STUDENTS CALL ON KERRY TO DISAVOW 70'S ANTI-WAR STATEMENT, OR DROP OUT.

VIETNAM VETERANS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM -
the student auxiliary at the University of Kansas

Leonard Magruder - Founder/President Former professor of psychology,
Suffolk College, N.Y.

STUDENTS CALL ON KERRY TO DISAVOW 70'S ANTI-WAR STATEMENT, OR DROP
OUT.

by Leonard Magruder
In 1972 a book was published that contained statements by well
known personalities at the time, pro and con, the Vietnam War. Called
"The Eloquence of Protest " it was edited by Harrison E. Salisbury,
and published by Houghton Mifflin. Among the statements was one by
Navy Lieutenant John Kerry, testifying for his organization, Vietnam
Veterans Against the War, before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on April 22, 1971. At that time, and still today, I had
strong ideas on the subject of the war, and have often have spoken
out on the issue. While I did not see accuracy in a number of
statements that Kerry made, I had read a lot about the war, felt I
understood the feelings that produced such an outburst so did not
complain at that time.

But now John Kerry is running for the highest office in the land,
for President, in times as perilous as any America has ever faced. So
a few days ago I took a second look at his statement and came away
with these questions. Isn't it clear that these statements had been
heavily influenced by the standard arguments of the anti-war movement
at the time, and haven't those arguments been shown in repeated
history books in recent years to have been seriously
misrepresentative of that war? Would not someone who had been so wide
of the mark in his understanding of that war be dangerous to the
nation as a Commander-in-Chief, unless he had changed his mind
significantly in later years ? While the media today frequently
mentions Senator Kerry's distinguished career in Vietnam, and rightly
so, it has studiously avoided mentioning his major role in
organizing Vietnam Veterans Against the War, or his speech to
Congress condemning that war.

We think it vitally important that the media ask of Senator Kerry
if he still stands by the statements he made to Congress in 1971.
These statements were significantly at odds with majority American
opinion on the war at that time and they clearly parallel the
opinions of the campus war protests, which, in the long run made a
major contribution to the failure of that campaign and the triumph of
tyranny and genocide in Southeast Asia.

If he disavows his earlier position, that would be a major blow to
the myths about Vietnam that are still being perpetuated in media and
university to protect those who avoided that fight for freedom. If
he does not disavow his earlier position then we call on him to drop
out of the race for the Presidency.

In the following what I do is quote some of the more startling
passages from Mr. Kerry's statement and comment on them, in some
cases borrowing information from the noted historian Lewis Sorley who
describes the very same period in his recent book on Vietnam , "A
Better War." Mr. Sorley is the historian who was selected to be the
main analyst in the recent highly acclaimed 4-volume film series on
the Vietnam War, "The Long Way Home Project", introduced by H. Norman
Schwartkopf. If Kerry does disavow his 1971 statement then we also
ask that he use his considerable influence to get PBS to air this
series nationally to help heal the bitter division in the country
that still exists between those who served and those who did not
serve. We cannot go forward into a dangerous future without national
unity. It is time to end the undeserved aura of idealism that media
and university attach to the phrase "anti-war activist", when in
actual fact it should be viewed as shameful.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------

Excerpts from Senator Kerry's 1971 statement to Congress, followed by
my comments.

Kerry:
"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 , not isolated
incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full
awareness of officers at all levels of command. They re-lived the
absolute horror of what this country , in a sense , made them do.
They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires
from portable telephones to human genitals , cut off limbs, blown up
bodies, randomly shot civilians, razed villages in fashion
reminiscent of Genghis Kahn, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned
food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side... We are ashamed
of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia. "
Comment:
It is common knowledge that the medals that Kerry threw over the
fence in Washington at Dewey Canyon lll were not his own. They are
on his wall in his office. Kerry's was a fake sacrifice, but keeping
the medals does show he cares about his reputation as a soldier. But
he should have remembered that other veterans cared equally when he
talked about "the crimes this country, in a sense, made them do." I
had to read tons of Army manuals in becoming an R.O.T.C. 2nd
Lieutenant, (although I never served , being transfered during the
Korean War to Honorary Reserve because of medical problems.) And I
know that nothing in those manuals orders soldiers to do any of the
things Kerry mentioned. We know things like this happened, but they
were crimes and were prosecuted when possible. Historian Guenter Lewy
points out in statistical form in his highly acclaimed and objective
history "America in Vietnam", that atrocities in Vietnam did not
differ significantly in that war from any other American war.

Kerry:
"The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a
monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal
and trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the
biggest nothing in history."
Comment:
Psychologists, who were usually against the war, to buttress their
position, charged the war with having created a "killer instinct" for
which there was not the slightest shred of evidence. We know this
from comparing the rates of crimes by Vietnam vets with the rest of
the country over the years. Wrote the noted sociologist and student
of war Charles Moskos, "Psychologists tried to portray the soldier as
variously, wanton perpetrators of atrocities or proto-fascist
automatons." The truth is the mental health community prostituted
itself in creating this myth to forward its politics, using the
suffering of the
veterans to do so.
Also, what was "nothing" about the enormous sacrifice of men and
treasure the U.S. expended to try to help a small country who asked
for our aid against the horrors that we know occured when that
country went down ?

Kerry:
"We are men who have returned with a sense of anger , and a sense
of betrayal which no one yet has grasped. We are angry because we
feel that we have been used in the worst fashion by the
administration of this country."
.Comment:
A Harris poll in the 1980's found that 91% said they were glad
they served, 74% said they enjoyed their time in the military, and
66% said they would serve again. As to the effects of their service
many said it made them more ambitious, more determined to make
something of their lives, that it made them more serious and that
they appreciated America more, valued life more. Does this sound like
men who were "used."

Kerry:
"We in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country ,
because those Agnew calls misfits (war protestors) were standing up
for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to, because so
many who have died would have returned to this country to join the
misfits in their efforts to ask for an immediate withdrawal from
South Vietnam.
Comment:
The identification with the goals of the campus war protestors,
or anti-war movement, is very clear. Kerry was reportedly
(U.S.Veterans Dispatch) a supporter of the "People's Peace Treaty",
a "peoples" declaration to end the war drawn up in communist East
Germany based on 9 points taken from Viet Cong peace proposals. The
"Boston Herald Traveler" reported that Kerry marched in a protest on
Dec. 12, 1971 in a group carrying Viet Cong flags and placards in
support of China, Cuba, the USSR and Hanoi.
Only those in the anti-war movement called for "immediately
withdrawal" an ignominious solution that the majority would not even
consider. Nor did the protestors care about the soldiers. Again and
again in my documentary, based on 68 interviews, "The Shame of the
War Protestors: Vietnam Vets Speak Out", the veterans of that war
said , "When we came home, the protestors didn't care about us." Many
told about being harassed, insulted, ostrasized, and even spit upon
at airports when they returned.

