WP Unfriendly Fire - explains SBVLiars re Hoffman - Kerry looks good

[Pirate Smile]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2975-2004Oct2_5.html

It is a 5 page article. The most telling parts are in the middle and back. Read the entire article.

-snip-

"Roy Hoffmann is rewriting history, and he's going to believe what he's saying right now because he needs to believe it," McCann says. "How can you look at yourself if you can't rationalize what you did?"

-snip-

Then McCall remembered that, as the captain, he had authority over Hoffmann while they were sailing. Nervously, he ordered him out of the pilot house. Hoffmann went down "madder than a hornet," recalls Means. "Cussing up a storm."

As soon as they docked, Hoffmann gave McCall an administrative sanction, meaning he couldn't sail for 30 days. Means remembers the crew high-fiving because Hoffmann was off their boat. McCall remembers crying.

-snip-

"He infected the lives of a lot of Navy guys down there, and he has a lot of answering to do," Brinkley says about Hoffmann. "He can either recognize he has blood on his hands and deal with his own ghosts or go where it's safe and reach for the flag. He can see a therapist or wage a new war, and he did the latter."

Hoffman started the Swift Liars group after reading "Tour of Duty" because he looked like the a@#hole he is and Douglas Brinkley even says in the article that he soft-pedaled how bad "Latch" really was in Vietnam.

[tomfodw]

1. The problem is, the truth won't matter...

...to anyone who has drunk the Koolaid or sold themselves out to help O'Neill and Corsi get rich peddling their awful book.

[Pirate Smile]

3. It won't matter to the total Kool-aid drinkers but some people could see

the light. It really discredits "Latch" and that needed to be done.

Even if the truth is late, please let it show up finally.

[wryter2000]

2. Thanks

I printed it out.

[punpirate]

4. Insight into the military mind...

... in this. Hoffman believes that the people, just like soldiers, ought to just straighten up and support the war, "same in Iraq," he says.

For the soldier, there are only orders. Go fight the war, he's told, and he does. For him, there are no moral considerations, and it's telling that he thinks no differently about the war in Viet Nam than he does about the war in Iraq, both of which were fundamentally immoral in nature.

People who think otherwise aren't good soldiers, and that's why Kerry sticks in his craw so badly. Military men such as Hoffman can't conceive of the possibility that the orders themselves were wrong. Can't imagine themselves being in any way responsible for carrying out or giving illegal orders.

It's a function of a militaristic society that ordinary citizens think themselves as being under the command of the commander-in-chief. Under this country's Constitution, the President is only commander-in-chief of the armed services, not of the people at large, and yet, when the military is glorified (rather than being honored for sacrifice), ordinary people begin to believe that George Bush--and Roy Hoffman, are right, that they're commanded to fall into lockstep, just like soldiers.

When that happens, the ugly word "traitor" appears, to define those who know they are not under the command of the commander-in-chief and who have a moral obligation to question that authority. That is something that people such as Roy Hoffman are incapable of understanding. It's not in them.

[girl gone mad]

5. After seeing "Going Upriver" last night..

I couldn't help but think that the SBVT were the most despicable, deranged men on the planet.

They say Kerry betrayed and dishonored veterans, something we all know is false. Yet, when Kerry stood poised to raise the profile of Vietnam vets by presenting their actions as brave and heroic, the SBVT rushed in to destroy Kerry, and once again revive the image of Vietnam vets as war criminals.

Just remember, they were the ones that opened those war wounds, not Kerry.

[Pirate Smile]

6. kick