Stolen Honor: Bush League Propaganda

[Cory]

--SNIP--

Using the same visual tools that are present in the television commercials of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (now Swift Vets and POWs for Truth), the attack piece rings hollow as the majority of the footage had no relation to John Kerry but was simply used to falsely present a correlation between Kerry and the torture inflicted upon Vietnam prisoners of war. Within the film, the producer of the politically charged infomercial, Carlton Sherwood, attempts to vilify John Kerry as a man who painted Vietnam Veterans as "deranged, drug addicted, psychopaths" and "baby killers."

Parading out a gauntlet of former prisoners of war, Carlton highlights the torture and abuse that these men no doubt encountered during their time in captivity. However, only two of the men stated that the words of John Kerry were mentioned during their time as prisoners of war.

One of the men, Leo Thorsness, claimed in reference to John Kerry's 1971 congressional testimony that, "we're being tortured to say the same thing that he is saying." There is one problem with Mr. Thorsness' statement. In a published bio regarding his time served in Vietnam, Thorsness states that the last three years of his captivity (1971 to 1973) were "boring" due to growing political pressure from the United States. Although this does not downplay the brutality that Thorsness endured, it does give question to a premise of the film which accuses John Kerry as being responsible for the extended torturing of POW's.

Another former POW, Jim Warner, states that he was read news clips of John Kerry's testimony in order to solicit admissions of war crimes, insinuating that this was done under the strong threat of torture. In a recent opinion piece written by Warner, he stated that "It should be understood that the last torture that we knew of had taken place in September of 1969" and that the interrogation involving the words of Kerry and even his own mother and father was "the longest interrogation I had without torture."

--SNIP--

More: http://www.washingtondispatch.com/opinion/article_10326.shtml

There's also a link to the bio of Thorness in the piece that basically says that after Kerry's testimony, the time as a pow was boring and that torture had eased beause of the pressure of families in America.