Kerry:
"To attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam...
by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those
misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy,
and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country
apart."
Comment:
Is there any question but what the 58,000 plus lives that were
given in South Vietnam was in a noble effort to preserve freedom for
an oppressed people? American soldiers did give the South Vietnamese
freedom. By late 1969 almost the entire population was thought to be
living under substantially secure conditions. Said Ambassador Bunker,
"By the end of 1972 one could travel anywhere in South Vietnam
without security forces or anything else, even though by then
American forces were about all gone." The American soldier never got
any credit for all he did for the South Vietnamese, the media never
mentioned it to the American people. As to what tore the country
apart, it was the protestors, and here is what the nation thought
about them. (From "America in Our Time," by Godfrey Hodgson)
"At the height of the war, the Harris Poll showed that 69 % of the
public believed that anti-war demonstrations were "acts of
disloyalty against the boys fighting in Vietnam," 65% agreed that
"protestors were giving aid and comfort to the enemy," 64% said they
were not "serious , thoughtful critics of the war, just peaceniks and
hippies having a ball." A poll by the University of Michigan showed
that reactions to "Vietnam war protestors", was "by a wide margin,
the most negative shown any group."

Kerry:
"We are probably angriest about all that we were told about
Vietnam and about the mystical war against Communism. We found that
not only was it a civil war, but that the Vietnamese were hard put to
take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them
from.
Comment:
Was there something 'mystical' about the soldiers he saw dying all
around him? Did he not know that is was because Communist soldiers
from the North were trying to enslave South Vietnam ? While the
partition of South Vietnam into two sections makes the charge of
"civil war" problematic, the fact remains it was clearly a war
between a South Vietnam seeking freedom, against a totalitarian
aggressor from the North, something neither the Communists nor the
anti-war movement ever acknowledged. As for "hard put", few realize
that in every campaign, the South Vietamese Army lost over twice as
many soldiers as we did. The figures for the five major offensives
are as follows: (from "Vietnam in Military Statistics", a major
history of the Vietnam War by Micheal Clodfelter.) It was never made
know by the media, by the way, just how badly the enemy was mauled
during this war.You can see that below. 1968-the Tet Offensive- U.S.-
1,829 KIA (killed in action), South Vietnam-2,788 KIA, Communist
forces- 45,000 KIA
1969- U.S. -9,414 KIA, South Vietnam - 21,833 KIA, Communist forces
-156,954 KIA
1970 (includes Cambodian incursion)- U.S. -4,221 KIA, South
Vietnam-23,345 KIA, Communist forces- 103,638 KIA
Laos Invasion (Lam Son 719, with U.S. air support only)-
SouthVietnam-3,800
KIA, Communist forces, -13,668 KIA
1972 - Easter Offensive (with U.S.air support only) -South Vietnnam
15,000
KIA, Communist forces - 83,000.

Kerry:
"We found most people didn't even know the difference between
Communism and Democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies and
without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their
villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted the United
States of America to leave them alone in peace. and they sided with
whichever military force was present, be it Viet Cong, North
Vietnamese, or American."
Comment:
The most devious of all the anti-war arguments. President Thieu
distributed 600,000 weapons to his people. No government in doubt of
the yearning for democracy of its people would have dared do this. In
the villages and the hamlets the People's Self-Defense Force had
mushroomed during 1969. At years end, now organized into a combat arm
and a support arm, the PSDHF had more than 1,300,000 men and women in
the combat arm, backed up by another 1,735,000 people in the support
arm, all ready to stop Communists.
Also, why was there no uprising against the Americans during the
Tet Offensive, or any effort to aid the invaders, and why did the
South Vietnamese Army then almost double, largely due to volunteers ?
How could an 'uncaring ' people put together an army of over one
million, sacrifice over 250,000 soldiers in battle, and fight against
Communism, alone, for two years after the Americans had left, when,
even with occasional stumbling, there were great victories as in the
Easter Offensive, and An Loc."The basic fact of life", said the noted
American commander John Vann , "is that the overwhelming majority of
the population - somewhere about 95% - prefer the government of
Vietnam to a Communist government."
For two years the South Vietnamese held out, until Ted Kennedy,
Kerry's biggest supporter, led anti-war forces in Congress in
cutting off all ammunition to South Vietnam.

We are hoping that over the years Senator Kerry has come to see
that the anti-war position was mistaken, that it fell for enemy
propaganda, and that he will say so. If not then there is no way that
he can be trusted on matters of national security and he should
abandon his quest for the Presidency, as that is the number one
issue.The media keeps talking about Kerry's "strong national security
credentials." That is questionable. There is nothing in Kerry's
speech tht shows any sign of "stong national security credentials."
It is very possible to be a much decorated soldier and still have
little understanding of the very war in which one is fighting. It is
clear Kerry did not, and therefore might not understand the current
war.

For John Kerry's full '71 testimony before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, please see:
http://members.aol.com/bear317p/kerry.htm

Having watched him "up close" for almost a year at the Senate Select
Committee on POW/MIA Affairs' hearings, my guess would be that he will
continue to portray himself as a Vietnam Vet "Hero"... showing his
little video documentary of his "heroics" on the campaign trail,
pushing his "Tour of Duty" book and keeping his new best friend(whose
life he saved) on the TV talk show circuit. I think he will either
ignore or try to gloss over his statements(if the media presses him on
them), but will never fully disavow them for fear of alienating the
anti-war "Deanie" crowd he is seeking support from.

I said months and months ago, before Kerry officially announced he was
seeking the nomination, not to underestimate him. He is the ultimate
politican...can talk out of both sides of his mouth without skipping a
beat and has enough money to stay in the race as long as he wants to.
He made some gaffees in the beginning that the pro-Dean media didn't
ignore, but he is now the liberal media's "flavor of the month" and
will get or buy the best PR up for sale.

