Still Battling

A controversial documentary titled Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, about Sen. John F. Kerry’s anti-Vietnam War activities in the 1970s that was released just before the 2004 presidential election sparked at least five politically charged lawsuits.

In recent weeks, lawyers for the plaintiffs have dropped three libel suits brought by anti-war veterans who said they were falsely portrayed in the film made by journalist Carlton Sherwood.

Sherwood was also hit with a copyright infringement suit in New York that accused him of unfairly including clips from another film and photos from a book. But that case was dismissed last year.

Now the only remaining suit is a defamation and civil rights suit brought by Sherwood himself against Kerry and his Pennsylvania campaign manager, John Podesta, that accuses them of conspiring to stop the film from being shown.

The lawyer who was defending Sherwood in the libel suits, Robert C. Clothier of Fox Rothschild O’Brien & Frankel, is declaring victory, saying that plaintiff Kenneth Campbell’s sudden decision to drop his two lawsuits came on the eve of a series of depositions of his key witnesses.

“The last-minute withdrawal of the lawsuits on the eve of these depositions suggests a great trepidation about what would come out at the depositions,” Clothier said.

Clothier said that a friend of Campbell’s, Jon Bjornson, had brought a “copycat” suit against Sherwood last summer, but withdrew the suit early this year before any discovery had taken place.

But Campbell’s lawyer, James E. Beasley Jr. of The Beasley Firm, who also represented Bjornson, insisted that the upcoming depositions had nothing to do with Campbell’s decision to drop his claims.

“Tell him [Clothier] don’t flatter himself,” Beasley said when told of Clothier’s remark.

Beasley said in the complaint that the film had defamed Campbell by using “manipulative editing” of footage from the film Winter Soldiers to create the false impression that Campbell and another Vietnam vet had fabricated stories of atrocities.

But Beasley said Campbell decided to drop the suit because he had achieved many of his goals in bringing it by highlighting the controversy and persuading one area theater not to show it.

“At this point, what do we want to go further for? It seemed to be the right time to put a bullet in it,” Beasley said.

But Clothier said he believes Campbell dropped the lawsuits because he knew that the upcoming depositions would assist Sherwood in proving the truth of his film.

Stolen Honor focuses on Kerry and other Vietnam vets who protested the war and claimed that American soldiers were routinely committing war crimes by killing civilians and mistreating prisoners.

The film also focuses on the impact those efforts had on American prisoners of war in Hanoi, who say their treatment was made much worse when their North Vietnamese captors decided that, as war criminals, they were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention.

In the suits, Clothier said, Campbell claimed that the film defamed him even though he was never identified or mentioned by name.

According to Clothier, the film “merely show(s) him for a few seconds in a 35-year-old film clip asking questions of another man who said he had ‘forgotten’ about wiping out an entire village in Vietnam.”

But Beasley, in the suit, focused on a brief section of the film that, he says, portrayed Campbell in a false light by creating the impression that Campbell’s anti-war efforts, as documented in the film Winter Soldier, were nothing more than false allegations of wartime atrocities.

By showing only a tiny snippet of Winter Soldier, the suit said, Sherwood’s film engaged in “intentionally misleading editing” that left out critical facts showing that Campbell and the man he was speaking with were, in fact, Vietnam vets who “were aware of and/or participated in massacres (other than My Lai), and wished to truthfully show the American people and government the pattern and practice of the U.S. military in Vietnam, as evidenced by firsthand accounts of village massacres and murder in contradiction of international laws and the rules of our military.”

Campbell had filed two suits. The first named Sherwood and his production company, Red White & Blue Productions. The second named Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation and NewsMax.

Now that both of Campbell’s suits have been dropped, Sherwood’s only remaining court battle stemming from the film is his own suit against Kerry and Podesta.

Sherwood, who describes himself in the suit as a Pulitzer Prize- and Peabody Award-winning newspaper and television investigative reporter, contends that the film Stolen Honor tells the story of Kerry’s involvement with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, including the Winter Soldier hearings in Detroit in 1971 and his testimony before Congress.

Attorneys Howard D. Scher, Rudolph Garcia and Thomas P. Manning of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney set out in the suit to prove that Sherwood’s film truthfully shows that Kerry and others had exaggerated and fabricated allegations of atrocities.

Kerry’s allegations, the suit says, were “concocted by anti-war activists to undermine public support for the war.”

