Posted on 09/01/2004 12:06:21 AM PDT by RaceBannon
The blood on Kerry’s hands
By Jim Bancroft, Sep 1, 2004
Every action has a reaction. We sometimes refer to Newton’s Third Law in ways that do not refer to physical science, but to social and emotional constructs, events we see or hear of, events we perceive of happening or events that we experience ourselves.
In my life time, I have seen my country and our politics change in many ways. As a child, I watched the Vietnam War on television; I saw the body counts, I saw the nation fixated on the war shown on the TV screen, I cheered on the troops, and I felt sorrow when I saw the caskets and heard of our losses.
I also saw the anti-war protests on TV. I had to have my Dad explain some words and terms used by the Police in Detroit in 1968 after the riots in how they described the actions of the anti-war people who claimed to be for peace, but seemed to only come to fight and disrupt.
Their actions had consequences. The American people started to see our media play over and again the masses of people who looked normal sometimes, and some that were the Hippie looking type people. We saw abnormal behavior portrayed on television and in the news as being common.
We saw our nation change.
One of the people who most affected us, was John Kerry. John Kerry’s association with these anti-war groups changed our nation forever. Most people see it, those that are over a certain age anyways, maybe not the younger, the have no reference to judge by. But, I am 45, and even in my age, I see it. But, I wonder how many others do.
John Kerry’s actions, and the actions of those who openly protested against our country during the Vietnam War, made it socially acceptable to hate the US while living here, and to falsely claim what they are doing is Patriotism. The actions of the Vietnam protester was to make the call for Socialist or Communist type changes in our government system an accepted thing.
But that is not all. By their actions, a war was ended earlier than expected. Not in a way that was in our favor, but in a way that embarrassed our country even though we were winning the war militarily.
The actions of the anti-war groups affected national policy. We had anti-war groups start up earlier than 1968 when John Kerry entered Vietnam, true, but their acceptance and liveliness was not noticeable. It wasn’t until after John Kerry got home and started a group called Vietnam Veteran’s Against the War, VVAW, with his friend Jane Fonda that the openly socially acceptable participation in American anti-war activity took place in common American thought.
This was a significant group, in that, for the first time in our nation’s history that I can find, a group of veteran’s who had fought in a war, founded a group that was against national policy in calling for the war to end; not with a victory by our armed forces, but with a defeat of our armed forces. This group was calling for our own nation, THEIR own nation, to remove all troops from Vietnam, admit that our actions there were morally wrong.
They were calling for their nation to lose against the enemy, to give up the fight against the Communist system which genuinely threatened the nation of Vietnam since the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. And because of Vietnam’s geographic location, the seaways of South-East Asia would be threatened with a puppet government run by either China or the Soviet Union in direct opposition to the United States as a nation in order to spread their communist philosophy through the end of a gun.
And they did all this with the backing of our national media, and with all the backing of the political party that was against the President who was in power. . . who had absolutely nothing to do with starting the war in the first place.
These peace groups, led by John Kerry and Jane Fonda and Bill Clinton and their sort, caused our government to step back away from a national commitment to our allies in the South-East Asia peninsula, abandon our war against Communism in Vietnam, and in general, stop our pro-active response to the Communist threat that was a definite reality in the world then.
I titled this paper, “THE BLOOD ON KERRY’S HANDS” for a reason, and that reason all goes back to Vietnam and the effect that his participation in leading a group like VVAW had on the United States and the world.
The connection between VVAW and the peace groups and the early end of the Vietnam War without a US victory against the Communist forces fighting in South Vietnam has not been explored in depth by anyone that I am aware of. There are some things that are important to remember from this time period that can only be examined in hindsight; namely, What happened to the US and it’s policy in foreign affairs immediately following the Vietnam War, and why?
At the time John Kerry left Vietnam, it was early 1969. According to records kept by the US government, by the end of 1968, the US losses in personnel were 36,152 persons killed in action from service in Vietnam from all causes.
(http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/vietnam_war_casualty_lists/statistics.html#year )
This is important for one significant reason: 1968 was the TET offensive, the last gasp of the North Vietnamese, a large offensive where the American people were told by a media that the war was un-winnable. But was this the case?