Donna Long

Dai-Uy@hawaii.rr.com wrote in message news:...
> VIETNAM VETERANS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM -
> the student auxiliary at the University of Kansas
>
> Leonard Magruder - Founder/President Former professor of psychology,
> Suffolk College, N.Y.
>
> STUDENTS CALL ON KERRY TO DISAVOW 70'S ANTI-WAR STATEMENT, OR DROP
> OUT.
>
> by Leonard Magruder
> In 1972 a book was published that contained statements by well
> known personalities at the time, pro and con, the Vietnam War. Called
> "The Eloquence of Protest " it was edited by Harrison E. Salisbury,
> and published by Houghton Mifflin. Among the statements was one by
> Navy Lieutenant John Kerry, testifying for his organization, Vietnam
> Veterans Against the War, before the Senate Foreign Relations
> Committee on April 22, 1971. At that time, and still today, I had
> strong ideas on the subject of the war, and have often have spoken
> out on the issue. While I did not see accuracy in a number of
> statements that Kerry made, I had read a lot about the war, felt I
> understood the feelings that produced such an outburst so did not
> complain at that time.
>
> But now John Kerry is running for the highest office in the land,
> for President, in times as perilous as any America has ever faced. So
> a few days ago I took a second look at his statement and came away
> with these questions. Isn't it clear that these statements had been
> heavily influenced by the standard arguments of the anti-war movement
> at the time, and haven't those arguments been shown in repeated
> history books in recent years to have been seriously
> misrepresentative of that war? Would not someone who had been so wide
> of the mark in his understanding of that war be dangerous to the
> nation as a Commander-in-Chief, unless he had changed his mind
> significantly in later years ? While the media today frequently
> mentions Senator Kerry's distinguished career in Vietnam, and rightly
> so, it has studiously avoided mentioning his major role in
> organizing Vietnam Veterans Against the War, or his speech to
> Congress condemning that war.
>
> We think it vitally important that the media ask of Senator Kerry
> if he still stands by the statements he made to Congress in 1971.
> These statements were significantly at odds with majority American
> opinion on the war at that time and they clearly parallel the
> opinions of the campus war protests, which, in the long run made a
> major contribution to the failure of that campaign and the triumph of
> tyranny and genocide in Southeast Asia.
>
> If he disavows his earlier position, that would be a major blow to
> the myths about Vietnam that are still being perpetuated in media and
> university to protect those who avoided that fight for freedom. If
> he does not disavow his earlier position then we call on him to drop
> out of the race for the Presidency.
>
> In the following what I do is quote some of the more startling
> passages from Mr. Kerry's statement and comment on them, in some
> cases borrowing information from the noted historian Lewis Sorley who
> describes the very same period in his recent book on Vietnam , "A
> Better War." Mr. Sorley is the historian who was selected to be the
> main analyst in the recent highly acclaimed 4-volume film series on
> the Vietnam War, "The Long Way Home Project", introduced by H. Norman
> Schwartkopf. If Kerry does disavow his 1971 statement then we also
> ask that he use his considerable influence to get PBS to air this
> series nationally to help heal the bitter division in the country
> that still exists between those who served and those who did not
> serve. We cannot go forward into a dangerous future without national
> unity. It is time to end the undeserved aura of idealism that media
> and university attach to the phrase "anti-war activist", when in
> actual fact it should be viewed as shameful.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Excerpts from Senator Kerry's 1971 statement to Congress, followed by
> my comments.
>
> Kerry:
> "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 , not isolated
> incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full
> awareness of officers at all levels of command. They re-lived the
> absolute horror of what this country , in a sense , made them do.
> They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires
> from portable telephones to human genitals , cut off limbs, blown up
> bodies, randomly shot civilians, razed villages in fashion
> reminiscent of Genghis Kahn, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned
> food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side... We are ashamed
> of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia. "
> Comment:
> It is common knowledge that the medals that Kerry threw over the
> fence in Washington at Dewey Canyon lll were not his own. They are
> on his wall in his office. Kerry's was a fake sacrifice, but keeping
> the medals does show he cares about his reputation as a soldier. But
> he should have remembered that other veterans cared equally when he
> talked about "the crimes this country, in a sense, made them do." I
> had to read tons of Army manuals in becoming an R.O.T.C. 2nd
> Lieutenant, (although I never served , being transfered during the
> Korean War to Honorary Reserve because of medical problems.) And I
> know that nothing in those manuals orders soldiers to do any of the
> things Kerry mentioned. We know things like this happened, but they
> were crimes and were prosecuted when possible. Historian Guenter Lewy
> points out in statistical form in his highly acclaimed and objective
> history "America in Vietnam", that atrocities in Vietnam did not
> differ significantly in that war from any other American war.
>
> Kerry:
> "The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a
> monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal
> and trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the
> biggest nothing in history."
> Comment:
> Psychologists, who were usually against the war, to buttress their
> position, charged the war with having created a "killer instinct" for
> which there was not the slightest shred of evidence. We know this
> from comparing the rates of crimes by Vietnam vets with the rest of
> the country over the years. Wrote the noted sociologist and student
> of war Charles Moskos, "Psychologists tried to portray the soldier as
> variously, wanton perpetrators of atrocities or proto-fascist
> automatons." The truth is the mental health community prostituted
> itself in creating this myth to forward its politics, using the
> suffering of the
> veterans to do so.
> Also, what was "nothing" about the enormous sacrifice of men and
> treasure the U.S. expended to try to help a small country who asked
> for our aid against the horrors that we know occured when that
> country went down ?
>
> Kerry:
> "We are men who have returned with a sense of anger , and a sense
> of betrayal which no one yet has grasped. We are angry because we
> feel that we have been used in the worst fashion by the
> administration of this country."
> .Comment:
> A Harris poll in the 1980's found that 91% said they were glad
> they served, 74% said they enjoyed their time in the military, and
> 66% said they would serve again. As to the effects of their service
> many said it made them more ambitious, more determined to make
> something of their lives, that it made them more serious and that
> they appreciated America more, valued life more. Does this sound like
> men who were "used."
>
> Kerry:
> "We in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country ,
> because those Agnew calls misfits (war protestors) were standing up
> for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to, because so
> many who have died would have returned to this country to join the
> misfits in their efforts to ask for an immediate withdrawal from
> South Vietnam.
> Comment:
> The identification with the goals of the campus war protestors,
> or anti-war movement, is very clear. Kerry was reportedly
> (U.S.Veterans Dispatch) a supporter of the "People's Peace Treaty",
> a "peoples" declaration to end the war drawn up in communist East
> Germany based on 9 points taken from Viet Cong peace proposals. The
> "Boston Herald Traveler" reported that Kerry marched in a protest on
> Dec. 12, 1971 in a group carrying Viet Cong flags and placards in
> support of China, Cuba, the USSR and Hanoi.
> Only those in the anti-war movement called for "immediately
> withdrawal" an ignominious solution that the majority would not even
> consider. Nor did the protestors care about the soldiers. Again and
> again in my documentary, based on 68 interviews, "The Shame of the
> War Protestors: Vietnam Vets Speak Out", the veterans of that war
> said , "When we came home, the protestors didn't care about us." Many
> told about being harassed, insulted, ostrasized, and even spit upon
> at airports when they returned.
>
> Kerry:
> "To attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam...
> by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those
> misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy,
> and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country
> apart."
> Comment:
> Is there any question but what the 58,000 plus lives that were
> given in South Vietnam was in a noble effort to preserve freedom for
> an oppressed people? American soldiers did give the South Vietnamese
> freedom. By late 1969 almost the entire population was thought to be
> living under substantially secure conditions. Said Ambassador Bunker,
> "By the end of 1972 one could travel anywhere in South Vietnam
> without security forces or anything else, even though by then
> American forces were about all gone." The American soldier never got
> any credit for all he did for the South Vietnamese, the media never
> mentioned it to the American people. As to what tore the country
> apart, it was the protestors, and here is what the nation thought
> about them. (From "America in Our Time," by Godfrey Hodgson)
> "At the height of the war, the Harris Poll showed that 69 % of the
> public believed that anti-war demonstrations were "acts of
> disloyalty against the boys fighting in Vietnam," 65% agreed that
> "protestors were giving aid and comfort to the enemy," 64% said they
> were not "serious , thoughtful critics of the war, just peaceniks and
> hippies having a ball." A poll by the University of Michigan showed
> that reactions to "Vietnam war protestors", was "by a wide margin,
> the most negative shown any group."
>
> Kerry:
> "We are probably angriest about all that we were told about
> Vietnam and about the mystical war against Communism. We found that
> not only was it a civil war, but that the Vietnamese were hard put to
> take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them
> from.
> Comment:
> Was there something 'mystical' about the soldiers he saw dying all
> around him? Did he not know that is was because Communist soldiers
> from the North were trying to enslave South Vietnam ? While the
> partition of South Vietnam into two sections makes the charge of
> "civil war" problematic, the fact remains it was clearly a war
> between a South Vietnam seeking freedom, against a totalitarian
> aggressor from the North, something neither the Communists nor the
> anti-war movement ever acknowledged. As for "hard put", few realize
> that in every campaign, the South Vietamese Army lost over twice as
> many soldiers as we did. The figures for the five major offensives
> are as follows: (from "Vietnam in Military Statistics", a major
> history of the Vietnam War by Micheal Clodfelter.) It was never made
> know by the media, by the way, just how badly the enemy was mauled
> during this war.You can see that below. 1968-the Tet Offensive- U.S.-
> 1,829 KIA (killed in action), South Vietnam-2,788 KIA, Communist
> forces- 45,000 KIA
> 1969- U.S. -9,414 KIA, South Vietnam - 21,833 KIA, Communist forces
> -156,954 KIA
> 1970 (includes Cambodian incursion)- U.S. -4,221 KIA, South
> Vietnam-23,345 KIA, Communist forces- 103,638 KIA
> Laos Invasion (Lam Son 719, with U.S. air support only)-
> SouthVietnam-3,800
> KIA, Communist forces, -13,668 KIA
> 1972 - Easter Offensive (with U.S.air support only) -South Vietnnam
> 15,000
> KIA, Communist forces - 83,000.
>
> Kerry:
> "We found most people didn't even know the difference between
> Communism and Democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies and
> without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their
> villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted the United
> States of America to leave them alone in peace. and they sided with
> whichever military force was present, be it Viet Cong, North
> Vietnamese, or American."
> Comment:
> The most devious of all the anti-war arguments. President Thieu
> distributed 600,000 weapons to his people. No government in doubt of
> the yearning for democracy of its people would have dared do this. In
> the villages and the hamlets the People's Self-Defense Force had
> mushroomed during 1969. At years end, now organized into a combat arm
> and a support arm, the PSDHF had more than 1,300,000 men and women in
> the combat arm, backed up by another 1,735,000 people in the support
> arm, all ready to stop Communists.
> Also, why was there no uprising against the Americans during the
> Tet Offensive, or any effort to aid the invaders, and why did the
> South Vietnamese Army then almost double, largely due to volunteers ?
> How could an 'uncaring ' people put together an army of over one
> million, sacrifice over 250,000 soldiers in battle, and fight against
> Communism, alone, for two years after the Americans had left, when,
> even with occasional stumbling, there were great victories as in the
> Easter Offensive, and An Loc."The basic fact of life", said the noted
> American commander John Vann , "is that the overwhelming majority of
> the population - somewhere about 95% - prefer the government of
> Vietnam to a Communist government."
> For two years the South Vietnamese held out, until Ted Kennedy,
> Kerry's biggest supporter, led anti-war forces in Congress in
> cutting off all ammunition to South Vietnam.
>
> We are hoping that over the years Senator Kerry has come to see
> that the anti-war position was mistaken, that it fell for enemy
> propaganda, and that he will say so. If not then there is no way that
> he can be trusted on matters of national security and he should
> abandon his quest for the Presidency, as that is the number one
> issue.The media keeps talking about Kerry's "strong national security
> credentials." That is questionable. There is nothing in Kerry's
> speech tht shows any sign of "stong national security credentials."
> It is very possible to be a much decorated soldier and still have
> little understanding of the very war in which one is fighting. It is
> clear Kerry did not, and therefore might not understand the current
> war.
>
> For John Kerry's full '71 testimony before the Senate Foreign
> Relations Committee, please see:
> http://members.aol.com/bear317p/kerry.htm

