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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (533304)	1/31/2004 3:59:35 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Don't try to attack Kerry's opposition to Viet Nam. It's a battle you can't win. msnbc.msn.com

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (533304)	1/31/2004 4:10:25 PM
From: J_F_Shepard	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

You tend to be a tad naive Ann.....My Lai was not the only atrocity in Viet Nam, it was the only one in which a court martial and trial were held. It was common place for our GI's and Marines to cut the ears off dead enemy soldiers, sometimes for temporary souveners and sometimes to terrorize the enemy. Bob Kerrey story, told by his own men and himself, revealed that they cut the throats of two grandparents and their grandchildren at the outside edge of a little village. You may call that self defense but I can't. Then the versions of the remainder of the episode get hazy, Kerrey says thinks took fire from the village but other members of the group said they simply went into the village and killed everyone. They never got the guys they were looking for. We are long past the John Wayne war movies were we were always so honorable. Steven Ambrose, the historian, documents the routine killing of prisoners by our guys in Europe. Funny thing is when he interviewed former GI's around 90% knew or witnessed the killing of POW's but only 30% admitted doing it themselves.

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (533304)	1/31/2004 5:01:35 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

There were some GI's in Vietnam who really did commit war crimes. You cannot totally blame them because they had gone mad, but there were instances where dozens of innocent people were slaughtered for no real reason. You saw an example in Oliver Stone's "Platoon" which was quite realistic. Kerry may have been refering to that. But you know of course that Kerry was not attacking the soldiers. He after all was the head of Vets Against The War, representing his brothers in arms against the top brass and policy-makers. What he was attacking was the chaos and madness poor policy-making and dishonest leaders had created. Secretary McNamara echos this in the new documentary about him. McNamara was one of those ones who was to blame and he is on his knees asking for forgivesness now before he dies. The rightwing will try to twist all this around, but the truth is that by 1970-1072 John Kerry was right about the war. By then it was a hopeless crazed situation and the original intent of the war was all but forgotten.