The suit says Kerry knew that testimony in the Winter Soldier hearings was false, and that Kerry “personally pressed ‘witnesses’ to manufacture stories of atrocities that the ‘witnesses’ had neither participated in nor witnessed.”

Sherwood made the film, the suit says, “to explain to the public the sense of betrayal felt by many Vietnam veterans — particularly among former POWs — against Kerry and others who had built their reputations by slandering America’s Vietnam veterans.”

The suit says Sherwood had struck deals to have his 42-minute film shown on 62 television stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcasting Group and in the Baederwood Theater in Abington, Pa.

But the suit says the theater showing was canceled and that Sinclair ultimately aired only a few minutes of the film due to a “coordinated conspiracy” by Kerry, Podesta and others to “discredit and silence Sherwood.”

According to the suit, the Democratic National Committee issued an “action alert” in October 2004 that said Stolen Honor was “written, produced and funded by extreme right-wing activists” and was “false.”

The truth, the suit says, is that the film was written and produced entirely by Sherwood and funded entirely by Pennsylvania veterans.

The suit also quotes an e-mail in which Podesta described Sherwood as a “disgraced former journalist” and “Bush hack” who had “crawled out of the gutter.”

Podesta’s e-mail urged its recipients to contact the Baederwood Theater to insist that the film not be shown.

Sherwood also claims in the suit that Kerry was behind Campbell’s decision to file his defamation suit.

“Campbell was acting at the behest of, and on behalf of, Kerry in filing this lawsuit and in publicly stating that Stolen Honor was false, in an effort to prevent the public from seeing the film,” the suit says.

The suit says Kerry was also behind the copyright lawsuit filed in New York which sought an injunction barring the film from being shown by Sinclair, and that “once the 2004 election had passed,” the plaintiffs in that case “made no further efforts to enforce their purported copyrights, to obtain an injunction, or recover any damages.”

Kerry was also the motivating force, the suit says, behind a letter sent to the Federal Communications Commission by 17 Democratic senators that called for an investigation of Sinclair’s decision to air the film.

“The senators’ letter was intended as pure intimidation,” the suit says. Lawyers for Kerry and Podesta have moved to dismiss Sherwood’s suit, arguing that none of the remarks made by the Kerry campaign were defamatory and that the actions of others, such as filing lawsuits and writing to the FCC, are protected by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine.

Kerry’s lawyers — Paul J. Bschorr, Alan K. Cotler, Shannon Elise McClure, Kevin C. Abbott and Colin E. Wrabley of Reed Smith — argue in their brief that Sherwood’s film had attacked Kerry personally, going so far as to accuse him of war crimes.

Kerry and his supporters, they argue, “did what would be expected in the realm of politics — they fought back and challenged the veracity of the movie and its author.”

Although Sherwood claims he was defamed by Kerry and others, the defense team argues that the Kerry campaign’s response to the film is “squarely within the long-recognized First Amendment protection afforded to such political speech.”

Podesta’s lawyers — Michael N. Onufrak and Thomas A. Warnock of White & Williams — argued in their motion to dismiss that Sherwood and his production company are “public figures” because they “voluntarily injected themselves into a public controversy when they published a documentary discussing opposition to the Vietnam War and attacking a presidential candidate days before the election.”

The suit fails, Onufrak and Warnock argue, because Sherwood cannot show “actual malice” since the alleged defamatory statements “were not made with actual malice but rather in response to plaintiffs’ attack and with the intention of advancing a presidential candidate’s campaign.”

Senior U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam has not yet ruled on the motions to dismiss, but court records show that Sherwood’s lawyers asked the judge on July 10 to take “judicial notice” of the fact that Campbell has now dropped his defamation lawsuits.

In their motion, Sherwood’s lawyers said “Campbell’s voluntary discontinuance is evidence in support of the fact that the suit was objectively baseless.”

The motion also says that the timing of Campbell’s filing of the suit and his recent decision to drop the case is “evidence that the suit was instituted at the behest of and on behalf of [Kerry and Podesta] in order to use the legal process, as opposed to the outcome of that process, to prevent the broadcast and public showing of Stolen Honor.”

"Yes, indeed- John Kerry thinks it's 1971 all over again. Yesterday, on "Face the Nation"
John Kerry once again slams American troops- Check it out-

"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the-of-the historical customs, religious customs."

Here is the transcript for "Face the Nation"-

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/face_120405.pdf

You will find this statement at the bottom of page 4 and the top of page 5.