Time for the media to out Kerry.....I have forwarded these post (below) and
others on this group to Savage, Rush, and O'Reily in hopes they will get the
ball rollin.

wrote in message
newsai-Uy-2C0847.10403325012004@orngca-news04.socal.rr.com...
>
> VIETNAM VETERANS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM -
> the student auxiliary at the University of Kansas
>
> Leonard Magruder - Founder/President Former professor of psychology,
> Suffolk College, N.Y.
>
> STUDENTS CALL ON KERRY TO DISAVOW 70'S ANTI-WAR STATEMENT, OR DROP
> OUT.
>
> by Leonard Magruder
> In 1972 a book was published that contained statements by well
> known personalities at the time, pro and con, the Vietnam War. Called
> "The Eloquence of Protest " it was edited by Harrison E. Salisbury,
> and published by Houghton Mifflin. Among the statements was one by
> Navy Lieutenant John Kerry, testifying for his organization, Vietnam
> Veterans Against the War, before the Senate Foreign Relations
> Committee on April 22, 1971. At that time, and still today, I had
> strong ideas on the subject of the war, and have often have spoken
> out on the issue. While I did not see accuracy in a number of
> statements that Kerry made, I had read a lot about the war, felt I
> understood the feelings that produced such an outburst so did not
> complain at that time.
>
> But now John Kerry is running for the highest office in the land,
> for President, in times as perilous as any America has ever faced. So
> a few days ago I took a second look at his statement and came away
> with these questions. Isn't it clear that these statements had been
> heavily influenced by the standard arguments of the anti-war movement
> at the time, and haven't those arguments been shown in repeated
> history books in recent years to have been seriously
> misrepresentative of that war? Would not someone who had been so wide
> of the mark in his understanding of that war be dangerous to the
> nation as a Commander-in-Chief, unless he had changed his mind
> significantly in later years ? While the media today frequently
> mentions Senator Kerry's distinguished career in Vietnam, and rightly
> so, it has studiously avoided mentioning his major role in
> organizing Vietnam Veterans Against the War, or his speech to
> Congress condemning that war.
>
> We think it vitally important that the media ask of Senator Kerry
> if he still stands by the statements he made to Congress in 1971.
> These statements were significantly at odds with majority American
> opinion on the war at that time and they clearly parallel the
> opinions of the campus war protests, which, in the long run made a
> major contribution to the failure of that campaign and the triumph of
> tyranny and genocide in Southeast Asia.
>
> If he disavows his earlier position, that would be a major blow to
> the myths about Vietnam that are still being perpetuated in media and
> university to protect those who avoided that fight for freedom. If
> he does not disavow his earlier position then we call on him to drop
> out of the race for the Presidency.
>
> In the following what I do is quote some of the more startling
> passages from Mr. Kerry's statement and comment on them, in some
> cases borrowing information from the noted historian Lewis Sorley who
> describes the very same period in his recent book on Vietnam , "A
> Better War." Mr. Sorley is the historian who was selected to be the
> main analyst in the recent highly acclaimed 4-volume film series on
> the Vietnam War, "The Long Way Home Project", introduced by H. Norman
> Schwartkopf. If Kerry does disavow his 1971 statement then we also
> ask that he use his considerable influence to get PBS to air this
> series nationally to help heal the bitter division in the country
> that still exists between those who served and those who did not
> serve. We cannot go forward into a dangerous future without national
> unity. It is time to end the undeserved aura of idealism that media
> and university attach to the phrase "anti-war activist", when in
> actual fact it should be viewed as shameful.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Excerpts from Senator Kerry's 1971 statement to Congress, followed by
> my comments.
>
> Kerry:
> "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 , not isolated
> incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full
> awareness of officers at all levels of command. They re-lived the
> absolute horror of what this country , in a sense , made them do.
> They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires
> from portable telephones to human genitals , cut off limbs, blown up
> bodies, randomly shot civilians, razed villages in fashion
> reminiscent of Genghis Kahn, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned
> food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side... We are ashamed
> of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia. "
> Comment:
> It is common knowledge that the medals that Kerry threw over the
> fence in Washington at Dewey Canyon lll were not his own. They are
> on his wall in his office. Kerry's was a fake sacrifice, but keeping
> the medals does show he cares about his reputation as a soldier. But
> he should have remembered that other veterans cared equally when he
> talked about "the crimes this country, in a sense, made them do." I
> had to read tons of Army manuals in becoming an R.O.T.C. 2nd
> Lieutenant, (although I never served , being transfered during the
> Korean War to Honorary Reserve because of medical problems.) And I
> know that nothing in those manuals orders soldiers to do any of the
> things Kerry mentioned. We know things like this happened, but they
> were crimes and were prosecuted when possible. Historian Guenter Lewy
> points out in statistical form in his highly acclaimed and objective
> history "America in Vietnam", that atrocities in Vietnam did not
> differ significantly in that war from any other American war.
>
> Kerry:
> "The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a
> monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal
> and trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the
> biggest nothing in history."
> Comment:
> Psychologists, who were usually against the war, to buttress their
> position, charged the war with having created a "killer instinct" for
> which there was not the slightest shred of evidence. We know this
> from comparing the rates of crimes by Vietnam vets with the rest of
> the country over the years. Wrote the noted sociologist and student
> of war Charles Moskos, "Psychologists tried to portray the soldier as
> variously, wanton perpetrators of atrocities or proto-fascist
> automatons." The truth is the mental health community prostituted
> itself in creating this myth to forward its politics, using the
> suffering of the
> veterans to do so.
> Also, what was "nothing" about the enormous sacrifice of men and
> treasure the U.S. expended to try to help a small country who asked
> for our aid against the horrors that we know occured when that
> country went down ?
>
> Kerry:
> "We are men who have returned with a sense of anger , and a sense
> of betrayal which no one yet has grasped. We are angry because we
> feel that we have been used in the worst fashion by the
> administration of this country."
> .Comment:
> A Harris poll in the 1980's found that 91% said they were glad
> they served, 74% said they enjoyed their time in the military, and
> 66% said they would serve again. As to the effects of their service
> many said it made them more ambitious, more determined to make
> something of their lives, that it made them more serious and that
