different view of Kerry's vietnam history...but you have to pay for it.

[bearfartinthewoods]

my previous thread on Kerry/vietnam was locked because i did not provide proof of the existence of the movie. i did a system search on my old computer and found some of the info i referenced in my locked post. if you think rove doesn't already have this stuff you are mistaken as this was info that came out during his race with weld.

we have a right to know what can be used against Kerry just as we have the right to know what will be used against any of the candidates.

i know nothing about these authors and am unsure as to the paper for which they work so take this with that disclaimer.


if you want to read for yourselves about the home movie re-enactment of the incident that earned Kerry his silver star, you have to pay for it. the article includes Kerry's narration of the film.

begin quoted material: CAPS ARE FROM THE PAPER/CUT AND PASTE

THE MAKING OF THE CANDIDATES JOHN FORBES KERRY OFTEN TAGGED AS A POLITICAL OPPORTUNIST -- ALOOF, INSINCERE -- HE IS ALSO A MAN OF COURAGE AND CHARISMA, HIS INNER LIFE INTENSE, EMOTIONAL AND FILLED WITH THE RAW EXPERIENCE THAT SHOWS IN THE SEVERE LINES OF HIS FACE, THE OFTEN-HAUNTED LOOK IN HIS EYES.
Published on October 6, 1996
Author(s): Charles Sennott, Globe Staff

Vietnam. The Mekong Delta. February 1969.

US Navy boats glide through rays of sunlight glinting off cobalt waters. Lush green palms and mangroves sway on river banks, and just under them dozens of Viet Cong snipers are dug in deep. John Forbes Kerry, then a 25-year-old skipper of the six-man crew on Patrol Craft Fast 93, is about to be ambushed.

The rattling of machine-gun fire jumps in loud bursts. Volleys of B-40 rockets splash just a few yards away. Then Kerry orders the boat


end of free snippet. to purchase the right to read it:
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=BG&p_theme=bg&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_text_search-0=Charles%20AND%20M.%20AND%20Sennott&s_dispstring=Charles%20M.%20Sennott%20AND%20date(10/5/1996%20to%2010/7/1996)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=10/5/1996%20to%2010/7/1996&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no



this article is also is a pay to read and contains quotes from his crew members and commander on the circumstances surrounding his silver star.

begin quoted material:

BEHIND THE HOOTCH
Published on October 27, 1996
Author(s): David Warsh, Globe Staff

What happened behind the hootch?

It happened 27 years ago and 12,000 miles away. Does it matter now

In the heat of the Massachusetts Senate campaign, a new account has raised questions about what happened on a river bank in the Ca Mau peninsula on Feb. 28, 1969.

That was the day that Sen. John Kerry won the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest award for bravery, for, among other things, killing an enemy soldier. The events of that day, and their lengthy aftermath, are

end of free snippet. to purchase the right to read it:

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=BG&p_theme=bg&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_text_search-0=David%20AND%20Warsh&s_dispstring=David%20Warsh%20AND%20date(10/25/1996%20to%2010/27/1996)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=10/25/1996%20to%2010/27/1996&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=noa


finally, this is a website that is obviously anti Kerry. i am not posting it to be inflammatory but for us to be informed as to Kerry's possible vulnerabilities in the general.
WARNING:
THE PIC AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE IS FAKE


http://www.usvetdsp.com/jf_kerry.htm

[BOSSHOG]

1. bush and rove don't have to worry

about anyone casting bush's exploits in Vietnam in a negative light.

[bearfartinthewoods]

28. but it also mutes Kerry's ability to rail on him about it.

this may explain why he is reluctant to go with the AWOL charge.

last spring, i begged people to lay off the "hero" aspect. just go with the served aspect. but it continues and it opens up his record.

[blm]

2. That site is a GOP propaganda site. Same one used to smear McCain.

This stuff was cooked up and planted for years as per the Nixon white house and its smear team of Segretti, Atwater and Rove.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

5. is this the fake Vet organization that Bush started?

to destroy McCain in South Carolina?

[blm]

6. yep....same one.

It's not supposed to be allowed here.

[bearfartinthewoods]

13. are you sure bush started this?

because this site has been around quite awhile. or do you mean poppy started it?

ON EDIT...http://www.usvetdsp.com/sampbio.htm

the bio of the author's association with POW/MIA issue seems to pre-date bush.

[blm]

18. They've had bogus vet groups in place since Nixon.

It's on the Nixon tapes. Charles Colson headed the efforts for Nixon. He used the smear team of Segretti, Atwater and Rove. They groomed telegenic vets to counter Kerry and the effects of the VVAW.

The campaign against Kerry has gone on for three decades. They even had a planted reporter at the Boston Globe throughout the 80s. I think his name is Maichael Ginsburg(sp) and he now works at the Bush White House.