"When former Attorney General Ramsey Clark isn’t defending Saddam Hussein, or giving speeches for the crypto-Stalinist International ANSWER, he’s acting as counsel for the Palestine Liberation Organization, trying to prevent families of murdered Jews from collecting on judgments against the PLO."
Little Green Footballs ^ | November 28, 2005 | Charles Johnson

From Kerry's "The New Soldier":

Al Hubbard Sgt., 22 Troop Carrier Squadron Aug. ’65-June ’66
Emotions: Walking down the flight line at Saigon past stacks of aluminum cases containing American bodies and past stacks of aluminum luggage containing American currency. Seeing the tight, sad face of an Airman loading the bodies aboard a dirty Air Force Transport and the wide smiling face of a stewardess greeting the passengers aboard a clean Pan American Clipper Jet. Hearing a Vietnamese beg you to leave his country and an American colonel tells you to bomb his country. Hearing a Vietnamese invite you to live in his home, after the war and an American explain why you can’t live in his block, after the war. Flying over barren, brown, safe American held terrain and over lush, green unsafe enemy terrain. Feeling happy to be leaving a country in which you do not belong and sad to be returning to a country in which you are not allowed to belong. Sacrificing a portion of your consciousness so you won’t have to deal with being there and building mental blocks so you won’t have to deal with having been there.

- Al Hubbard, proven fraud who never set foot in Viet Nam. The only Vietnamese he ever met was when he was collaborating with the North Vietnamese in Paris on the American Communist Party's nickel.

John Kerry's explanation: "He (Hubbard) simply exaggarated his particular position.
But nobody knew it at the time.
And those things happen."

Free online version of
hanoi kerry's playbook "The New Soldier"
You can read it online right now.

I helped expose this SOB during the 04 campaign. This slime bucket was, has been for 35 years, and remains, not only one of FJK's friends, but has worked on all of his campaigns.

WARNING: If you are a Marine (especially); a Nam Vet; a Veteran of any time, a patriot, or just someone who loves our country and respects and supports our military and have never read this before, please take your heart meds before proceeding, or have a couple of adult beverages standing by.

One Of Kerry’s Band Of Brothers – Joe Bangert
August 25th, 2004

The American Thinker

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=3782

When John Kerry gave his victory speech the night of the New Hampshire primary, he said he was indebted to a specific group around him on stage.

“In the hardest moments of the past month, I depended on the same band of brothers I depended on more than 30 years ago,” said Kerry, with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, beside him. “We’re a little older now, a little grayer, but we still know how to fight for our country.

“And if I am president, I pledge that those who wore the uniform of the United States of America will have a voice and a champion in the Oval Office.”

A few feet away, wearing the Marine Corps cap he has owned since serving in Vietnam, stood Brewster resident Joseph Bangert – one of the proverbial boys in the band.

Kerry and Joe Bangert embraced. Then Bangert stood between Teresa Heinz Kerry and her victorious husband basking in the victory. A victory his work as a Kerry veterans organizer had helped to achieve.

Bangert and Kerry had first met thirty four years before in 1970, in Detroit, during the Vietnam Veterans Against The War’s “Winter Soldier Investigation,” a project funded by Jane Fonda and the conspiracy theorist Mark Lane.

Inspired by the then recent news reports of the My Lai massacre, the WSI’s organizers sought to prove that such war crimes were committed by US troops on an almost daily basis.

However, many of the participants were subsequently revealed to have been frauds. Many had not ever seen combat. Many had not ever been to Vietnam. Some had not even served in the military.

Joe Bangert was one of the WSI’s star participants. His testimony along with many of the others at the event, was entered into the Congressional Record on April 6, 1971. > The following is an excerpt of Joe Bangert’s testimony before the Winter Soldier Investigation as collected on the usenet group, alt.vietnam:

Joe Bangert, Sgt. (E-5) VMO-6, PMAG-39, 1st Marine Air Wing, 1st Marine Division (October 1968 to October 1969)

BANGERT. My name is Joe Bangert. I’m a Philadelphia resident. I enlisted in the Marine Corps for four years in 1967. I went to Vietnam in 1968. My unit in Vietnam was Marine Observation Squadron Six with the First Marine Air Wing and my testimony will cover the slaughter of civilians, the skinning of a Vietnamese woman, the type of observing our squadron did in Vietnam and the crucifixion of Vietnamese either suspects or civilians in Vietnam.

