John Kerry to strike back at "infidelity"-coverage, will appear on Imus-Show [LIVE THREAD]

ShortNews ^ | Friday the 13th 2004

[leadpenny]

LBJ and Nixon were.

[BlessedByLiberty]

An ambitious, manipulative John F Kerry is responsible -as is Fonda- for leading impressionable young people to march in the streets jeopardizing the lives of the troops still in harms way.

He is responsible for his testimony before Congress to further his malevolent ambitions.He indicted the troops - the real band of brothers - without any proof and for that he must be held accountable in the public arena.

[WOSG]

"No, I'm not going to focus on that stuff. ... My point was that Kerry is not responsible for it."

Kerry is responsible for his words. He lied. Why cant we hold a man responsible for submitting testimony that is based on false and phony allegations? Why cant we point out that he smeared the military? The lies and distortions of the "Winter Soldier" agit-prop 'investigation' and the inflammatory nature of his testimony to Congress are in the public record.

The hypocrisy of Kerry running away from this without either apologizing or explaining his views on this is stunning.

It is clear the anti-war activists were largely responsible for turning the Vietnam war into a defeat. The 1973 peace treaty that Nixon and Kissinger put together would have held had the US been more resolute. Vietnamese generals post-war admitted as much. Our resolution was dissolved by anti-war activists thoroughly lying about the nature of the conflict, what was at stake, what they wanted, what the US was doing, the Communists, etc.

Anti-war activists like Kerry - who back in 1971 was saying the UN should be deciding where we can send troops - need to be held accountable for their beliefs and statements and the consequences of them, just as LBJ etc. should be accountable.

"You said my loyalties were misplaced. Who are you to tell me where my loyalties should be?"

I said that because you are running interference for Imus on this thread. Imus is a grownup media guy, he doesnt need handlers.

[leadpenny]

I'm glad you have the Vietnam War all figured out. I'm not there yet. Please don't attempt to put your conclusions up as if they counter my non-existant support of Kerry. I don't have all the answers like you do. Kerry is no more responsible for what we call Vietnam than you or I. LBJ is. And, LBJ is responsible for Kerry.

You don't like Imus - don't watch him. He entertains me. That's more than I can say for you.

[Jackie-O]

I haven't had the opportunity to catch Imus. So what your saying is that even if the producers of his show restricted his format, he would play it the way he wants?
Yes I'm waiting for the DNC to start pointing fingers at the RNC for fabricating this story. Or have they done it already??

[WOSG]

It's not so much that I 'figured out' the Vietnam war or have all the answers, any more than I 'figured out' the Civil War or WWII. It's just that I've listened to those who won the Vietnam war on the questions of how they won it. This is from the Wall Street Journal, 1977:

---

What did the North Vietnamese leadership think of the American antiwar movement? What was the purpose of the Tet Offensive? How could the U.S. have been more successful in fighting the Vietnam War? Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese army, answers these questions in the following excerpts from an interview conducted by Stephen Young, a Minnesota attorney and human-rights activist. Bui Tin, who served on the general staff of North Vietnam's army, received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. He later became editor of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of Vietnam. He now lives in Paris, where he immigrated after becoming disillusioned with the fruits of Vietnamese communism.

Question: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the Americans?

Answer: By fighting a long war which would break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh said, "We don't need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out."

Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi's victory?

A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers 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 and that she would struggle along with us.

Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits?

A: Keenly.

Q: Why?

A: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.

Q: How could the Americans have won the war?

A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted [Gen. William] Westmoreland's requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.

Q: Anything else?

A: Train South Vietnam's generals. The junior South Vietnamese officers were good, competent and courageous, but the commanding general officers were inept.

Q: Did Hanoi expect that the National Liberation Front would win power in South Vietnam?

A: No. Gen. [Vo Nguyen] Giap [commander of the North Vietnamese army] believed that guerrilla warfare was important but not sufficient for victory. Regular military divisions with artillery and armor would be needed. The Chinese believed in fighting only with guerrillas, but we had a different approach. The Chinese were reluctant to help us. Soviet aid made the war possible. Le Duan [secretary general of the Vietnamese Communist Party] once told Mao Tse-tung that if you help us, we are sure to win; if you don't, we will still win, but we will have to sacrifice one or two million more soldiers to do so.

Q: Was the National Liberation Front an independent political movement of South Vietnamese?

A: No. It was set up by our Communist Party to implement a decision of the Third Party Congress of September 1960. We always said there was only one party, only one army in the war to liberate the South and unify the nation. At all times there was only one party commissar in command of the South.

Q: Why was the Ho Chi Minh trail so important?

A: It was the only way to bring sufficient military power to bear on the fighting in the South. Building and maintaining the trail was a huge effort, involving tens of thousands of soldiers, drivers, repair teams, medical stations, communication units.

Q: What of American bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail?