[blm]

24. David Brinkley's Tour of Duty

From Barnes and Noble:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?AR=Y&cds2Pid=371&ean=9780060565237
>>>>>>>
John Kerry enlisted in the Navy in February 1966, months before he graduated from Yale. In December 1967 Ensign Kerry was assigned to the frigate U.S.S. Gridley; after five months of service in the Pacific, with a brief stop in Vietnam, he returned to the United States and underwent training to command a Swift boat, a small craft deployed in Vietnam's rivers. In June 1968 Kerry was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade), and by the end of that year he was back in Vietnam, where he commanded, over time, two Swift boats. Throughout Tour of Duty Brinkley deftly deals with such explosive issues as U.S. atrocities in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia. In a series of unforgettable combat-action sequences, he recounts how Kerry won the Purple Heart three times for wounds suffered in action and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Navy’s Silver Star for gallantry in action.

When Kerry returned from Southeast Asia, he joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), becoming a prominent antiwar spokesperson. He challenged the Nixon administration on Capitol Hill with the antiwar movement cheering him on. As Kerry's public popularity soared in April-May 1971, the FBI considered him a subversive. Brinkley -- using new information acquired from the recently released Nixon tapes -- reveals how White House aides Charles Colson and H. R. Haldeman tried to discredit Kerry. Refusing to be intimidated, Kerry started running for public office, eventually becoming a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. But he never forgot his fallen comrades. Working with his friend Senator John McCain, he returned to Vietnam numerous times looking for MIAs and POWs. By the time Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, Kerry was the leading proponent of "normalization" of relations with Vietnam. When President Clinton officially recognized Vietnam in 1995, Kerry's three-decade-long tour of duty had at long last ended.
>>>>>>>

[bearfartinthewoods]

25. one of the articles i found in my cache has quotes from nixon

even back then, he recognized Kerry as a threat. i'd post them for history's sake and laughs but the url comes up 404 now so i have no cite.

[bearfartinthewoods]

29. blm.....please show me what you have proved is wrong

if it's smear and lies, post the truth. we are going to need the truth if he is the nominee. just saying it's all nixon lies is not proof.

[charlie]

19. Not sure about this one

They seem to be equal-opportunity wingnuts:

BUSH CASHES IN ON COMMUNIST CHINESE CONNECTIONS

[bigtree]

16. the author of most of the smears, Ted Sampley

called 5 yr. POW McCain a "Manchurian Candidate".

[WilliamPitt]

3. Read the Atlantic article about Kerry in Vietnam

[bearfartinthewoods]

10. will did you read either of the globe articles ?

and can i get a link to the atlantic article?

the globe article and the site i linked have answered several lingering questions that were trailing Kery's vietnam service ssuch as
to the nature of his wounds and circumstances and the issue of his 'early out". have you read anything that discounts that info?

i thought the early out info was helpful because of the allegations that he got a 'rich boy's exit". there it is on an ANTI site that his early out was SOP for anyone who was wounded three times. i know there are going to be people who doubt the authenticity or degree of his wounding but i think we are just stuck with that since two were minor scrapnel dings that didn't pull him off duty.

as i said in my locked thread, none of this is a deal breaker for me but i sure as hell wish that arrest photo wasn't out there.

[flpoljunkie]

20. Link to Atlantic article about John Kerry...

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/12/brinkley.htm

[maddezmom]

4. pathetic smears

:(

[bearfartinthewoods]

12. which would be fine answer

the RW didn't have a habit of drooling over this sort of stuff.

[bigtree]

14. Why isn't our habit a strong rejection of this type of dirty politics

Instead some are oh so satisfied in perpetuating these outrageous distortions of a fine man's record and in the indiscriminate trashing of John's reputation.

[charlie]

7. A followup to Warsh's Hootch story...

DART to The Boston Globe's David Warsh, for going far afield in his business column to play political war games. Following his October 15 endorsement of Massachusetts Governor William Weld in the fierce race between Weld and Senator John F. Kerry for a seat in the U.S. Senate, Warsh's October 27 column seemed clearly aimed at demolishing Kerry's reputation as a hero in Vietnam some twenty-eight years before. For his attack, Warsh seized on an insignificant detail offhandedly offered in conversation by a sailor under Kerry's command: the sailor had taken a shot at the enemy soldier whom Kerry then chased and killed in what Kerry described as self-defense. Camouflaged as an investigation ("A new account has raised questions about what happened on a riverbank on the Ca Mau peninsula on February 28, 1969. . . . The events of that day, and their lengthy aftermath, are what this column is about. . . .") but conceding, more than midway through the sniping, that "Without corroborative accounts, all talk about what happened on February 28 nessarily remains conjecture," Warsh's column went on to seriously propose, as a plausible alternative to the "best interpretation" of events as described in the Navy's citation for Kerry's Silver Star, the columnist's own "ugliest possibility" fantasy: "That behind the hootch Kerry administered a coup de gr‰ce to the Vietnamese soldier -- a practice not uncommon in those days, but a war crime nevertheless. . . ." The immediate explosion of public outrage was faced courageously by the Globe, with a comprehensive report that included testimony by the senator's former Navy superiors, by retired Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., and by two eyewitnesses -- among them, the sailor Warsh had cited -- who credit Kerry with saving their lives. Letters to the editor were stronger still, blasting Warsh for his "despicable, empty-handed ambush," and for his "abuse of journalistic power to generate a dust storm around nothing at all." The Globe's ombudsman, Mark Jurkowitz, also dug into the matter, and concluded, "The issue is whether the column belonged in the Globe. The answer is no." Fellow columnist James Carroll summed it up well: "Kerry's honor is crystal clear. The question remains, What of the honor of journalism?"

