Kerry's Fantastic anti-war Speech to the Senate in 1971 (must read!)

[RegenerationMan]

Mods - VVAW site, no copyright, OK to quote in full

Vietnam Veterans Against the War Statement by John Kerry to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations

April 23, 1971

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.

They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term Winter Soldier is a play on words of Thomas Paine's in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriots and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out....

In our opinion and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos 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.

We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.

We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese or American.

We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.

We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against "oriental human beings." We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater. We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation by the North Vietnamese. We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point, and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and Fire Base 6s, and so many others.

Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."

We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?....We are here in Washington to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country - the question of racism which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions such as the use of weapons; the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything.

An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly. He told me how as a boy on an Indian reservation he had watched television and he used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said, "my God, I am doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people," and he stopped. And that is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to end.

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. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The marines say they never even leave their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They've left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country....

We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission - to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. And more. And so when thirty years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.

IMAGINE PRESIDENT KERRY!

[WitchWay]

1. Yes, but...

It would be nice if he could give a great anti-war speech about now.

[truthspeaker]

2. If only he would make a speech about that now

(or better yet, a year ago, but late is better than never)

The Iraq war is just as unneccesary and morally bankrupt as the Vietnam war, and it was sold to the American people with at least as much dishonesty.

[Atlant]

3. How could he? He voted *FOR* this war. (NT)

[JHBowden]

4. You guys are believing your own bs.

Give it up.

[Atlant]

10. Keep saying it. Maybe someone will believe he didn't vote for IWR. (NT)

[truthspeaker]

11. What BS is that?

That Kerry is not sufficiently opposed to the Iraq War? That he hasn't committed to pulling our troops out immediately after being inaugurated? That he hasn't called Bush a liar in plain words?

I can live with his vote for IWR. He, and the rest of Congress (and the country ) were lied to by Bush and his henchmen. But now that those lies have been exposed I would like to see him renounce the whole fiasco.

[revcarol]

5. WHY????????

So we can :puke: :puke: :puke: at the travesty of his former courageous self????????

And let's put bamboo under our fingernails, while we're at it.

[Tinoire]

6. Very strange because the antiwar Vets hate him. Letter to Kerry

((Letter reprinted in its entirety with permission of the author who is a fellow vet for peace))

Senator John Kerry on Iraq
by S. Brian Willson
October 10, 2002
FROM: S. Brian Willson
TO: John Kerry

Dear John,

It has been a long time since we have had contact. As you might remember, our very first meeting was at VVAW's Dewey Canyon III, "A Limited Incursion Into the Country of Congress," April 19-23, 1971, in Washington, D.C. I'm sure you remember asking the Senate that week in an impassioned speech, "How do you ask a man to die for a mistake?" You also stressed the importance of being "totally nonviolent."

Our second and many subsequent meetings occurred in Massachusetts after you were elected Lt. Governor, 1982-84, while I was active in veteran's issues in Western MA. As director of a veterans outreach center in Greenfield, and the Western Massachusetts Agent Orange Information Project, I served on the Massachusetts Agent Orange Task Force under Governor Dukakis' veterans commissioner and your office as Lt. Governor. I subsequently also served on Dukakis' homeless veterans task force.

When you decided to run for the Senate in 1984 against Ray Shamie, a wealthy businessman, remember that I loyally supported your campaign as one of the dozen or so Vietnam veterans the press called Kerry's Commandos, you called "Doghunters." We accompanied you throughout the state, and fended off right wing criticism from folks such as General George Patton III, who accused you of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" for your earlier VVAW activities. I'm sure you remember with fondness that critical time that launched you into national office. Your lawyer brother, Cameron, concluded that it was the veterans' support that pulled your first campaign out of a nose-dive and created the necessary "galvanizing energy."

Your critics had suspected that your activities, both in the war, and in years following, were prompted, at least in part, to an intense political ambition, even as you addressed your Yale graduating class with an anti-Vietnam War speech shortly prior to enlisting in the U.S. Navy. Your career in the Senate has revealed your all-consuming ambition, but that is quite typical of politicians.

The first hint of a bit of disconnect in your style was when during your first Senate campaign you denied returning your war medals, with a thousand other veterans, in protest of the war during Dewey Canyon III. That was a bit of a shock, since for most veterans who returned their medals in that emotional ceremony on Friday, April 23, 1971, it was a very proud and healing moment. Your 1984 campaign response: You had returned the medals of a WWII acquaintance at his direction. All those 13 years everyone thought you had had the courage and leadership to return medals that to veterans who returned them represented medals of dishonor drenched in the blood of innocent Vietnamese who did not deserve to die for a lie, any more than our fellow US Americans. I guess you knew then that you were to be running for office.