> they appreciated America more, valued life more. Does this sound like
> men who were "used."
>
> Kerry:
> "We in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country ,
> because those Agnew calls misfits (war protestors) were standing up
> for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to, because so
> many who have died would have returned to this country to join the
> misfits in their efforts to ask for an immediate withdrawal from
> South Vietnam.
> Comment:
> The identification with the goals of the campus war protestors,
> or anti-war movement, is very clear. Kerry was reportedly
> (U.S.Veterans Dispatch) a supporter of the "People's Peace Treaty",
> a "peoples" declaration to end the war drawn up in communist East
> Germany based on 9 points taken from Viet Cong peace proposals. The
> "Boston Herald Traveler" reported that Kerry marched in a protest on
> Dec. 12, 1971 in a group carrying Viet Cong flags and placards in
> support of China, Cuba, the USSR and Hanoi.
> Only those in the anti-war movement called for "immediately
> withdrawal" an ignominious solution that the majority would not even
> consider. Nor did the protestors care about the soldiers. Again and
> again in my documentary, based on 68 interviews, "The Shame of the
> War Protestors: Vietnam Vets Speak Out", the veterans of that war
> said , "When we came home, the protestors didn't care about us." Many
> told about being harassed, insulted, ostrasized, and even spit upon
> at airports when they returned.
>
> Kerry:
> "To attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam...
> by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those
> misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy,
> and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country
> apart."
> Comment:
> Is there any question but what the 58,000 plus lives that were
> given in South Vietnam was in a noble effort to preserve freedom for
> an oppressed people? American soldiers did give the South Vietnamese
> freedom. By late 1969 almost the entire population was thought to be
> living under substantially secure conditions. Said Ambassador Bunker,
> "By the end of 1972 one could travel anywhere in South Vietnam
> without security forces or anything else, even though by then
> American forces were about all gone." The American soldier never got
> any credit for all he did for the South Vietnamese, the media never
> mentioned it to the American people. As to what tore the country
> apart, it was the protestors, and here is what the nation thought
> about them. (From "America in Our Time," by Godfrey Hodgson)
> "At the height of the war, the Harris Poll showed that 69 % of the
> public believed that anti-war demonstrations were "acts of
> disloyalty against the boys fighting in Vietnam," 65% agreed that
> "protestors were giving aid and comfort to the enemy," 64% said they
> were not "serious , thoughtful critics of the war, just peaceniks and
> hippies having a ball." A poll by the University of Michigan showed
> that reactions to "Vietnam war protestors", was "by a wide margin,
> the most negative shown any group."
>
> Kerry:
> "We are probably angriest about all that we were told about
> Vietnam and about the mystical war against Communism. We found that
> not only was it a civil war, but that the Vietnamese were hard put to
> take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them
> from.
> Comment:
> Was there something 'mystical' about the soldiers he saw dying all
> around him? Did he not know that is was because Communist soldiers
> from the North were trying to enslave South Vietnam ? While the
> partition of South Vietnam into two sections makes the charge of
> "civil war" problematic, the fact remains it was clearly a war
> between a South Vietnam seeking freedom, against a totalitarian
> aggressor from the North, something neither the Communists nor the
> anti-war movement ever acknowledged. As for "hard put", few realize
> that in every campaign, the South Vietamese Army lost over twice as
> many soldiers as we did. The figures for the five major offensives
> are as follows: (from "Vietnam in Military Statistics", a major
> history of the Vietnam War by Micheal Clodfelter.) It was never made
> know by the media, by the way, just how badly the enemy was mauled
> during this war.You can see that below. 1968-the Tet Offensive- U.S.-
> 1,829 KIA (killed in action), South Vietnam-2,788 KIA, Communist
> forces- 45,000 KIA
> 1969- U.S. -9,414 KIA, South Vietnam - 21,833 KIA, Communist forces
> -156,954 KIA
> 1970 (includes Cambodian incursion)- U.S. -4,221 KIA, South
> Vietnam-23,345 KIA, Communist forces- 103,638 KIA
> Laos Invasion (Lam Son 719, with U.S. air support only)-
> SouthVietnam-3,800
> KIA, Communist forces, -13,668 KIA
> 1972 - Easter Offensive (with U.S.air support only) -South Vietnnam
> 15,000
> KIA, Communist forces - 83,000.
>
> Kerry:
> "We found most people didn't even know the difference between
> Communism and Democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies and
> without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their
> villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted the United
> States of America to leave them alone in peace. and they sided with
> whichever military force was present, be it Viet Cong, North
> Vietnamese, or American."
> Comment:
> The most devious of all the anti-war arguments. President Thieu
> distributed 600,000 weapons to his people. No government in doubt of
> the yearning for democracy of its people would have dared do this. In
> the villages and the hamlets the People's Self-Defense Force had
> mushroomed during 1969. At years end, now organized into a combat arm
> and a support arm, the PSDHF had more than 1,300,000 men and women in
> the combat arm, backed up by another 1,735,000 people in the support
> arm, all ready to stop Communists.
> Also, why was there no uprising against the Americans during the
> Tet Offensive, or any effort to aid the invaders, and why did the
> South Vietnamese Army then almost double, largely due to volunteers ?
> How could an 'uncaring ' people put together an army of over one
> million, sacrifice over 250,000 soldiers in battle, and fight against
> Communism, alone, for two years after the Americans had left, when,
> even with occasional stumbling, there were great victories as in the
> Easter Offensive, and An Loc."The basic fact of life", said the noted
> American commander John Vann , "is that the overwhelming majority of
> the population - somewhere about 95% - prefer the government of
> Vietnam to a Communist government."
> For two years the South Vietnamese held out, until Ted Kennedy,
> Kerry's biggest supporter, led anti-war forces in Congress in
> cutting off all ammunition to South Vietnam.
>
> We are hoping that over the years Senator Kerry has come to see
> that the anti-war position was mistaken, that it fell for enemy
> propaganda, and that he will say so. If not then there is no way that
> he can be trusted on matters of national security and he should
> abandon his quest for the Presidency, as that is the number one
> issue.The media keeps talking about Kerry's "strong national security
> credentials." That is questionable. There is nothing in Kerry's
> speech tht shows any sign of "stong national security credentials."
> It is very possible to be a much decorated soldier and still have
> little understanding of the very war in which one is fighting. It is
> clear Kerry did not, and therefore might not understand the current
> war.
>
> For John Kerry's full '71 testimony before the Senate Foreign
> Relations Committee, please see:
> http://members.aol.com/bear317p/kerry.htm

