Who's to blame for nation's Vietnam wounds? Kerry

Chicago Sun Times ^ | 8/29/04 | Mark Steyn

[mylife]

Who's to blame for nation's Vietnam wounds? Kerry

August 29, 2004

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement

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.

No parallels are exact, but the symbolism of the transfer of power in Aden (on the Arabian coast) is not dissimilar to the fall of Saigon. On Nov. 29, 1967, the Union Jack was lowered over the city, and the high commissioner, his staff and all her majesty's forces left. On Nov. 30, the People's Republic of South Yemen was proclaimed -- the only avowedly Marxist state in Arabia. A couple of years earlier, the penultimate high commissioner, Sir Richard Turnbull, had remarked bleakly to Denis Healey, the British Defense secretary, that the British empire would be remembered for only two things: ''the popularization of Association Football [soccer] and the term 'f-- off.' "

Sir Richard was being a little hard on his fellow imperialists, but those two legacies of empire are useful ways of looking at the situation when the natives are restless and you're a long way from home: Faraway disputes you're stuck in the middle of aren't played by the rules of Association Football, and it's important to know when to "f-- off.'' Aden had been British since 1839: that's 130 years, or 10 times as long as America was mixed up in Vietnam. And yet in the end the British shrugged it off. Just one of those things, old boy. Can't be helped. As the last high commissioner inspected his troops at Khormaksar Airport on that final day, the band of the Royal Marines played not ''Land Of Home And Glory'' or ''Rule, Britannia'' but a Cockney novelty pop song, ''Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be,'' as a jaunty reflection on the vicissitudes of fate.

So when John McCain sternly warns the swift boat veterans of ''reopening the wounds of Vietnam,'' it's worth asking: Why is Vietnam a ''wound'' and why won't it heal? The answer: not because it was a military or strategic defeat but because it was a national trauma. And whose fault is that?

Well, you can't pin it all on one person, but, if you had to, Lt. John F. Kerry would stand a better shot at taking the solo trophy than almost anyone. 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. That's why a crummy little war on the other side of the world still festers. That's why the band didn't play ''Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be'' and move on to the next item of business. Because 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?

The Vietnamese government used Kerry's 1971 testimony as evidence of American war crimes as recently as two months ago. In Aden, Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be, but in Hanoi Kerry's psychodrama-queen performance is a gift that keeps on giving. It would be a shame if they understood him more clearly than the American people do.

[Gritty]

Great Steyn!

[BelieveNFreedom]

Thanks for posting this great article. I have a feeling that in the long run, whether we like it or not, the issues related to what happened with the boats and the Silver Stars and the Purple Hearts is not going to decide the election; the average person on the street will not sort it out. But this material can't be ignored or denied, because it is based on the man's clear, on-record statements. And very importantly, these points have weight with people who both supported and opposed the war at the time. There were plenty of decent people who opposed the war and didn't go over to the Jane Fonda treason level, and people like that don't find Kerry's post-war actions honorable.

[mylife]

theres 'naught wrong with rugby, pints and free will

[stockpirate]

This one is Treason!

You just do not realize how sick jfk is until you read this.

VVAW worked with the NV to get US not to bomb NV troops during an attck by NV.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1201299/posts

And this one go to 54
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1201386/posts

[mylife]

Wait till they start in on the unauthorized paris meetings with the NVA while Kerry was in uniform.

[mylife]

Oh Ive seen it pirate. Kerry has it all over him. He just wont stop punching and kicking the tar baby.

Meanwhile GWB is cool as a cucumber.

[mylife]

I see by your tagline you approve of Marks column ;^)

[unspun]

Thank you for posting this fine, fine commentary.

[Bobibutu]

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

And everyone else in VNam.

[mylife]

Kerry and VVAW spilled the beans on military ops to the enemy

[mylife]

Says it all doesnt it Bob?

[mylife]

Thank Mr Steyn, we need more like him in this world

[mylife]

a brief history of Brittan and Aden

[Caoilfhionn]

There is so much material on him it's revolting, but I'll try to limit myself to just the Vietnam fiasco for the moment. Kerry has been honored at the Communist Museum in North Korea as one of the contributors to their victory. The display photograph's "unquestionable significance lies in its placement in the American protesters' section of the War Crimes Museum" in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon.

"The Vietnamese communists clearly recognize John Kerry's contributions to their victory," he said. "This find can be compared to the discovery of a painting of Neville Chamberlain hanging in a place of honor in Hitler's Eagle's Nest in 1945."

The last I checked, the North Koreans were the enemy. But, in fact, Kerry has a long and well-documented history of providing "aid and comfort" to the enemy in time of war -- particularly in the case of North Vietnam, Nicaragua and Cuba. Kerry, by his own account of his actions and protests, violated the UCMJ, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Code while serving as a Navy officer. Kerry met, on two occasions, with North Vietnamese negotiators in 1970 and 1971, willingly placing himself in violation of Article three, Section three of the U.S. Constitution, which defines treason as "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy in time of warfare. Thus, in accordance with the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, which states, "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President ... having previously taken an oath ... to support the Constitution of the United States, [who has] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof," It is for these reasons that John F. Kerry is unfit for public office.

[crazyhorse691]

I enjoy reading articles like this where it is obvious that the writer gets it. There is a great deal of anger towards JFK. And he has the stupidity to ask WHY.
JFK you are going down and going down hard. Mercy is not given to dishonorable men.

[mylife]

Mercy is not given to dishonorable men.

The media and the left dont get it, The Swiftees do

[AaronInCarolina]

Vietnam all started with liars and lies of the Democrats. Why should the Dems be any different now.

They are not. Notice that while the anti-war movement festered while Democrats were president, it exploded when Nixon won the presidency. It took on a whole new dimension and a quantum leap upward in terms of radicalism and vitriol. Even Kerry may not have been so against the war until an event that happened in November of 1968... Nixon (a Republican) was elected president and Kerry's whole attitude changed. Suddenly he's out in a matter of months and he protesting the war now and calling his comerades and his President monsters.

Fast-forward 30 years... Kerry practically begs Bill Clinton to go in and toss out Sadam Hussein, who was a real threat to the whole world because the whole world knew that he had WMD's, and had used them on his own people. For 5 or six years Kerry has been screaming that Hussein was a danger to America, and indeed the whole world. Then an event happened in November 2000... George W. Bush, a Republican, was elected president. And George W. Bush did exactly what Kerry has been begging some president to do for 5 or 6 years... Take out Sadam Hussein and disarm him. Suddenly it was 1969 all over again. A change of attitude conspicuously related to a change in presidency from Democrat to Republican. Notice how nobody in the present-day anti-war movement raised a single peep about Clinton's exploits in Yugoslavia, in a war that had absolutely zero national interest to the U.S., or posed any threat whatsoever to U.S. security. But let a Republican president do what many Democrats had been calling for for years (overthrow Hussein) and their tune changes from hawk to dove overnight. It's nothing but politics and its putrid.

[kellynla]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1201595/posts

[mylife]

Hmmm..I did a search on the title.

Its so nice lets post it twice ;^)

[stockpirate]

bunp for later