had his own psychotic definition of "free-fire zones".

His idea of them was to kill anything or anyone that moved in them. Enemy, friendly, man, woman, child, or beast -- It just didn't matter to him.

That is NOT nor has it EVER been the U.S. military's definition of them.

From "Tour of Duty", page 51:
"Kerry seemed to believe that there were no rules in a free-fire zone and you were supposed to kill everyone. I didn't see it that way. I will tell you in all candor that the only baby killer I knew in Vietnam was John F. Kerry."

William Franke, Swift Boat Veteran, Coastal Division 11

[RedEyeJack]

A classic insight....

The Democrats tried to Vietnamize the War on Terror but failed. They have, however, succeeded in Vietnamizing the presidential election campaign by running that war's antiwar,antihero as a war hero. It looks like 40%+ of the voters will go along in hopes of regaining political power...

[atomicpossum]

Steyn beats any other columnist hands down, for being able to illuminate an issue, clearly, concisely, and be entertaining as he does it. He towers above an inane prattler like Maureen Dowd like Dostoyevsky does above 'TV Guide.' It's a blessing to have himon the conservative side.

He nails it beautifully. Kerry didn't return to say "Sir, I think we should end the war," he took an approach to demoralize, defame, and tear down the military, the servicemen, his government and the country itself. His statements served the most extreme elements of the anti-war movment and in large part built the view of Vietnam as a cancerous, inhuman, twisted panoply of evil pouring from the heart of America-- a view he supported with lies from Winter Soldier and support from world communism.