The second hint occurred at the celebration party you organized for us "doghunters" at your friend John Martilla's Beacon Hill house in Boston in late June 1985, 6 months into your term as a junior Senator. In the wee hours of the morning, you made two comments that troubled me: (1) you stressed your initials as "JFK" that would help you one day in your quest for the White House, and (2) that after War Department briefings (and perhaps CIA as well) about the need for funding and training contra terrorists in Afghanistan and Nicaragua you had a new appreciation for their importance in furthering U.S. policies. That did not mean that you necessarily voted for Contra aid but that once in power, information becomes part of an elite circle preempting genuine democracy.

I had driven in from Greenfield for that celebration party, and after those remarks I immediately left the party and drove the two hours home. I never forgot it, obviously.

In late September 1986, you, along with some other Senators and Representatives, reluctantly supported the four veterans (myself being one of them) participating in the open-ended Veterans Fast For Life (VFFL) on the east steps of the Capitol building, protesting aid to the Contras. During that fast one of your fellow Senators, Warren Rudman (R-NH), stated in October 1986 that our "actions are hardly different than those of the terrorists who are holding our hostages in Beirut." Shortly thereafter, both our VFFL offices and separate housing accommodations were broken into with many files of our activities and addresses of supporters taken. The FBI initiated a "domestic terrorist" investigation of the members of the VFFL which was revealed later when an FBI agent refused to comply and was fired after nearly 22 years service in the agency.

In September 1987, as you remember, I was severely assaulted by a US weapons train in Concord, CA, during a peaceful protest of a Pentagon munitions train moving lethal weapons to Central America, suffering permanent injuries. Later it was revealed that they suspected me of planning to "hijack" the train, and had accelerated the train 12 miles above the legal speed limit of 5 mph rather than stopping and awaiting police arrest.

Such is life. Contra "terrorists" in Nicaragua called freedom fighters by US presidents, while nonviolent protestors of terrorist policies are labeled the "terrorists" to be investigated. Then look what happened with our terrorists, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Now the Congress is giving the resident of the White House virtual carte blanche authority to launch pre-emptive strikes against more evil lurking beyond our borders. It is a no-brainer to many outside the beltway that we are really experts at knowing how to create rage, then revenge, with our policies of aggression and arrogance.

In the life of being a Senator, John, I'm afraid that your career again proves that power corrupts (and blinds), and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Of course you have many friends in the same camp.

With your vote for essentially agreeing with the selected resident of the White House's request for incredible authority in advance to wage wars against whomever he wants, you have contributed to finalizing the last of the world's empires, and the likely consequent doom of international law, peaceful existence, and hope for the future possibilities of Homo sapiens. Of course, it also means that searching for the motivations of other people's rage and desperate acts of revenge will be overlooked, dooming us to far more threats and instability then if we had seriously pursued a single-standard in the application of international law equally with all nations in the first place. We are too much of a bully to do that, and have stated over and over again that the American Way Of Life is not negotiable. Can you understand that this means species suicide?

I'm sorry and terribly fearful for this state we are in. Your vote is terribly misguided, John. Now that veterans have reorganized throughout the nation as once again an important part of the growing movement, know that we shall work hard for your defeat, whether as a Presidential candidate or for another Senate term.

Sincerely,

S. Brian Willson, Arcata, CA
Veterans For Peace

http://brianwillson.com/awolkerry.html
http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/000416.html

About VFP: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/



About S. Brian Willson:

Caption: “In nonviolence, the masses have a weapon which enables a child, a woman, or even a decrepit old man to challenge the mightiest government successfully. If your spirit is strong, mere lack of physical strength ceases to be a handicap.” Gandhi



Introduction by Kris Kristofferson: “On Sept. 1 1987, S. Brian Willson began a protest at the Concord Naval Weapons Station near Oakland, Calif. That’s one of the places that send out the weapons that have killed or injured tens of thousands of people in Central America. Brian delivered a letter to the Base Commander telling him that on that day he’d begin using his body to block the trains carrying its weapons. His hope was that if they stopped the train to save one human life, they were not far from understanding they could also stop it from destroying many human lives, each of equal value in Central America.



“They must have known he meant business. One year earlier, with three other veterans, he’d gone without food for 36 days on the steps of the Capital to persuade Congress to stop the killing in Central America. Brian Willson, former high school jock, former Air Force Security Officer in Vietnam, former dairy farmer who’d received the commendation for his work with the traumatized veterans of Vietnam, was run over that day.”



