He supported people who claimed to have witnessed a large number of attrocities who where later found out to not have even been in Vietnam or to not have been at the location where the atrocities supposedly happened. He could have just been duped by them as many other were but that would only mean that he didn't lie directly not that he didn't support the statements of liars.
Kerry also claims to have witnessed atrocities that he would be legally bound to report. He either is making false claims or he shirked his duty to report these crimes.
"o In his April 1971 speech to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, John Kerry claimed that war crimes committed by the American military against Vietnamese civilians were "not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis..." War crimes in Vietnam were actually quite rare.
o Kerry claimed that war crimes were being committed "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." In fact, military personnel were warned that "if you disobey the rules of engagement, you can be tried and punished." War crimes were never a matter of policy, and were prosecuted when discovered.
o Kerry charged that the war in Vietnam was a racist war, that "blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties." Research published in B.G. Burkett's book "Stolen Valor" and other sources shows that casualty rates for black and white soldiers during Vietnam closely matched the proportion of America's overall population represented by each race."
newsmax.com
Message 19865384
richmond.edu
4dw.net
danford.net
therealitycheck.org
Message 19915353
"Phoenix Program Vietnam Vet Urges Kerry To Come Clean
...
townhall.com
bushcountry.org
" Ex-green beret to Kerry: 'You are a liar'"
Message 19851866
Vetting the Vet Record
nationalreview.com
The Book on John Kerry
From the February 16, 2004 issue: A look at the senator's 1971 antiwar opus, "The New Soldier."
weeklystandard.com
"From 31 January to 2 February 1971, the VVAW, with financial backing from actress Jane Fonda, convened a hearing, known as the Winter Soldier Investigation, in the city of Detroit. More than 100 veterans and 16 civilians testified at this hearing about "war crimes which they either committed or witnessed"; some of them had given similar testimony at the CCI inquiry in Washington. The allegations included using prisoners for target practice and subjecting them to a variety of grisly tortures to extract information, cutting off the ears of dead VCs, throwing VC suspects out of helicopters, burning villages, gang rapes of women, packing the vagina of a North Vietnamese nurse full of grease with a grease gun, and the like. Among the persons assisting the VVAW in organizing and preparing this hearing was Mark Lane, author of a book attacking the Warren Commission probe of the Kennedy Assassination and more recently of "Conversations with Americans", a book of interviews with Vietnam veterans about war crimes. On 22 December 1970 Lane's book had received a highly critical review in the "New York Times Book Review" by Neil Sheehan, who was able to show that some of the alleged "witnesses" of Lane's war crimes had never even served in Vietnam while others had not been in the combat situations they described in horrid detail.
-----
The results of this investigation, carried out by the Naval Investigative Service, are interesting and revealing.
Many of the veterans, though assured that they would not be questioned about atrocities they might have committed personally, refused to be interviewed. One of the active members of the VVAW told investigators that the leadership had directed the entire membership not to cooperate with military authorities. A black Marine who agreed to be interviewed was unable to provide details of the outrages he had described at the hearing, but he called the Vietnam War "one huge atrocity" and "a racist plot." He admitted that the question of atrocities had not occurred to him while he was in Vietnam, and that he had been assisted in the preparation of his testimony by a member of the Nation of Islam. But the most damaging finding consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit. One of them had never been to Detroit in all his life. He did not know, he stated, who might have used his name."
ice.he.net
Kerry-Linked Anti-War Group Can't Bury Deceit
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
March 03, 2004
cnsnews.com
Kerry Says Credibility Not Damaged By Former Comrade's Lie
By Melanie Hunter
CNSNews.com Deputy Managing Editor
March 11, 2004
cnsnews.com\Nation\archive\200403\NAT20040311d.html
commonsensewonder.com |