Kerry is a fraud. He essentially made a deal with the Democrats to
come out and attack the war and Vietnam Vets. The whole thing was a
smoke screen to cover the fact that his hero JFK (and LBJ) started the
Vietnam War. KErry fawns over JFK but Vietnam was JFKs war.

Kerry hooked up with Jane Fonda and the anti-war crowd which greased
the rails for him to become a Democrat candidate. He called his
fellow vets baby killers in front of Congress and once he became a
politcian - he turned his back on POWs and MIAs. He is a loathesome
man.

Reminds me of LBJ who made millions on Vietnam which was really just a
business deal between the Kennedys (JFK) and LBJ to make a lot of
money. LBJ got a bit greedy and cut JFK out of the partnership in
Dallas. LBJ was probably worried that JFK was getting "wobbly" about
Vietnam.

"Outbackbob" wrote in message news:<101dasge7k7e8de@corp.supernews.com>...
> Time for the media to out Kerry.....I have forwarded these post (below) and
> others on this group to Savage, Rush, and O'Reily in hopes they will get the
> ball rollin.
>
> wrote in message
> newsai-Uy-2C0847.10403325012004@orngca-news04.socal.rr.com...
> >
> > VIETNAM VETERANS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM -
> > the student auxiliary at the University of Kansas
> >
> > Leonard Magruder - Founder/President Former professor of psychology,
> > Suffolk College, N.Y.
> >
> > STUDENTS CALL ON KERRY TO DISAVOW 70'S ANTI-WAR STATEMENT, OR DROP
> > OUT.
> >
> > by Leonard Magruder
> > In 1972 a book was published that contained statements by well
> > known personalities at the time, pro and con, the Vietnam War. Called
> > "The Eloquence of Protest " it was edited by Harrison E. Salisbury,
> > and published by Houghton Mifflin. Among the statements was one by
> > Navy Lieutenant John Kerry, testifying for his organization, Vietnam
> > Veterans Against the War, before the Senate Foreign Relations
> > Committee on April 22, 1971. At that time, and still today, I had
> > strong ideas on the subject of the war, and have often have spoken
> > out on the issue. While I did not see accuracy in a number of
> > statements that Kerry made, I had read a lot about the war, felt I
> > understood the feelings that produced such an outburst so did not
> > complain at that time.
> >
> > But now John Kerry is running for the highest office in the land,
> > for President, in times as perilous as any America has ever faced. So
> > a few days ago I took a second look at his statement and came away
> > with these questions. Isn't it clear that these statements had been
> > heavily influenced by the standard arguments of the anti-war movement
> > at the time, and haven't those arguments been shown in repeated
> > history books in recent years to have been seriously
> > misrepresentative of that war? Would not someone who had been so wide
> > of the mark in his understanding of that war be dangerous to the
> > nation as a Commander-in-Chief, unless he had changed his mind
> > significantly in later years ? While the media today frequently
> > mentions Senator Kerry's distinguished career in Vietnam, and rightly
> > so, it has studiously avoided mentioning his major role in
> > organizing Vietnam Veterans Against the War, or his speech to
> > Congress condemning that war.
> >
> > We think it vitally important that the media ask of Senator Kerry
> > if he still stands by the statements he made to Congress in 1971.
> > These statements were significantly at odds with majority American
> > opinion on the war at that time and they clearly parallel the
> > opinions of the campus war protests, which, in the long run made a
> > major contribution to the failure of that campaign and the triumph of
> > tyranny and genocide in Southeast Asia.
> >
> > If he disavows his earlier position, that would be a major blow to
> > the myths about Vietnam that are still being perpetuated in media and
> > university to protect those who avoided that fight for freedom. If
> > he does not disavow his earlier position then we call on him to drop
> > out of the race for the Presidency.
> >
> > In the following what I do is quote some of the more startling
> > passages from Mr. Kerry's statement and comment on them, in some
> > cases borrowing information from the noted historian Lewis Sorley who
> > describes the very same period in his recent book on Vietnam , "A
> > Better War." Mr. Sorley is the historian who was selected to be the
> > main analyst in the recent highly acclaimed 4-volume film series on
> > the Vietnam War, "The Long Way Home Project", introduced by H. Norman
> > Schwartkopf. If Kerry does disavow his 1971 statement then we also
> > ask that he use his considerable influence to get PBS to air this
> > series nationally to help heal the bitter division in the country
> > that still exists between those who served and those who did not
> > serve. We cannot go forward into a dangerous future without national
> > unity. It is time to end the undeserved aura of idealism that media
> > and university attach to the phrase "anti-war activist", when in
> > actual fact it should be viewed as shameful.
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > --------
> >
> > Excerpts from Senator Kerry's 1971 statement to Congress, followed by
> > my comments.
> >
> > Kerry:
> > "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 , not isolated
> > incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full
> > awareness of officers at all levels of command. They re-lived the
> > absolute horror of what this country , in a sense , made them do.
> > They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires
> > from portable telephones to human genitals , cut off limbs, blown up
> > bodies, randomly shot civilians, razed villages in fashion
> > reminiscent of Genghis Kahn, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned
> > food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side... We are ashamed
> > of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia. "
> > Comment:
> > It is common knowledge that the medals that Kerry threw over the
> > fence in Washington at Dewey Canyon lll were not his own. They are
> > on his wall in his office. Kerry's was a fake sacrifice, but keeping
> > the medals does show he cares about his reputation as a soldier. But
> > he should have remembered that other veterans cared equally when he
> > talked about "the crimes this country, in a sense, made them do." I
> > had to read tons of Army manuals in becoming an R.O.T.C. 2nd
> > Lieutenant, (although I never served , being transfered during the
> > Korean War to Honorary Reserve because of medical problems.) And I
> > know that nothing in those manuals orders soldiers to do any of the
> > things Kerry mentioned. We know things like this happened, but they
> > were crimes and were prosecuted when possible. Historian Guenter Lewy
> > points out in statistical form in his highly acclaimed and objective
> > history "America in Vietnam", that atrocities in Vietnam did not
> > differ significantly in that war from any other American war.
> >
> > Kerry:
> > "The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a
> > monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal
> > and trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the
> > biggest nothing in history."
> > Comment:
> > Psychologists, who were usually against the war, to buttress their
> > position, charged the war with having created a "killer instinct" for
> > which there was not the slightest shred of evidence. We know this
> > from comparing the rates of crimes by Vietnam vets with the rest of
> > the country over the years. Wrote the noted sociologist and student
> > of war Charles Moskos, "Psychologists tried to portray the soldier as
> > variously, wanton perpetrators of atrocities or proto-fascist
> > automatons." The truth is the mental health community prostituted
> > itself in creating this myth to forward its politics, using the
> > suffering of the
> > veterans to do so.
> > Also, what was "nothing" about the enormous sacrifice of men and
> > treasure the U.S. expended to try to help a small country who asked
> > for our aid against the horrors that we know occured when that
> > country went down ?
> >
> > Kerry:
> > "We are men who have returned with a sense of anger , and a sense
> > of betrayal which no one yet has grasped. We are angry because we
