Film: Accusations and Flaws, All Serious (Stolen Honor by the "What Me Worried About Honor" Times)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - The documentary that Sinclair Broadcast Group has instructed 40 of its television stations to feature in a broadcast on Friday night makes some of the most serious accusations against Senator John Kerry of the campaign. The accusations include that he single-handedly prolonged the Vietnam War, worsened the torture of prisoners of war and ultimately caused countless, needless deaths with his antiwar activism 30 years ago.

The film is rife with out-of-context and incomplete quotations from Mr. Kerry and other antiwar veterans. Several historians said many accusations in it were not provable or stretched far beyond reality.

Throughout, the film shows wrenching images of torture as ex-prisoners of war recount the deep sense of betrayal they felt after hearing about Mr. Kerry's Senate testimony in 1971 in which he recounted atrocities by American troops.

Mr. Kerry's backers acknowledge many veterans' frustration over Mr. Kerry's antiwar statements then. The supporters have not actively challenged assertions from former prisoners of war who are anti-Kerry that their Vietcong captors referred to his testimony during torture.

Historians not connected to the Kerry campaign dispute the central assertion of the film, that Mr. Kerry was responsible for prolonging the war and the prisoners' torture. In the film, several veterans estimate that the war dragged out for an extra two years because of Mr. Kerry's statements in 1971.

Some historians say that gives Mr. Kerry, and probably the antiwar movement, too much credit. Although the North Vietnamese were well aware of antiwar sentiment in the United States and took heart from it, the movement was in full steam by the time Mr. Kerry joined.

"The rise of the antiwar movement had been a factor in North Vietnamese decision making six or seven years before Kerry joined it," said William J. Duiker, a former professor of East Asian studies at Pennsylvania State University who has written extensively about the wartime strategy of Hanoi, where he was stationed in the mid-1960's while in the foreign service. The only factor that changed the way prisoners of war were treated, Professor Duiker and others said, was the peace treaty that President Richard M. Nixon signed with the North Vietnamese in 1973 that paved the way to release the prisoners.

The film opens with the film's producer, Carlton A. Sherwood, a former investigative reporter and a Vietnam veteran, saying although he has undertaken many journalistic endeavors, the history of Mr. Kerry's antiwar activism is "a lot more personal." He recalls listening to Mr. Kerry's testimony in 1971, saying, "I felt an inner hurt no surgeon's scalpel could remove."

Other veterans appear, saying Mr. Kerry wrongly accused them of war crimes. The film says Mr. Kerry never saw the atrocities he reported. It has a snippet of his testimony on soldiers' cutting off ears and raping women. The snippet is edited to a sentence where Mr. Kerry says he did not witness those scenes, that he was reporting testimony from the Winter Soldier hearings that the Vietnam Veterans Against the War used in 1971 to show that war crimes like the My Lai massacre were not isolated.

Mr. Kerry made clear in his testimony and on "Meet the Press" that year that he was not blaming the veterans but rather the leadership that had come up with "free fire'' zones, encouraged body counts and authorized areas for airstrikes.

Kenneth Cordier, a former war prisoner and former volunteer veterans' adviser to President Bush's campaign, says in the film, "I was outraged, and still am, that he willingly said things which were untrue."

Several historians said yesterday that Mr. Kerry's testimony could be legitimately criticized for greatly exaggerating the frequency of atrocities but that atrocities did occur.

"They didn't happen with the frequency with which John Kerry talks about them in the truncated comments we've all heard," said Gary D. Solis, a former marine who is a law professor at West Point.

But, Professor Solis said, "All the things that Senator Kerry described did happen, no question."

He said My Lai was unparalleled in ferocity, and in the number of Vietnamese killed and raped.

"Were there things like cutting off ears and war crimes?'' he asked. "Sure there were."

Mr. Kerry's critics often point to a 1978 book by Guenther Lewy that said that some veterans whose names were used at the Winter Soldier hearings said they had never spoken there.

Is John Kerry a War Criminal and a Traitor?

Consider the following.

After the Tet Offensive of 1968, the Viet Cong were decimated, the North Vietnam Communists were beaten, but with the Socialist leaning press in America and the VVAW’s antiwar protests the North Vietnamese Communists decided to hold on. John Kerry did not join VVAW until after his return from Vietnam in early 1969, and until then VVAW didn’t have very many members (8,500) and were not very successful at getting heard. The FBI reports that VVAW was nearly inactive until the Moratoriums in the fall of 1969. See pg 90 So, the press and the antiwar movement in America prevented the North Vietnamese Communists from surrendering.

