Political Winds

On Monday, April 5, 1971, a plea was made to the United States Senate for an investigation of

…charges regarding: the torture and murder of suspects and prisoners of war captured by Americans and South Vietnamese forces; the wanton killing of innocent, unarmed civilians; the brutalization and rape of Vietnamese women in the villages; military policies which enabled indiscriminate bombing and the random firing of artillery into villages which resulted in the burning to death of women, children and old people; the widespread defoliation of lands of forests; the use of various types of gases; the mutilation of enemy bodies, and others… I recommend consideration be given to forming a special commission that would investigate in full these matters and would provide a forum to assess the moral consequences of our involvement in Indochina to us as a Nation and a people.

The person making the recommendation based it on three days of testimony given by honorably-discharged Vietnam veterans in Detroit on January 31, February 1, and 2, 1971. The hearings were organized by an 11,000 member group called Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The individual making the above statement to the Senate was not John Kerry. It was Senator Mark Hatfield, a maverick Republican from Oregon who saw battle at Iwo Jima and Okinawa as a Navy lieutenant. Hatfield had all the testimony from the so-called Winter Soldiers Investigation read into the Congressional Record.

Just six days before Hatfield made those comments on the floor of the Senate, Lt. William Calley was convicted of the premeditated murder of 22 civilians in the village of My Lai. Less than three weeks after Hatfield’s remarks, John Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As the country is being reminded relentlessly, Kerry told the Committee of atrocities in Vietnam. What most of the country does not know is that Kerry did not pick the allegations out of thin air:

I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

Not only did Kerry not invent the charges, but the weight of evidence is that atrocities did in fact occur. Another Vietnam vet, General General Tommy Franks, formerly head of the war effort in Iraq, said as much, despite Sean Hannity’s shameless attempts to goad him into calling Kerry a liar and traitor:

I think we had a lot of problems in Vietnam. One was the lack of leadership of young people like in - - in John Kerry’s position. He was a young officer over there, and I’m not sure that — that activities like that didn’t take place. In fact, quite the contrary. I’m sure that they did. …I wouldn’t say that the things that Senator Kerry said are undeniable about activities in Vietnam. I think that things didn’t go right in Vietnam.

Now let’s take a look at the transcript of the latest Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth [sic] ad and see the context in which Kerry’s testimony is placed:

John Kerry: “They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads. . .”

Joe Ponder: “The accusations that John Kerry made against the veterans who served in Vietnam was just devastating.”

John Kerry: “. . . randomly shot at civilians. . .”

Joe Ponder: “It hurt me more than any physical wounds I had.”

John Kerry: “. . . cut off limbs, blown up bodies. . .”

Ken Cordier: “That was part of the torture, was, uh, to sign a statement that you had committed war crimes.”

John Kerry: “. . . razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan. . .”

Paul Gallanti: “John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I, and many of my, uh, comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, uh, took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us.”

John Kerry: “. . . crimes committed on a day to day basis. . . ”

Ken Cordier: “He betrayed us in the past, how could we be loyal to him now?”

John Kerry: “. . . ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.”

Paul Gallanti: “He dishonored his country, and, uh, more, more importantly the people he served with. He just sold them out.”

Announcer : “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is responsible for the content of this advertisement.”

Unfortunately, the reality is that the Swift Boat Veterans are not really being held responsible - or accountable - by much of the mainstream media. Yes, the New York Times (“Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad”) and the Washington Post (”Records Counter a Critic of Kerry”), among a few others, have thoroughly exposed the group’s inconsistencies and lies, as well as its close ties to the GOP, the Bush family and Karl Rove. But the Swift Boat surrogates for Bush have succeeded in their mission. Now the coverage that most Americans will read and hear amounts to an exchange of sound bites: the Swift Boat vets say this and Kerry says that - you decide. Propaganda vs. US Navy documentation and testimony of those who actually served with Kerry. Even on the oh-so-serious and sober-minded PBS Newshour, it was the same - just longer sound bites. In this case, the exchange was between Mark Shields and Bill Kristol. Kristol made a number of completely baseless or untrue statements. For example, he said veterans are unhappy with Kerry because “…they think he called some of them war criminals in 1971 in his famous testimony to the Senate.” In fact, Kerry did not call his fellow vets “war criminals.” He spoke of crimes being committed in Vietnam and clearly directed the blame to policymakers in Washington:

We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We’re here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, and so many others? Where are they now that we, the men they sent off to war, have returned? These are the commanders who have deserted their troops. And there is no more serious crime in the laws of war.

Of course, Kristol got away with the specious claim about war criminals and other assertions such as “[s]ome of the charges have I think held up quite well.” Which charges, specifically? Well, Mark Shields couldn’t respond to every one of Kristol’s reckless remarks, and Jim Lehrer wouldn’t dare challenge him. After all, both sides of the debate were represented, weren’t they? There, in a nutshell, is the problem. The media often abdicates its responsibilty by simply stringing a series of sound bites together to form a “story.” Instead, they should do the research - the hard work of reporting - and report the truth as they see it. Then we, the news consumers, can judge the veracity of their accounts based on all the information and sound bites taken as a whole.

So here we are thirty-three years after Kerry’s testimony, and our country is engaged in rancorous debate about the behavior of a young man who was indisputably courageous, thoughtful and committed. The debate was instigated by allies of a man who indisputably evaded service in Vietnam by using his family’s connections and demonstrated no engagement at all in the issues that were then roiling the nation. It’s hard to believe we’re having this discussion, isn’t it? I think we need some leaders to stand up and ask this question of at least one of those behind the Republican smear campaign:

You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

- Attorney Joseph Welch to Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 21st, 2004 at 9:53 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.