> > feel that we have been used in the worst fashion by the
> > administration of this country."
> > .Comment:
> > A Harris poll in the 1980's found that 91% said they were glad
> > they served, 74% said they enjoyed their time in the military, and
> > 66% said they would serve again. As to the effects of their service
> > many said it made them more ambitious, more determined to make
> > something of their lives, that it made them more serious and that
> > they appreciated America more, valued life more. Does this sound like
> > men who were "used."
> >
> > Kerry:
> > "We in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country ,
> > because those Agnew calls misfits (war protestors) were standing up
> > for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to, because so
> > many who have died would have returned to this country to join the
> > misfits in their efforts to ask for an immediate withdrawal from
> > South Vietnam.
> > Comment:
> > The identification with the goals of the campus war protestors,
> > or anti-war movement, is very clear. Kerry was reportedly
> > (U.S.Veterans Dispatch) a supporter of the "People's Peace Treaty",
> > a "peoples" declaration to end the war drawn up in communist East
> > Germany based on 9 points taken from Viet Cong peace proposals. The
> > "Boston Herald Traveler" reported that Kerry marched in a protest on
> > Dec. 12, 1971 in a group carrying Viet Cong flags and placards in
> > support of China, Cuba, the USSR and Hanoi.
> > Only those in the anti-war movement called for "immediately
> > withdrawal" an ignominious solution that the majority would not even
> > consider. Nor did the protestors care about the soldiers. Again and
> > again in my documentary, based on 68 interviews, "The Shame of the
> > War Protestors: Vietnam Vets Speak Out", the veterans of that war
> > said , "When we came home, the protestors didn't care about us." Many
> > told about being harassed, insulted, ostrasized, and even spit upon
> > at airports when they returned.
> >
> > Kerry:
> > "To attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam...
> > by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those
> > misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy,
> > and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country
> > apart."
> > Comment:
> > Is there any question but what the 58,000 plus lives that were
> > given in South Vietnam was in a noble effort to preserve freedom for
> > an oppressed people? American soldiers did give the South Vietnamese
> > freedom. By late 1969 almost the entire population was thought to be
> > living under substantially secure conditions. Said Ambassador Bunker,
> > "By the end of 1972 one could travel anywhere in South Vietnam
> > without security forces or anything else, even though by then
> > American forces were about all gone." The American soldier never got
> > any credit for all he did for the South Vietnamese, the media never
> > mentioned it to the American people. As to what tore the country
> > apart, it was the protestors, and here is what the nation thought
> > about them. (From "America in Our Time," by Godfrey Hodgson)
> > "At the height of the war, the Harris Poll showed that 69 % of the
> > public believed that anti-war demonstrations were "acts of
> > disloyalty against the boys fighting in Vietnam," 65% agreed that
> > "protestors were giving aid and comfort to the enemy," 64% said they
> > were not "serious , thoughtful critics of the war, just peaceniks and
> > hippies having a ball." A poll by the University of Michigan showed
> > that reactions to "Vietnam war protestors", was "by a wide margin,
> > the most negative shown any group."
> >
> > Kerry:
> > "We are probably angriest about all that we were told about
> > Vietnam and about the mystical war against Communism. We found that
> > not only was it a civil war, but that the Vietnamese were hard put to
> > take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them
> > from.
> > Comment:
> > Was there something 'mystical' about the soldiers he saw dying all
> > around him? Did he not know that is was because Communist soldiers
> > from the North were trying to enslave South Vietnam ? While the
> > partition of South Vietnam into two sections makes the charge of
> > "civil war" problematic, the fact remains it was clearly a war
> > between a South Vietnam seeking freedom, against a totalitarian
> > aggressor from the North, something neither the Communists nor the
> > anti-war movement ever acknowledged. As for "hard put", few realize
> > that in every campaign, the South Vietamese Army lost over twice as
> > many soldiers as we did. The figures for the five major offensives
> > are as follows: (from "Vietnam in Military Statistics", a major
> > history of the Vietnam War by Micheal Clodfelter.) It was never made
> > know by the media, by the way, just how badly the enemy was mauled
> > during this war.You can see that below. 1968-the Tet Offensive- U.S.-
> > 1,829 KIA (killed in action), South Vietnam-2,788 KIA, Communist
> > forces- 45,000 KIA
> > 1969- U.S. -9,414 KIA, South Vietnam - 21,833 KIA, Communist forces
> > -156,954 KIA
> > 1970 (includes Cambodian incursion)- U.S. -4,221 KIA, South
> > Vietnam-23,345 KIA, Communist forces- 103,638 KIA
> > Laos Invasion (Lam Son 719, with U.S. air support only)-
> > SouthVietnam-3,800
> > KIA, Communist forces, -13,668 KIA
> > 1972 - Easter Offensive (with U.S.air support only) -South Vietnnam
> > 15,000
> > KIA, Communist forces - 83,000.
> >
> > Kerry:
> > "We found most people didn't even know the difference between
> > Communism and Democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies and
> > without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their
> > villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted the United
> > States of America to leave them alone in peace. and they sided with
> > whichever military force was present, be it Viet Cong, North
> > Vietnamese, or American."
> > Comment:
> > The most devious of all the anti-war arguments. President Thieu
> > distributed 600,000 weapons to his people. No government in doubt of
> > the yearning for democracy of its people would have dared do this. In
> > the villages and the hamlets the People's Self-Defense Force had
> > mushroomed during 1969. At years end, now organized into a combat arm
> > and a support arm, the PSDHF had more than 1,300,000 men and women in
> > the combat arm, backed up by another 1,735,000 people in the support
> > arm, all ready to stop Communists.
> > Also, why was there no uprising against the Americans during the
> > Tet Offensive, or any effort to aid the invaders, and why did the
> > South Vietnamese Army then almost double, largely due to volunteers ?
> > How could an 'uncaring ' people put together an army of over one
> > million, sacrifice over 250,000 soldiers in battle, and fight against
> > Communism, alone, for two years after the Americans had left, when,
> > even with occasional stumbling, there were great victories as in the
> > Easter Offensive, and An Loc."The basic fact of life", said the noted
> > American commander John Vann , "is that the overwhelming majority of
> > the population - somewhere about 95% - prefer the government of
> > Vietnam to a Communist government."
> > For two years the South Vietnamese held out, until Ted Kennedy,
> > Kerry's biggest supporter, led anti-war forces in Congress in
> > cutting off all ammunition to South Vietnam.
> >
> > We are hoping that over the years Senator Kerry has come to see
> > that the anti-war position was mistaken, that it fell for enemy
> > propaganda, and that he will say so. If not then there is no way that
> > he can be trusted on matters of national security and he should
> > abandon his quest for the Presidency, as that is the number one
> > issue.The media keeps talking about Kerry's "strong national security
> > credentials." That is questionable. There is nothing in Kerry's
> > speech tht shows any sign of "stong national security credentials."
> > It is very possible to be a much decorated soldier and still have
> > little understanding of the very war in which one is fighting. It is
> > clear Kerry did not, and therefore might not understand the current
> > war.
> >
> > For John Kerry's full '71 testimony before the Senate Foreign
> > Relations Committee, please see:
> > http://members.aol.com/bear317p/kerry.htm

