Flak Attacks on Lt. Kerry

In an astounding display of 21st century inquisition, some self-appointed politically correct guardians of the Internet and opinion media suddenly have discovered presidential candidate John Kerry’s 1971 speech to Congress as a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Apparently, they weren’t around at the time when it was widely broadcast on television and published in all sorts of newspapers, magazines, and a book.

Using selected quotes and innuendo involving actress Jane Fonda, the thrust of the inquisitors’ case against former Navy Lt. Kerry, who was wounded three times in combat with the Viet Cong, is that he was pro-communist and anti-GI. This is akin to claiming that Martin Luther King Jr. was in league with the Ku Klux Klan and anti-African American. Anyone around at the time with an open mind could see that King was dedicated to nonviolently ending the last vestiges of the American Civil War. In the same spirit, Kerry and VVAW were dedicated to ending the last vestiges of the war in Vietnam.

Perhaps these shocked readers of Kerry’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will next read The Pentagon Papers, subtitled in the 1971 Bantam paperback edition “The Secret History of the Vietnam War.” And then perhaps they will study Nuremberg and Vietnam by Telford Taylor, brigadier general (ret.), also published in 1971, on war crimes and the responsibility of the US government.

But to truly curl their hair, they should read POW/MIA’S: Report of the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, United States Senate, issued January 13, 1993. (http://www.aiipowmia.com/ssc/ssctest.html) Long after most Americans wanted to forget all about Vietnam, Kerry and Sen. John McCain, himself a POW in Vietnam, and other Vietnam veterans in Congress were still trying to heal a festering wound of the war.

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=625&POSTNUKESID=8b7a0ebae6b4c72401c29a66703606b6

hate it when that happens.

I saw one of those little smear jobs in the Austin, Texas paper on the op-ed pages. It's interesting to note not only the innuendo and guilt-by-association, but that the Boosh regime has to find surrogates who actually DID serve in Vietnam to try to hatchet Senator Kerry.

The thrust of surrogate Garwood's position seemed to be that it is somehow unpatriotic and even borderline-disloyal to question the wisdom of the Commander in Chief. Whatever the written and unwritten codes for military personnel in active service in the US armed forces, to extend this premise to civilian citizen/voters is outrageous. As US citizen/voters it is not only are duty to question our elected and appointed leaders when they are making poor judgment calls, it is our duty to speak out and even work to remove those leaders from office.

--VG

"Nixon's counsel, Charles Colson had seen a press conference featuring a young Navy veteran named John O'Neill, who served in the same swift boat division as Kerry shortly after Kerry left Vietnam. O'Neill, like many swift boat veterans, was outraged at Kerry's claim of US atrocities.

In short order, O'Neill became the centerpiece of the Nixon White House strategy to undermine Kerry."

http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061703.shtml