General Vo Nguyen Giap, the leader of the North Vietnamese Army during the war, had these comments to make concerning the efforts of anti-war protesters like John Kerry, Jane Fonda, and VVAW, which Jane Fonda was the co-founder with John Kerry; this article is reprinted from NEWSMAX:
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/5/1/110432.shtml
Gen. Giap Thanks Kerry & Co. for Anti-war Protests
Celebrating the 29th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the North Vietnamese general who led his forces to victory said Friday he was grateful to leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, one of whom was presidential candidate John Kerry.
"I would like to thank them," said Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, now 93, without mentioning Kerry by name. "Any forces that wish to impose their will on other nations will surely fail," he added.
Reuters, which first reported Giap's comments, suggested that the former enemy general was mindful of Kerry's role in leading some of the highest-profile anti-war protests of the entire Vietnam War. Before the British wire service quoted Gen. Giap, it noted:
"The Vietnam War, known in Vietnam as the American War, has become a hot issue in the U.S. presidential race with Democrat John Kerry drawing attention to his service and President Bush's Republicans disparaging Kerry's later anti-war stand."
North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin, who served under Gen. Giap on the general staff of the North Vietnamese army, received South Vietnam's unconditional surrender on April 30, 1975.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal after his retirement, Col. Tin explicitly credited leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, saying they were "essential to our strategy."
"Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement," Col. Tin told the Journal. Visits to Hanoi by Kerry anti-war allies Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others, he said, "gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses."
"We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war," the North Vietnamese military man explained.
Kerry did much the same thing in widely covered speeches such as the one he delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971. "Through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win," Col. Tin concluded.
These are not insignificant statements. These North Vietnamese military men are crediting the American Anti-War movement with being the reason they held out in time of war. The obvious conflict in this statement of theirs is, if there was NO ANTI-WAR movement in the US, these North Vietnamese military men would have NOT been optimistic about the outcome of the war. They would have been approaching the US in an attitude of military weakness, not military strength.
This is undeniable. In fact, there are some more direct quotes from General Giap on this very subject.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/2/10/222651.shtml
Gen. Giap: Kerry's Group Helped Hanoi Defeat U.S.
The North Vietnamese general in charge of the military campaign that finally drove the U.S. out of South Vietnam in 1975 credited a group led by Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry with helping him achieve victory.
In his 1985 memoir about the war, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote that if it weren't for organizations like Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Hanoi would have surrendered to the U.S. - according to Fox News Channel war historian Oliver North.
That's why, he predicted on Tuesday, the Vietnam War issue "is going to blow up in Kerry's face."
"People are going to remember Gen. Giap saying if it weren't for these guys [Kerry's group], we would have lost," North told radio host Sean Hannity.
"The Vietnam Veterans Against the War encouraged people to desert, encouraged people to mutiny - some used what they wrote to justify fragging officers," noted the former Marine lieutenant colonel, who earned two purple hearts in Vietnam.
"John Kerry has blood of American soldiers on his hands," North said.
The TET offensive of 1968 has been claimed to be a disaster for American forces, but is this the case?
Here is a short synopsis of just what happened during the TET Offensive of 1968:
Myth: The Tet Offensive Was a Communist Victory The 1968 Tet offensive was a total and complete miltary disaster for the North Vietnamese Communists no matter how you look at it. If you measure victory by territory gained or enemy killed, the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong failed dismally in their attacks.
The NVA and VC had counted on a "People's Uprising" to carry them to victory, however there was no such uprising. They did exactly what the American military wanted them to do. They massed in large formations that were incredibly vulnerable to the awesome fire support the U.S. Military was able to bring to bear on them in a coordinated and devastating manner.
The NVA and VC attacked only ARVN installations with the exception of the US Embassy in Saigon. Despite reports to the contrary by all major television news networks and the print media, the VC sapper team of 15 men never entered the chancery building and all 15 VC were dead within 6 hours of the attack. They caused no damage to any property and managed to kill 4 US Army MPs, and one Marine guard. The South Vietnamese Police tasked with guarding the Embassy fled at the first sound of gunfire.