“He put himself in the place of the people of Central America and in doing so, he opened up the deepest truths of human existence. For the life and times of Brian Willson had turned him into a Satyagraha, a practitioner of the nonviolent resistance to evil, the path taken by Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Archbishop Romero of El Salvador. Brian trusted that even greater than the power of a speeding train, is the power of truth and love. He showed a new kind of heroism, the kind that may just bring the world back from the brink of self-destruction. He acted on his faith in the unity and sanctity of all life and that if one person will speak and act upon this truth, it will open the hearts of many and provide us a way out in this most desperate moment.”



S. Brian Willson: “Five per cent of the people of the world live in the United States but we consume 40 percent of the resources of the world. We have become used to thinking that we have a right to all that we have no matter what damage we do to the Earth or to other people. We have become detached and disconnected from reality. We have become detached from the Earth. We have become detached from the feelings and lives of people elsewhere if it interferes with our right to maintain our lifestyle and standard of living. I would submit to you that we’re on a course leading to inevitable annihilation. Martin Luther King said the issue is not between violence and non-violence; it’s between non-violence and non-existence. The course we’re on in the “First World” is a course of ultimate destruction. Do we want to be part of this course of ultimate destruction or do we want to be part of hope and affirmation and justice for all people of the Earth and for the Earth itself without which we cannot live? Yes, I’m talking about a non-violent revolution of consciousness. A consciousness that is able to understand how we’re all inextricably connected to each other on this Earth and to the Earth itself and that if we violate those fundamental principles, we do so at our own peril. Yes, we can continue to live in this delusion and the denials of reality because it’s painful, it’s frightening. Sometimes, it’s terrifying just as Vietnam vets have understood it’s terrifying to face the truth, especially when you don’t have anybody to talk to.”

<snip> http://www.addictedtowar.com/sbwillson.htm

[RegenerationMan]

8. If Kerry voted against Iraq, he would not likely win the election

So he voted for the War resolution, so he could defeat Bush, go after the real enemy, OBL, and then make a real Mideast peace and we can get out of Iraq.

Otherwise, Bush wins and we're in Iraq and then seven other countries for decades.

Figure it out.

[Tinoire]

17. Ah I see. A man who caves in to get to bigger things?

In other words an unprincipled weak man. Or is it a stupid man who was misled by the village idiot? And some people want that as a leader? Go figure....

Who/what will Kerry dave in to next?

Bush? Nope, done that already.

Corporations? Nope, done that already and they're financing him.

Corporate media? Nope, done that already. And they're financing him, especially Murdoch & his horde of right-wingers.

The people who need to exploit the Iraqis for their oil? Nope, done that already.


The real enemy. Mid-East peace after financing & rolling over for the biggest nudlear threat down their guarding our oil. OBL. What rubbish. It's all as transparent as Kerry's IWR vote.

[AntiCoup2K4]

7. You guys really love glorifying Kerry's past

Can't blame you for that, because everything he's done in the last three years is a fucking embarrassment.

[RegenerationMan]

12. You're only pretending Bush isn't like the Hitler of 1936

And that candidates don't have to position themselves for the General Election to win the swing vote.

The flaw in your argument is that Bush and Kery are alike. But Bush is hiding his true colors, for re-electing him would be to find out his true agenda, much as Hitler could not make his major moves until after 1936.

Kerry is only hiding his more progressive nature. It's call real politics, winning the swing vote.

Unless of course you think Kerry is hiding his REAL AGENDA--which is to keep Iraq's oil forever for the U.S., then invade Iran, Syria, and build up huge bases in Central Asia and the Phillipines, militarize space and draft millions of men to fight war for the next 20 years, while taking covert control of Saudi Arabia and Columbia?

[revcarol]

13. You didn't want to mention Colombia, I think.

Kerry loves Plan Colombia, which looses American and death squad troops upon the populace, and destroys the environment. No, you didn't want to mention Colombia, I think, a definite black mark against your candidate.

[RegenerationMan]

18. Kerry does not LOVE Plan Colombia. In fact, here are his reservations

when he voted for it

"If we fail to support aid to Colombia, we can only sit back and watch it deteriorate even further. This Plan presents a unique opportunity to support the Colombian Government's effort to address its problems while at the same time promoting U.S. interests. The Colombian Government, despite immense obstacles, has begun to address significant human rights concerns and is working to instill the rule of law and democratic institutions. Though the United States is not in the business of fighting insurgents, we are in the business of fighting drugs, and this is clearly an opportunity to work with a willing partner in doing so.