This meant that instead of a US victory in South Vietnam and freedom for the South Vietnamese we had about 10,000 more US deaths from the time John Kerry came on board with the VVAW until the end of the war. America’s POW's were being tortured while listening to tapes of John "Traitor" Kerry calling them baby killers. America’s brave soldiers were dieing in the jungles of Vietnam and John Kerry

The VVAW, an antiwar group, founded in the spring of 1967, which Kerry was one of the national leaders of, was receiving directions from the North Vietnamese Communist Government. VVAW in contact with in contact with NV Communist Government

The directions were on how the VVAW should protest the Vietnam War.

The interaction became so depraved, that the North Vietnamese Communist contacted the VVAW via a phone call and advised the VVAW that they were getting ready to start an attack on US troops and that the VVAW was to be prepared to increase the protests against the increase in bombing that the NV Communists were sure would happen. This put our men in further danger because of John Kerry and VVAW actions. VVAW gets directions from the North Vietnamese Communists

Al Hubbard, a leader of the VVAW briefed the NV, Soviets and other communist countries concerning “Electronic Battlefield Vietnam” as to tactics, methods and equipment which put US troops at extreme risk. Link to EBV

John Kerry had no concern for the lives of his fellow soldiers in Vietnam or the POW's, John Kerry only cared about himself and his ambition to become POTUS, whatever the cost.

How many deaths of United States servicemen does John Kerry have on his hands?

How many families has John Kerry's behavior as a VVAW leader and a traitor to his country caused untold pain and suffering to?

How many unnecessary tears have been cried because John Kerry betrayed our trust to help a Communist government?

Does John Kerry still have ties to Communists in America?

John Kerry was an officer in the US Navy during his protests of the Vietnam War, having not received his discharge until 1978.

Why didn't John Kerry speak out just one time against the war crimes of his "Comrades in Arms the North Vietnamese Communists"?

Steven J. Pitkin says about his Winter Soldier testimony. “John Kerry and other leaders of that event pressured me to testify about American war crimes, despite my repeated statements that I could not honestly do so. One event leader strongly implied that I would not be provided transportation back to my home in Baltimore, Maryland, if I failed to comply. Kerry and other leaders of the event instructed me to publicly state that I had witnessed incidents of rape, brutality, atrocities and racism, knowing that such statements would necessarily be untrue.”

I've also been wondering why Kerry never reported the atrocities he supposedly witnessed while in Vietnam. Maybe because Kerry may have never witnessed any atrocities while he was in Vietnam. The VVAW leaders were meeting with the North Vietnamese Communist Government, leaders of the Communist Party in Moscow, and possibly the KGB, leaders of the Communist Party International in Paris, leaders of the Communist Party USA, and last but not least the group of Communists in South Vietnam that backed the North Vietnamese Communists.

These Communist groups were directing the VVAW leaders as to what they wanted them to do, when they wanted them to do it, and that is what the VVAW did.

So in a nutshell, when the world communist leaders told Kerry and his VVAW group what to do, that is what they did, no questions asked.

Then there is this posted by Freeper Quilla!

In the last few weeks several political insiders have forgotten themselves and referred to TWA Flight 800, the airliner, which exploded in July of 1996 just east of New York City, as a terrorist incident. But only one has done it twice.

That person is Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Appearing on "Larry King Live" on Sept. 11 of this year, Kerry suggested that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by a terrorist act. The second admission took place on Sept. 24 on "Hardball" with Chris Matthews. On this occasion, Kerry casually recited a number of terrorist attacks against the United States, among them TWA "Flight 800." Like Larry King before him, Chris Matthews either did not catch the remark or chose to let it pass.

And that there is this posted by Freeper Fedora:

According to Newsweek magazine, Kerry met with Liu Chaohying, a Hong Kong businesswoman who wanted to have her company listed on the U.S. Stock Exchange. Kerry lobbied on her behalf by helping to organize a meeting between Liu Chaohying and a senior Securities and Exchange (SEC) official.

In return, Kerry accepted a $10,000 contribution in the form of a Beverly Hills Fundraise on Sept 9, 1996, less than a month before the election, Newsweek reported.

It would later be established that Liu Chaohying was not simply a profit-motivated businesswoman, but rather a lieutenant colonel in the Communist China's Peoples Liberation Army.

Newsweek reported that more than $28,000 in illegal contributions were funneled into the campaign of then President Bill Clinton and Kerry, and that "the contributions came out of $300,00 in overseas wire transfers sent on orders from the chief of the Chinese military intelligence - and routed through a Hong Kong bank account controlled by Liu Chaohying."

The Los Angeles Times reported that Senator Kerry sent 28 letters on behalf of San Diego defense contractor Parthassarthi "Bob" Majumder between 1996 and 1999 in order to "free up federal funds" for a guided missile system designed by Majumder. In return, court documents show, Majumder induced his employees to contribute approximately $25,000 to Senator Kerry's campaign, while paying them proceeds from the government tracts in return.

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