The NVA/VC launched major attacks on Saigon, Hue, Quang Tri City, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, Kontum City, Ban Me Thout, My Tho, Can Tho, and Ben Tre. With the exception of the old imperial city of Hue, the NVA/VC were forced to retreat within 24 hours of the beginning of the offensive. In the process they suffered devastating losses among the southern VC cadres. Using the southern VC as the spearhead of these attacks was an intentional device on the part of the North Vietnamese politcal leadership. They did not want to share power with the southerners after the war, so they sent them out to what was inevitable slaughter. The NVA mainforce battalions were held in "reserve" according to Vo Nguyen Giap, in order to "exploit any breakthroughs".
In the first week of the attack the NVA/VC lost 32,204 confirmed killed, and 5,803 captured. US losses were 1,015 KHA, while ARVN losses were 2,819 killed. ARVN losses were higher because the NVA/VC, reluctant to enter into a set-piece battle with US forces, attacked targets defended almost exclusively by South Vietnamese troops.
Casualties among the people whom the NVA/VC claimed to be "liberating" were in excess of 7,000, with an additional 5,000 tortured and murdered by the NVA/VC in Hue and elsewhere. In Hue alone, allied forces discovered over 2,800 burial sites containing the mutilated bodies of local Vietnamese teachers, doctors, and political leaders.
http://www.11thcavnam.com/education/myth_the_tet_offensive_was_a_com.htm
And that is the point of this letter. The actions of John Kerry and the anti-war protesters caused American men and women to be killed in war time in Vietnam, the very war where they insisted we withdraw and claim we were at fault and it was all our fault; where Americans were all war criminals and “baby-killers”. And it was a war we were winning.
According to American records, a total of 58,193 American personnel died in Vietnam from all causes, with 36,152 having died by the end of 1968 when John Kerry entered Vietnam. Kerry entered the Swift Boat Service in December of 1968 and served only 4 months before being sent home after his third Purple Heart.
In 1969, 11,616 American personnel died, and that is the year Kerry started protesting against the Vietnam war after his service. He had already made public statements against the war at the speech he gave at his Yale graduation:
"What was an excess of isolationism has become an excess of interventionism. And this Vietnam War has found our policy makers forcing Americans into a strange corner . . . that if victory escapes us, it would not be the fault of those who lead, but of the doubters who stabbed them in the back -- notions all too typical of an America that had to find Americans to blame for the takeover in China by the communists, and then for the takeover in Cuba.
"The United States must, I think, bring itself to understand that the policy of intervention that was right for Western Europe does not and cannot find the same application to the rest of the world. "We have not really lost the desire to serve. We question the very roots of what we are serving.''
Kerry’s actions after the war began as early as 1969 while an Admiral’s aide:
In October 1969, while Kerry was still on active duty assigned to Admiral Schlech, Kerry was flying Adam Walinsky (Robert F. Kennedy's former speech writer), around New York state to deliver anti-war speeches. BY Jan. 3, 1970, Kerry had become so inspired by Walinsky's anti-war beliefs that he petitioned Admiral Schlech, "to tell his boss that his conscientious dictated that he protest the war, that he wanted out of the Navy immediately so that he could run for congress."
Admiral Schlech consented and Kerry received an honorable discharge from the Navy six months early.
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com/page2.html
Kerry was full force into the VVAW by early 1970. The anti-war movement was well known by then and many protests were held including the ill fated Kent State incident.
John Kerry did not just protest in the US because of his beliefs, he also traveled to meet the Communist leaders of North Vietnam in Paris.
“ John Kerry, in sworn testimony before the Senate in April 1971, said he met with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong delegations in Paris in May 1970. He said they discussed their peace proposals -- especially the eight points of Madam Binh. Kerry strongly recommended that the Senate accept those proposals.
I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh's points...
…I realize that even my visits in Paris, precedents had been set by Senator McCarthy and others, in a sense are on the borderline of private individuals negotiating, et cetera.