John Kerry is a member of Bush's Secret Society
__________________________________________________ ______________________




http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in576332.shtml

http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/...ML/001859.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0122-10.htm

http://nm.indymedia.org/newswire/display/2277/index.php

http://www.matrixmasters.com/world/u...landbones.html



__________________________________________________ ______________________

John Kerry is a member of Bush's Secret Society
__________________________________________________ ______________________




http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in576332.shtml

http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/...ML/001859.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0122-10.htm

http://nm.indymedia.org/newswire/display/2277/index.php

http://www.matrixmasters.com/world/u...landbones.html



__________________________________________________ ______________________

On 27 Jan 2004 1657 -0800, arnold_wolfcastle_gupta@yahoo.co.in
(Arnold Wolfcaste) wrote:

>Kerry is a fraud.


Yeah...the nerve of this decorated vet going out and EARNING combat
decorations

....and not going AWOL in the safe zone while giving lip service
support to the war.

>Yeah...the nerve of this decorated vet going out and EARNING combat
>decorations ..and not going AWOL in the safe zone while giving lip service
>support to the war.

What Kerry may have done or did during the Vietnam war has no bearing
on what he can do today. That was 30 + years ago. Personally, like
many military retirees I put him in the same folder as ‘Hanoi’ Jane.
He has significant character flaws and is somewhat hypocritical.
A point of fact is that during a protest he they threw " what was
claimed to be his" medals and ribbons over a fence in front of the
U.S. Capitol. However after the press found out that to this day his
medals hang on the wall of his office Kerry reluctantly admitted that
the medals that he threw were not even his. Just another hypocrite.

"Rodger Frego" wrote in message
news:6s5e101ccvdgv8ica0vlrat8u7dvm183fg@4ax.com...
> >Yeah...the nerve of this decorated vet going out and EARNING combat
> >decorations ..and not going AWOL in the safe zone while giving lip
service
> >support to the war.
>
> What Kerry may have done or did during the Vietnam war has no bearing
> on what he can do today.

Ah contraire, what Kerry did during the Vietnam War is going to cause a lot
of people to have a bearing "on what he can do today." Fer instance, he can
go to hell. Right now. Pay now, pay 30+ years ago, or pay later, but pay he
will. Everybody does.

Rita


That was 30 + years ago. Personally, like
> many military retirees I put him in the same folder as 'Hanoi' Jane.
> He has significant character flaws and is somewhat hypocritical.
> A point of fact is that during a protest he they threw " what was
> claimed to be his" medals and ribbons over a fence in front of the
> U.S. Capitol. However after the press found out that to this day his
> medals hang on the wall of his office Kerry reluctantly admitted that
> the medals that he threw were not even his. Just another hypocrite.
>
>

"Rodger Frego" wrote in message
news:6s5e101ccvdgv8ica0vlrat8u7dvm183fg@4ax.com...
> >Yeah...the nerve of this decorated vet going out and EARNING combat
> >decorations ..and not going AWOL in the safe zone while giving lip
service
> >support to the war.
>
> What Kerry may have done or did during the Vietnam war has no bearing
> on what he can do today.

Ah contraire, what Kerry did during the Vietnam War is going to cause a lot
of people to have a bearing "on what he can do today." Fer instance, he can
go to hell. Right now. Pay now, pay 30+ years ago, or pay later, but pay he
will. Everybody does.

Rita


That was 30 + years ago. Personally, like
> many military retirees I put him in the same folder as 'Hanoi' Jane.
> He has significant character flaws and is somewhat hypocritical.
> A point of fact is that during a protest he they threw " what was
> claimed to be his" medals and ribbons over a fence in front of the
> U.S. Capitol. However after the press found out that to this day his
> medals hang on the wall of his office Kerry reluctantly admitted that
> the medals that he threw were not even his. Just another hypocrite.
>
>