Posted on 10/14/2004 1:55:15 PM PDT by areafiftyone
The Swift Boat Controversy: New Witnesses
October 14, 2004
John Kerry's service in Vietnam has become a campaign issue. The group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth alleges that Kerry has distorted the truth about what happened during the war and questions whether he deserved the medals he received. Tonight, you'll hear from eyewitnesses who have not spoken before: the Vietnamese who fought against him.
We've had the debates and the race is a virtual dead-heat. This is the part of a campaign when there are daily fires--issues that rise, flare, and then go away, only to be replaced by a new one the next day. But for a while, this campaign was dominated by Vietnam, a war that ended, at least the fighting, thirty years ago. John Kerry made his service in Vietnam a major part of his campaign. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth fired back. They have alleged that Kerry was not truthful about his actions in Vietnam. Then questions were raised about the group's connections to people linked to the GOP. And so the story just kept spiraling in different directions. But the polls clearly showed that Kerry was hurt by allegations that he was not candid about his actions in Vietnam.
Which brings us to an old expression: the fog of war. People, in general, are not always great eyewitnesses. Memories fade, especially as the years go by. Two people standing next to each other may have very different recollections of something that happened right in front of them. But in the whole Swift Boat controversy, there is one group that hasn't been heard from at length: the Vietnamese. Producer Andrew Morse went to Vietnam, to the coordinates taken from the U.S. military after-action report from Kerry's battle for which he won the Silver Star. And there Andrew found several people who had either witnessed the events of that day, or in some cases, had actually fought against the swift boats. And it is their accounts that you will hear tonight. Do their accounts favor one version or the other? Can these questions be definitively settled? You'll have to judge. One of the surprising stories we were told? One of the Vietnamese men in the area says he was visited by a man claiming to be a swift boat veteran and a cameraman. He says the veteran was disparaging towards Kerry's conduct in the war, and asked him in an interview about the events of that day. We do not know who that man is, or whatever happened to that tape.
Ted will be anchoring tonight, and he will be joined by John O'Neill, a leader of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the author of Unfit for Command, a book critical of Kerry. I hope you'll join us.
Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff,br> Washington D.C.
You are correct. The more imporatant point is that Teddy was willing to take the word of the Vietnamese state apparatus, rather than even interview those Americans who were there.
I just watched my tape of the show again. I did not understand why Koppel was being so willingly obtuse in his efforts to get O'Neill to admit something so patently inconsistent with Kerry's own testimony to the event (as cited by O'Neill.)
When I listened closely to the report of the second Vietnamese woman amd man, I heard the translator say that huts were burned, pigs were killed and three rice farms were destroyed, by South Vietnamese under direction of the Americans.. This sounds eerily similar to Kerry's Senate testimony, which lately has been used in the Swift vets ads.
O'Neill asked Koppel why he was addressing this one issue for the third time, instead of investigating some of the other actions of Kerry.
Maybe it was to introduce the idea of Kerry's words being truthful in his 1971 charges of war crimes.
^^^^^^
Nightline showed an image of the after action report in question. Doesn't that have the name of the person making the report on it? I am sure it must, and it must say Lt (jg) Kerry!
The accounts were subsequently translated by a team of ABC News translators.”
Remember that one of Kerry's buddies used to be a Vietnamese translator during the war and afterwards. Now he is a rep to many big U.S. companies seeking to do business in Vietnam.
Maybe the Vietnam versions of the papers should be posted so that South Vietnamese who hate Kerry can look at them and verify the translations.
Rush is hitting the Kopple/O'Niell interview now.
I'm REALLY going to believe a communist, rather than the MULTIPLE American Officers and men that witnessed Kerry's non-heroic "deeds"...
With the exception of a few men on his own boat -- the overwhelming majority of his peer officers, paint Kerry as a self promoting, dangerous, reckless, outlaw and liar.... That's good enough for me..
And -- I'm not in the habit of believing sailors! ;-)
Semper Fi
Some ding-dong was just on Hannity and he said that Kerry brought all those POW/MIA's home - and that's why he's voting for Kerry. LOL!!
Well .. John sure had Ted stammering a lot trying to shut John up or talk over what John was saying. I was cracking up.
(no internet access this weekend, but had to chime in on this via pay at Kinkos...)
Sorry, but I agree with dead. John, bless his heart (and he personally wrote a nice note in my copy of his book), did not come across well, but more like a one-issue hot head. I have heard him speak on many shows and be challenged by the libs but for what may be his first interview on the mainstream alphabet networks, he did badly. It wouldn't matter, except that ABC and the others will take the tape of this interview and use it to trash him and the other swiftees. I know he was being set up by Koppell but his waving the books every 10 seconds (one in each hand) defeated the points he was trying to make because they made me (and likely others) lose track of what he was saying.
The CPVN commissars, with coaching from the "independent TV producer" (commie loving collaborator), could get any ten villagers to swear that Ho Chi Minh was alive, and living in the next ville over.
The real story to me is that ABC and Koppel put such credence in such coerced "testimony."
What's next, an "open and honest man in the street survey" in North Korea, to "hear what average North Koreans feel about Kim Jong Il?
Good points!
Like HE would know, for sure; and his source of information? Right. . .
And they found them so quickly too! Of course, they'll say ala rathergate that they have been working on it for five years...
John Kerry's service in Vietnam has become a campaign issue."
It took until October for these screwballs to figure this out?
To listen to Kerry all through the spring, it was pretty much the main issue.
I wanta know ....one of our freepers posted somewhere that we have slowly come up with the fact that Kerry was not officially discharged until some seven - eight years after his service date ended and that his official paperwork and records, etc., had to be all re-written. Now, I dont know about you but....
Here's what I have found out so far regarding the "freelance producer". His name is Kyle Horst aka R. Kyle Horst. He formerly worked for the United Nations (1980s) as did Teresa Heinz Kerry. At the UN he helped Vietnamese refugees relocate to the USA. He also worked for World Vision International (Christian organization) in Hanoi but apparently no longer does. I can find nothing which he has ever "produced" and suspect that ABC merely named him as such as a matter of convenience.
The UN connection to Teresa may just be coincidence, then again he may know her or they may have mutual friends at the UN. She used to do quite a bit of charity work and he seems to always be involved with sorts of efforts.
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
It would nice if someone from the MSM would look into this!
"Our authors R. Kyle hears R. Kyle hears 1957 in Pennsylvania was born. It was active for the UN and for relief organizations in Viet Nam and lives today as journalist, documentary film producer and a politics advisor in Clifton/Virginia. Publications: In the other library appeared common to hard from it, with George Brunold and Klaus 1999 of the other colors of the love"
A "politics advisor"? Oh really.... Hmmm....
The one question O'Neill never managed to get out, and maybe should have:
WHY DON'T YOU ASK JOHN KERRY, TED?
%%%%%%
I think I will use this question in my emails to Ted and Mark Halperin!
I think if you look closer, the birthdate is 1916. That means the man was 53 years old--definately not a teenager! One could mistake a 26 year old for a teenager, but not a 53 year old man. Maybe ABC would claim the guy was just wounded, and didn't die until nearly 2 years later?
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