In the ensuing months, Kerry became even more strident in his insistence that the US accept Madam Binh's (and the NVM and VC's) peace proposals.
Meanwhile, other representatives of Kerry's group, the Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW ), met with the NVM and VC delegations in Paris, in March 1971. They were even photographed sitting at a table with them, as in a photo displayed in Winter Soldiers, by Richard Stacewicz, page 284.
Subsequently, VVAW representatives met with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong delegations on numerous occasions, both in Paris and even in Hanoi.
The VVAW even signed a treaty with the North Vietnamese which included all of Madam Binh's points, as noted by the historian of the anti-war movement, Gerald Nicosia, his book Home To War: “
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=3778
The FBI has recently released the files on VVAW and can be found here, documenting the knowledge of Kerry’s visit to Paris to speak with the North Vietnamese:
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=VVAWFBI
These actions in meeting with foreign leaders who are directly engaged in treaty negotiations with the United States Government border on treason.
Did Navy Lt. Kerry violate The UCMJ?
August 23rd, 2004
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) is a federal law, enacted by Congress. Its provisions are contained in United States Code, Title 10, Chapter 47. Article 36 of the UCMJ allows the President to prescribe rules and procedures to implement the provisions of the UCMJ. The President does this via the Manual for Courts-Martial (MCM) which is an executive order that contains detailed instructions for implementing military law for the United States Armed Forces.
The UCMJ states:
ART. 104. AIDING THE ENEMY
Any person who--
(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or (2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;
shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=3778
John Kerry’s meeting with the North Vietnamese, the very people who are killing Americans in the war, borders precariously close to treason, enough to be investigated.
What must be reinforced here, however, is the effect of these actions concerning the point of this paper: How many men died at this point, and what did the North Vietnamese say about why they prolonged the war?
It was the American Anti-War movement.
John Kerry was a part of that movement, a major leader of that movement.
The North Vietnamese publicly stated that the American anti-war movement encouraged them to continue to fight.
The next connection is impossible to avoid: John Kerry’s actions directly lead to American servicemen and women to be killed in combat because of the encouragement his actions gave to the enemy, the North Vietnamese.
From 1970 until the end of American involvement in 1975, 9,586 Americans were killed in Vietnam. Killed because American anti-war protests encouraged the North Vietnamese to continue fighting the war.
It is not a stretch to see that the actions of John Kerry and Jane Fonda directly lead to the deaths of thousands of Americans in the Vietnam War.
Is this the only list of failures or deaths caused by the American Anti-war movement? Sadly, no.
American foreign policy was changed dramatically after the Vietnam War. American military dominance was questioned, new weapons programs were held back, American intelligence operations were ended and our CIA was attacked and almost shut down, efforts to remain technologically superior were thwarted at times, and material replacement of military hardware was slowed or refused after 1975.
American prestige was shattered globally. The newspapers of the world all spoke of the American loss in Vietnam, the movie industry put out movies showing Vietnam veterans as psychotic drug abusers or wife beaters and social misfits.
But most importantly, it shattered American resolve to fight when necessary. It caused American public opinion to sway and support a political party over another, even though the party portrayed in a negative light had nothing to do with causing the war and never received the respect it deserved with ending it without a total disaster for the American public had we followed the advice of the anti-war protesters.
This lack of resolve showed in 1975 when the North Vietnamese invaded the South and began a slaughter, killing as many as 1 Million people, causing over 1.5 Million to 2 Million people to flee in small boats to save their very lives.
This lack of resolve showed later that year when the Khymer Rouge began their systematic genocide in Cambodia, leaving the US powerless to intervene to stop the killing, and over 1 Million people were slaughtered.
This lack of resolve showed even in 1979 when the American Embassy was overrun in Tehran, Iran, and then President Jimmy Carter failed to respond with forceful effort with our military in response to the new world threat: Islamic Terrorism.
This lack of resolve showed when then President Ronald Reagan failed to fully make a military effort in Lebanon because of a lack of backing in the House and Senate.