A: Not very effective. Our operations were never compromised by attacks on the trail. At times, accurate B-52 strikes would cause real damage, but we put so much in at the top of the trail that enough men and weapons to prolong the war always came out the bottom. Bombing by smaller planes rarely hit significant targets.

Q: What of American bombing of North Vietnam?

A: If all the bombing had been concentrated at one time, it would have hurt our efforts. But the bombing was expanded in slow stages under Johnson and it didn't worry us. We had plenty of times to prepare alternative routes and facilities. We always had stockpiles of rice ready to feed the people for months if a harvest were damaged. The Soviets bought rice from Thailand for us.

Q: What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet Offensive?

A: To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year.

Q: What about Gen. Westmoreland's strategy and tactics caused you concern?

A: Our senior commander in the South, Gen. Nguyen Chi Thanh, knew that we were losing base areas, control of the rural population and that his main forces were being pushed out to the borders of South Vietnam. He also worried that Westmoreland might receive permission to enter Laos and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

In January 1967, after discussions with Le Duan, Thanh proposed the Tet Offensive. Thanh was the senior member of the Politburo in South Vietnam. He supervised the entire war effort. Thanh's struggle philosophy was that "America is wealthy but not resolute," and "squeeze tight to the American chest and attack." He was invited up to Hanoi for further discussions. He went on commercial flights with a false passport from Cambodia to Hong Kong and then to Hanoi. Only in July was his plan adopted by the leadership. Then Johnson had rejected Westmoreland's request for 200,000 more troops. We realized that America had made its maximum military commitment to the war. Vietnam was not sufficiently important for the United States to call up its reserves. We had stretched American power to a breaking point. When more frustration set in, all the Americans could do would be to withdraw; they had no more troops to send over.

Tet was designed to influence American public opinion. We would attack poorly defended parts of South Vietnam cities during a holiday and a truce when few South Vietnamese troops would be on duty. Before the main attack, we would entice American units to advance close to the borders, away from the cities. By attacking all South Vietnam's major cities, we would spread out our forces and neutralize the impact of American firepower. Attacking on a broad front, we would lose some battles but win others. We used local forces nearby each target to frustrate discovery of our plans. Small teams, like the one which attacked the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, would be sufficient. It was a guerrilla strategy of hit-and-run raids.

Q: What about the results?

A: Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise;. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election. The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.

Q: What of Nixon?

A: Well, when Nixon stepped down because of Watergate we knew we would win. Pham Van Dong [prime minister of North Vietnam] said of Gerald Ford, the new president, "he's the weakest president in U.S. history; the people didn't elect him; even if you gave him candy, he doesn't dare to intervene in Vietnam again." We tested Ford's resolve by attacking Phuoc Long in January 1975. When Ford kept American B-52's in their hangers, our leadership decided on a big offensive against South Vietnam.

Q: What else?

A: We had the impression that American commanders had their hands tied by political factors. Your generals could never deploy a maximum force for greatest military effect.

[Cboldt]

So what your saying is that even if the producers of his show restricted his format, he would play it the way he wants? Yes I'm waiting for the DNC to start pointing fingers at the RNC for fabricating this story. Or have they done it already??

I have no idea what restrictions MSNBC puts on Imus and his program format. I suspect they'd be pissed if he started playing Polka music for the duration of his program. But, I doubt the powers'that-be micromanage how he conducts interviews, Imus is perfectly capable of micro-managing his own show, according to his own sensibilities relating to maintenance of ratings.

The DNC started blaming the RNC before Drudge even put the report of media investigation of Kerry out. The story of media investigation was out on Feb 6, on at least one bloggers site.

[WOSG]

PS. "Kerry is no more responsible for what we call Vietnam than you or I." I agree, and I never claimed that. I claimed that Kerry smeared our military is what I am claiming. I'm not holding him responsible for the Vietnam conflict itself from 1965 on, that's silly.

PPS. "And, LBJ is responsible for Kerry." On that, we part company. we each are responsible for our own actions. Kerry could have disagreed with the conduct of the war in a decent way that didnt accuse the *whole* military of "war crimes" on every level of command, etc.

[leadpenny]

I haven't had the opportunity to catch Imus. So what your saying is that even if the producers of his show restricted his format, he would play it the way he wants?

I don't know where to start. No one, I mean NO ONE controls Imus. (Well, maybe Diedra.) The powerful come to him. He is a big-hearted curmudgeon who hates just about everyone at one time or another..

[The Wizard]

Where was Mrs. Heinz at the Clark announcement???

[leadpenny]

Ya know, I watched 68 happen between tours from Ft. Rucker, Alabama. I came of age then. In a strange sort of way I respected much of the anti-war crowd. I remember thinking, "what do I stand for?" I never waived a flag and said I was going to Nam and kill a commie for my country. I did my job. But people exercising their right to free speech, now that was something to me. And, even though I disagreed with what they said, I realized I was fighting for their right to say it. That has always made me proud.