http://archives.cjr.org/year/97/1/d_l.asp

[NewYorkerfromMass]

8. The question remains, What of the honor of journalism?

say no more.

[bigtree]

11. "despicable, empty-handed ambush,"

nt

[bearfartinthewoods]

22. the ambush may be bush rolling out the arrest pic on 1/15/04

you think that isn't going to happen? forwarned is forarmed is a better political philosophy than ignorance is bliss.

[bigtree]

9. The site you referenced is full of republican hate for war protesters

When someone references a republican attack site to bash John Kerry I always ask whether they agree with all of the republican smears or just the drivel about John?

Here's a good interview by Trevor Maloof, March 2002.
http://www.usmilitarysupport.org/veterans_history/john_kerry.html

Trevor Maloof: What is your opinion of the treatment of Vietnam veterans in general?

John Kerry: I think it has not been what it should have been, not by a long shot. We returned home to an America that was indifferent, even hostile. There were no parades. Veterans were spat upon, called baby-killers, our uniforms themselves targeted us for ridicule from those who could never understand our pain. The war stories we had did not uplift, but rather repelled. For many vets, it was simply impossible to explain, so silence became the only option.

Most deadening was our realization that the anguish we felt about the Vietnamese was not shared by any part of the American political spectrum; certainly not by the White House or Pentagon; and certainly not by extremists who saw the My Lai massacre as apolitical opportunity and the Tet Offensive as a debating point for the vindication of views.

We veterans found, when we returned, that America thought the war was all about America - when we had thought it was about Vietnam. This seemed a betrayal, but in reality it could not have been any different. For us, the war was personal; we had lost our friends and many had watched brothers lose arms and legs; we had seen Vietnamese fight and curse, weep and die. Most Americans had not lived our experience, and could not fully understand - and we thought them lucky for that kind of ignorance.

The fissures created by Vietnam have long been stubbornly resistant to closure. Each step was its own drama as activists battled government secrecy and the willful amnesia of a society that did not want to remember. Led by veterans and family members, advocates fought the forgetting and pushed our nation to confront the war's surplus of sad legacies - Agent Orange, Amer-Asian orphans, abandoned allies, exiled and imprisoned draft dodgers, doubts about whether all our POWs had come home, and honor at last for those who returned from Vietnam and those who did not.

[bearfartinthewoods]

15. i have made no secret that Kerry is my second choice.

i also clearly labeled it as an ANTI KERRY site.

as to the war, i spent two years of my life protesting and organizing against it.

[bigtree]

17. Then leave this crap where it belongs. On the garbage heap

Stop trying to tear at old wounds. There is no excuse for spreading this hate.

[bearfartinthewoods]

21. hello??? do you think this will be off limits to rove?

in the first place, i assume we read this info for what it is. in the second place, we better be better prepared for it's use than trying to tell the RW not to tear at old wounds.

[sangh0]

23. If you're worried about Rove

then dig up some facts instead of digging up some of Rove's turds. Using the "we have to be prepared" without doing any of the preparation is somewhat irrational.

[bearfartinthewoods]

26. facts concerning what?

i'm not being a smart ass. i just don't understand what you mean. if there are facts to disprove any of this, it's beyond my capability to find them. are you saying Kerry didn't get himself arrested? a LOT of people did that. it wasn't something i aimed for, in fact i tried pretty hard not to get arrested. i don't fault the man for doing it. it just a part of the package and we better be emotionally prepared to handle it and i'm assuming his campaign is making plans as well.

[sangh0]

27. The facts concerning this arrest

if there are facts to disprove any of this, it's beyond my capability to find them.

Then why say that posting this stuff is meant to "prepare" us, if you have nothing for us to respond with?

are you saying Kerry didn't get himself arrested?

No, I'm saying this article does not show any dirty tricks on Kerry's part. By posting it, without any explanation, you have done nothing to prepare anyone. The only result is that people will react to this story the way they would if it had been released by a Republican.

[bearfartinthewoods]

30. i'm sorry, i have to disagree

until i started looking last summer, i was unaware of any controversy concerning Kerry's service. i don't think i am alone in that. it hasn't been brought out in the primaries but i'm pretty sure hannity etc will be hammering on it in the general. people have the right to know as much as they can about a candidate before they vote.

forwarned is forearmed