"Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths"

[TexasBushwhacker]

This is an excellent series of articles from the Toledo Blade about atrocities committed in Vietnam.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SRTIGERFORCE

I'm sick and tired of the Swift Vets and others continuing to berate John Kerry for his protests against the Vietnam war and for the things he said before congress. He didn't say that ALL soldiers did these things or even most, but it did happen. War is hell and it makes people do awful things that they may not normally do (like at Abu Ghraib).

[knowbody0]

1. how can we dance when we set the world on fire

maybe we could focus on evolving. learning that killing only makes things worse

[Paradise]

2. what he said was that he was "told" of these atrocities by other vv's,

and, as for himself, he told of following orders and participating in "free-fire" zone attacks.

[KC21304]

3. Kerry should demand the Sinclair broadcasters run

the tape of his 1971 testimony if they are going to run the Stolen Honor smear job.

[Career Prole]

4. I've posted a link to that series here at least twice.

You're right, it is a superlative investigative piece (scored the Pulitzer, in fact) and it basically puts the lie to this smear-vets crap.
It includes interviews with eyewitnesses, including participants and victims. All the historic documents still exist.
The reporting team went to Rumsfeld in 2003 and asked why there was no further investigation and he promised to look into it then promptly went into 'ignore' mode.
Every single act of barbarism which Kerry testified he'd been told at the Winter Soldiers meeting was eyewitnessed by these guys and reported in the Blade.
They cut the head off a baby to steal a necklace, for God's sake.
Dennis Kucinich was supposedly looking into getting an investigation as well...I never heard anymore on that either. :shrug:
Anyway, if any leaners are reading this, read that series of articles that Texas Bushwhacker linked to before you make any decisions based on John Kerry's '71 testimony.

[TexasBushwhacker]

5. It's the SmearVets that made me look this up

I saw their latest commercial with men saying "What John Kerry said in front of Congress hurt me more than any wound I received". OH PLEASE!!!

From the SwiftVets website:

"Kerry's charges were based on a VVAW conference called the "Winter Soldier Investigation" -- a leftist propaganda event funded primarily by Jane Fonda. None of the Winter Soldier "witnesses" Kerry cited were willing to sign affadavits, and their gruesome stories lacked the names, dates and places that would allow their claims to be tested. Few were willing to cooperate with military investigators. The Naval Investigative Service found that several of the veterans said to have given statements at Winter Soldier were in fact imposters using the name of real veterans."

OH NO!!! NOT JANE FONDA!!!

No shit they weren't willing to sing affadavits or cooperate with military investigators. They didn't want to be the next batch of scapegoats.

[Career Prole]

6. Really...it's not something you want to brag about.

Did you read the section on the cover-up? Rumsfeld was there back then, too. These guys keep showing up like bad pennies. It's time to melt them down into something useful.