Ninety Nine percent of the boys and girls in Iraq and Afghanistan probably feel somewhat the same as I did. They want to get their buddies and themselves out alive. They will decide later why they were there.

Kerry could have disagreed with the conduct of the war in a decent way . . .

I don't know what that means but I know what freedom of speech is.

[leadpenny]

Again, that has, "I, Lyndon Baines Johnson take full responsiblity for the outcome of the Vietnam War" written all over it. Blaming Kerry is to blame me. A commander is responsible for everthing that happens, fails to happen or happens improperly in his/her command. LBJ was the CinC.

[GraceCoolidge]

Funny how Senator Kerry now says "all Americans disagreed with what Jane Fonda did." Too bad he couldn't muster up the energy to denounce her with the same enthusiasm he had to slander his fellow veterans. I wish some reporter had the guts to ask him on the campaign trail if the "band of brothers" accompanying him includes the genocidal rapist baby killers that he described in his Senate testimony? Or maybe just quote some of his testimony to the veterans themselves and ask them directly if they can corroborate it?

[WOSG]

On Vietnam War

If you read carefully, you see that the North Vietnamese General doesnt say a person is responsible, but a set of strategies and actions caused us to lose - he does say bombing the North would have been effective, bombing the HoChiMinh trail wasnt, the antiwar movement was an enormous help to them, and the VietCong were an integrated part of an explicit war strategy directed by the North Vietnam Communist Government, and they were aided more by the Soviets than China. Bombing the North, cutting off supplies and training South Vietnam would have been a successful US strategy.

You are correct that LBJ should take the blame for having a failed approach to the war, because he failed to do any of the things the North Vietnamese General says would have worked - LBJ & Co. were too incremental, trying to defeat a symptom (the VietCong) and not the source of the aggression (north vietnam), and not having a clear vision for success, and interfering too much in military decisions.

The Communists in Vietnam had a plan since 1961 to take over the whole country through aggression, though, and even JFK gets some blame for worsening certain things. Nixon's policies and the fact that Tet was in fact a US military success (though we didnt know it at the time) might have turned the tide sooner, but as the general noted, we withdrew forces under Nixon. But Nixon eventually came close enough to the successful formula in 1973 with Linebacker bombings that he acheived the Paris Peace Talks and won the same kind of peace treaty achieved in Korea in 1953. A ratified stalemate.

It could have remained at that stalemate post 1973, but antiwar activism and sentiment left America unwilling to do even minimal effective things to save South Vietnam. Watergate made it worse. Our will had been sapped. On that latter point IMHO some blame does rest on anti-war activists like Fonda, Kerry and others for doing their part at sapping our will. B-52 bombing runs in February 1975 would have ended the North Vietnamese invasion in its tracks as they had 100,000 armored troops in concentrated formations highly vulnerable to such couterattack. But we didnt lift a finger in 1975. If we bombed them, they would have withdrawn as the General points out, and South Vietnam would have been spared the horrors of the re-education camps, boat people, etc.

On Kerry

"Blaming Kerry is to blame me." You dont need to attack the strawman. I said repeatedly this is not blaming Kerry for 'Vietnam', just for his own actions and their consequences - you share that blame only if you engaged in the same actions. What Kerry did wrong was tells lies to Congress that defamed the military... I blamed Kerry *only* for this - reposting my comment: In 1971, John Kerry became a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War protest group. Kerry testified to Congress that American soldiers in Vietnam had "personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam." Kerry testified, "We all did it."

He said his claims were "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." The awful allegations of fellow veterans being war criminals were based on trumped up stories. B.G. Burkett points out in his book "Stolen Valor" that Kerry used phony veterans to testify to atrocities they could not possibly have committed. Kerry had engaged in defamation and slander against the military in order to further the anti-war cause.

And I also said this: Kerry is responsible for his words. He lied. Why cant we hold a man responsible for submitting testimony that is based on false and phony allegations? Why cant we point out that he smeared the military? The lies and distortions of the "Winter Soldier" agit-prop 'investigation' and the inflammatory nature of his testimony to Congress are in the public record.

Unless you were a part of the "winter Soldier" agitprop brigade, unless you also testified falsely to Congress, you cannot share the blame for his slanders.

[MeekOneGOP]

Dan642
Since Feb 13, 2004

Welcome to FreeRepublic.com ...

[Toespi]

So very true. What is incredibly bigoted is how Kerry is now PROUD to have served in VietNam and of his medals. I think that Kerry's disengagement with Jane Fonda is going to backfire on him. I expect to see some anti-VietNam activists still around today who will remember Kerry's association with Fonda and will consider Kerry a turncoat. We will see.

[eddie willers]

I can guarantee you, there will be tons of guys lining up to marry Teresa.

It doesn't take Carnak The Magnificent to figure out that a woman with $500,000,000 will have plenty of suitors.

[samtheman]

He will stay in denial until some hard evidence comes to light ala Lewinski-gate, or the girl comes foreword and admits to an affair.

The girl's been promised millions for her silence.