MODERATOR. Mr. Bangert, there’s an incident here where you found crucified bodies hanging on barbed wire fences and in the same incident you witnessed South Vietnamese civilians shot without provocation on Highway 1. Could you go into this and kind of see how they are related?

BANGERT. I can cover a couple of these at the same time. The first day I got to Vietnam I landed in Da Nang Air Base. From Da Nang Air Base I took a plane to Dong Ha. I got off the plane and hitchhiked on Highway 1 to my unit. I was picked up by a truckload of grunt Marines with two company grade officers, 1st Lts.; we were about 5 miles down the road, where there were some Vietnamese children at the gateway of the village and they gave the old finger gesture at us.

It was understandable that they picked this up from the GIs there. They stopped the trucks—they didn’t stop the truck, they slowed down a little bit, and it was just like response, the guys got up, including the lieutenants, and just blew all the kids away. There were about five or six kids blown away and then the truck just continued down the hill. That was my first day in Vietnam.

As far as the crucified bodies, they weren’t actually crucified with nails, but they would find VCs or something (I never got the story on them) but, anyway, they were human beings, obviously dead, and they would take them and string them out on fences, on barbed wire fences, stripped, and sometimes they would take flesh wounds, take a knife and cut the body all over the place to make it bleed, and look gory as a reminder to the people in the village.

Also in Quang Tri City I had a friend who was working with USAID and he was also with CIA. We used to get drunk together and he used to tell me about his different trips into Laos on Air America Airlines and things. One time he asked me would I like to accompany him to watch. He was an adviser with an ARVN group and Kit Carson’s. He asked me if I would like to accompany him into a village that I was familiar with to see how they act. So I went with him and when we got there the ARVNs had control of the situation. They didn’t find any enemy but they found a woman with bandages. So she was questioned by six ARVNs and the way they questioned her, since she had bandages, they shot her. She was hit about twenty times. After she was questioned, and, of course, dead, this guy came over, who was a former major, been in the service for twenty years, and he got hungry again and came back over working with USAID, Aid International Development. He went over there, ripped her clothes off and took a knife and cut, from her vagina almost all the way up, just about up to her breasts and pulled her organs out, completely out of her cavity, and threw them out. Then, he stopped and knelt over and commenced to peel every bit of skin off her body and left her there as a sign for something or other and that was those instances.

Bangert went on to give accounts of fraggings and other similarly outlandish episodes he claimed to have witnessed first hand.

It is clear Kerry had Bangert’s and others’ similar claims in mind when he made his now notorious accusations against US troops in his sworn testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee six months later.

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam…

An excerpt of Bangert’s testimony was even included in Kerry’s long suppressed book, The New Soldier, along with many other quotes from the WSI witnesses. Though strangely, there was little mention in the book of the atrocities that were the theme and purpose of the investigation.

In 1971 Bangert, like Kerry, traveled to Paris to meet with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong delegations. A highlight of which, Bangert says, was when he got to sing the Ballad Of Ho Chi Minh for the assembled guests. We had a great banquet with the diplomatic delegations of both the DRVN and the PRGSVN and later some music began….

I had boldly decided to wear a close fitting shirt which had emblazened on the front of it the flag of the National Liberation Front of south Viet Nam. It was then that I belted out both “We Will Liberate the South” (Giai Phong Mien Nam) the national anthem of the NLF in Vietnamese—for I am a linguist—and ended that portion of the show with the Ballad of Uncle Ho. It was a show stopper to say these least.

Here are a few lyrics from The Ballad Of Ho Chin Minh:

Now Ho Chi Minh went to the mountains

And he trained a determined band

Heroes all, sworn to liberate the Indo-Chinese people

Drive invaders from the land.

Bangert brags that he has sung the song more than a thousand times in public. Indeed, he performed the song a little more than a year ago in concert at Joe’s Pub in New York City.

Nevertheless, Joe Bangert, has worked closely with John Kerry on many if not all of his political campaigns, getting out the veteran vote. He worked on Kerry’s first Senate bid in 1984 and up to the recent primaries as a veterans organizer.

Some questions arise about John Kerry’s judgment in this matter. How could he include such a person in his “band of brothers”? How could he employ such a man as a trusted advisor and veterans organizer for so many years?

And what would Vietnam Vets think about Joe Bangert? Do they know who Kerry has trying to get out their vote?

Steve Gilbert is a writer in New York

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