While I support a United States contribution to helping Colombia, I believe that if we are going to commit, we must do so in the context of an ongoing process under constant review to respond to changing needs.

My first concern is the fine line that exists between counternarcotics and counterinsurgency operations, particularly since they are so intertwined in Colombia. It is impossible to attack drug trafficking in Colombia without seriously undercutting the insurgents' operations. We must acknowledge that the more involved in Colombia's counternarcotics efforts we become the more we will become involved in its counterinsurgency, regardless of our intentions to steer clear of it. But, because the drug trade is the most destabilizing factor in Colombia, our cooperation with the government will over the long run, advance the development and expansion of democracy, and will limit the insurgents' ability to terrorize the civilian population. But our military involvement in Colombia should go no further than this. Efforts to limit number of personnel are designed to address this.

I appreciate the concerns expressed by my colleagues that the United States contribution to Plan Colombia

is skewed in favor of the military, but we must keep in mind that our contribution is only a percentage of the total Plan. The total Plan Colombia price tag is approximately $7.5 billion. The Colombian Government has already committed $4 billion to the Plan, and has secured donations and loans from the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the Andean Development Corporation, and the Latin American Reserve Fund. As part of our contribution, and to balance military aid, the United States must continue to support Colombian requests for additional funding from international financial institutions and other EU donors. We must also continue to implement stringent human rights vetting and end-use monitoring agreements, and make sure that our Colombia policy does not end with the extension of aid.

Second, I am concerned that even if the Plan is successful at destroying coca production and reducing the northward flow of drugs, large numbers of coca farmers will be displaced, worsening the current crisis of internally displaced people in Colombia. Colombia has the largest population of internally displaced persons in the world, estimated at over one and half million in November 1999. Seventy percent of those displaced are children, and the vast majority of them no longer attend school. There is every indication that as Plan Colombia is implemented, this population may grow. This problem underscores the importance of supporting the Colombians in their efforts to secure economic aid for alternative development. Unless we strongly support loans and additional donations, the danger remains that desperate farmers will simply move across the borders into Peru and Bolivia, and undo all the eradication progress that has been made in those areas.

My third major concern with respect to this aid package is that it does not adequately address Colombia's human rights problem. The Colombian Government has made a real effort to address human rights and to promote the rule of law. Pastrana has worked to root out members of the military who have committed gross violations of human rights, and has suspended a number of high-level officers. He has also attacked corruption in the legislature, and has come under heavy fire for doing so. Despite this progress, there is no question that recent events in Colombia have raised some cause for concern. The Colombian Government's unfortunate decision to send back to the legislature a bill to criminalize genocide and forced disappearance was a significant setback for the promotion of human rights and the rule of law. I would like to commend my colleagues on the Foreign Operations Subcommittee for bolstering the human rights component of this legislation. In addition to requiring additional reporting from the Secretary of State on the human rights practices of the Colombian security forces, Senator Leahy's provisions for human rights programs in the Colombian police and judiciary, a witness protection program and additional human rights monitors in our embassy and Bogota, and Senator Harkin's provision to provide $5 million to Colombian NGOs to protect child soldiers, demonstrate our commitment to improving the human rights situation.

Despite my reservations, the potential benefits of this plan are too large to ignore. In light of the changes made by the committee, I believe the plan can help advance United States interests by reducing drug trafficking and thereby promoting stability and democracy in Colombia."

[Atlant]

19. Hear, hear! (NT)

[WI_DEM]

9. he took a very admirable stand--30 years ago

but what does that have to do with todays unjust war?

[RegenerationMan]

14. Despite the politics of running for President, this is where Kerry is

coming from. He knows the horror of war and sees it as a last resort. If he had not voted against the first Gulf War, he might have been able to vote against the Iraq Invasion. But following 9-11, and the grief the Republicans gave him over not authorizing the first Gulf War when Kuwait had been invaded, he and his team knew that if he voted against this war, Rove would be able to really paint him in a corner and Bush would win.

That's really why he did it in my opinion. That's why he spoke right away strongly against what Bush then went ahead and did.

It was politics. If he had voted for Gulf War I, he would have been able to vote against Gulf War II.

But he wanted to get rid of Bush above all and he knew that he was the strongest candidate for that battle.

[truthspeaker]

15. again, that explains his vote for IWR

but it doesn't explain his lackluster stand now. Why won't he just come out and say that the war on Iraq was unnecessary and Bush is a liar?

[Name removed]

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