This lack of resolve showed when the Contras were supported for a year or two, only to have the Democrat Senate and House remove the means to provide for their actions against a Communist dictatorship in Nicaragua.
By then, it was almost too late. American resolve was a joke. It took the efforts of Ronald Reagan to rebuild our military out of the shambles that Jimmy Carter left it. It took the efforts of George H. W. Bush in defending the nation of Kuwait in the first Gulf War.
But, once again, an anti-war person came to the forefront, Bill Clinton, who during the 1990’s, ignored the obvious threat of radical Islam that the world was facing.
And again, in 2001, with a lot of words, people like John Kerry started blaming someone else instead of the bad guys for 9/11. John Kerry voted for war against the Taliban, and then again voted for war against Saddam Hussein.
But what happened next? The Anti-War movement came out of hiding, and in a war where the enemy directly provided aide and support for terrorists who exploded bombs on American soil, anti-war activists have once again divided the American people, and John Kerry is one of their leaders . . .again.
It is not that much of a stretch to see what happened from John Kerry’s actions in the 1960’s to today, and how people like him affected our national government policy through their activism and actions.
By leading and organizing protests against the war, John Kerry encouraged the North Vietnamese to continue the war, and thousands of Americans died...
Over a Million South Vietnamese died...
Over a Million Cambodians died . . .
American prestige was tarnished. . .
Islamic terrorism was born and not stopped because of American reluctance to engage in combat after Vietnam, reluctance which was called the “Vietnam Syndrome” . . .
Communism attempted to overthrow more countries in our own hemisphere . . .
An anti-war leader, Bill Clinton, carrying on the same traditions as John Kerry, failed to stop the obvious growing threat of Islamic Fundamentalist sponsored terrorism . . .
And now, we are engaged in a world wide terror war. The United States appears to be alone in it, too. All because of the pacifism of the American Anti-War movement of the 1960’s.
That’s when it started in our generation.
John Kerry has blood on his hands.
Jim Bancroft is a former Marine who served in the United States Marine Corps from 1977 to 1981, and served off the coast of Iran for the Hostage Rescue Attempt of April 24-25, 1980.
This might interest you.
Good post!
Here is how to post a link:
< a href="URL">GIVE DESCRIPTION
do not leave a blank space between the < and the a.
I know, this is a copy and paste from the original word document, I am just lazy it is 3AM here!
no blank space between < and a and no space between < and /
It is late here too, but thinks again for the post. It is a great one.
I dont often write, but this one had to be written and explained.
We need to move on from Kerry's actions in Vietnam, we made our point.
The next point is what he did when he came home. That's what this is about.
The third point is a quick one: What he did in the Senate! (The smallest book ever written)
This is a great, thoughtful, and well-researched essay.
I am 50 and I remember those days like it was yesterday.
I ALWAYS thought that it was the Soviet-provocateur-led anti-war culture which killed America's resolve to win the war. Kerry was a very useful chump in those anti-war efforts, and yes, he does have blood on his hands. Fonda at least had the (bare and belated) decency to apologize.
Thanks for the ping - - this one is bookmarked.
Semper fidelis,
LH
very nice, really ties it all together
First, I remember well the hostage rescue attempt. I was at Lejeune at the time and the place was abuzz that we were going.
Second, what's this "former" Marine stuff, Marine?
Semper fidelis,
LH
Very good Bttt
It seems like there is some disparity in the numbers. He quoted 36,000 KIA at the end of 1968 and 58,000 at the end of the war this amounts to more than the 9,000 additional deaths that he referred to. Did I miss something here. If somebody has an explanation, could they FReepmail me with it? Thanks
Thank you. If not for the internet, the research would have taken weeks.
If not for FR, the knowlege of those links would have been nil.
But I think these are the new points we need to focus on, we made our point on the Vietnam phoney ribbons and cowarice, this will take a few weeks to ramp up on, but the media will cover it if we press.
add in 1969, you went from the 1968 numbers, and then to the 1970-1975 numbers
:)
Thanks!
If not us, who?
If not now, when?
Good post.
Thanks for the post. It lays out everything in one easy to read and remember history lesson.
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