McCain: Hanoi Hilton Guards Taunted POWs With Kerry's Testimony

[Grantref]

Originally posted by Frobozz
It is one thing to speak out against the administration ordering such acts, then to speak out against the soldiers following orders.

Well from what I've read, the problems that occurred were not always the adminstrations's policy but stemmed from a combination of pervasive racism and the severe fucked-upitude of the overall situation in vietnam.

[Grantref]

Originally posted by Aristotle
You'd be correct.

Unfortunately for Kerry, by his own admission he did not witness any.

Well, that's obviously a fucked-up thing to do. I respect the man for serving, and for speaking out, but that loses a good deal of that respect.

Still, if he's the democratic nominee I'd vote for him. If my vote mattered, that is. Which it doesn't since I live in New York which is pretty much a guaranteed win for whichever democrat runs.

I guess I'll vote for a third-party candidate. Who're the libertarians running?

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Jabriol
Well, that's obviously a fucked-up thing to do. I respect the man for serving, and for speaking out, but that loses a good deal of that respect.

It speaks well of you that you are open minded enough to evaluate the facts yourself.

Yes, it is outrageous that he would make such extreme accusations without witnessing even a SINGLE such action.

Originally posted by Jabriol
I guess I'll vote for a third-party candidate. Who're the libertarians running?

I imagine Harry Browne again. Heh. Who knows.

It sounds like you are experiencing a common dilemma: how to pick from a couple of bad choices. That's how I feel as well. I am not happy with ANY of the candidates of either party.

[Kharum]

Originally posted by Aristotle
He just invented his comments for political and personal expediency. What a great way to "move on up" in the Anti-War Political Ranks than to invent particularly titilating details.

Actually, having looked into Kerry's speech to the Fulbright Committee, a couple of things leap out. Firstly, Kerry went before the committee as a spokesman for a group of veterans opposed to the Vietnam War, so that his statements were intended to reflect not only his own impressions and opinions of the war but those of the people he was speaking for:

I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of 1,000 which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony....

Secondly, his claims are hardly inventions, or if they are they are not his inventions as he was passing on information supplied by other veterans:

They told the stories 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 Genghis 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.

Given that there is now a tremendous amount of anecdotal and documented evidence from both American GIs and Vietnamese civilians that these sorts of acts did in fact occur, I think it would be fair to say that he was acting on pretty reliable information.

As I already noted, if he had actually witnessed such things, then I would have no problem with him blowing the whistle.

I don't really understand what the big deal is. History has sided with Kerry's statement to the Fulbright committee. The Vietnam War was a fuck up through and through. Certain conservative websites seem to be making a lot out of these statements right now because they somehow conclude that such statements should make him ineligible to run as a war hero, instead of pointing out the more obvious reason he should drop the war hero routine, which is that it's getting pretty fucking tiresome listening to him answer every other question with a reference to his service in Vietnam (he's starting to remind me of Walter from The Big Lebowski).

[Lokrian]

Originally posted by Eorick
History has sided with Kerry's statement to the Fulbright committee. The Vietnam War was a fuck up through and through. [/B]

No. No, it has not. And you have a -very- bad habit of speaking as some sort of authority on everything from religion to history to science. How many phd's do you have?

[Kharum]

Originally posted by Lokrian
No. No, it has not. And you have a -very- bad habit of speaking as some sort of authority on everything from religion to history to science. How many phd's do you have?

Perhaps you would like to enlighten us on exactly what was accomplished in Vietnam? Tens of thousands of American soldiers and considerably more Vietnamese and Cambodians were killed. But what exactly did we accomplish? Was America made any safer? The war failed to contain communism in Southeast Asia (if such containment were ever even necessary). The war failed to address any impending threat to American security or sovereignty (as there wasn't any). The war failed to prevent the oil embargo and economic recession (because these were based on arguably more important American interests elsewhere in the world). The war failed to prevent the introduction of the Ford Pinto and the Chevy Vega and eventual rise of disco. What exactly did it accomplish? Maybe you should some day bother coming up with some explanations before you just start screaming, "You're wrong!"

[Lokrian]

Certainly.

The war in Viet Nam was prosecuted badly for several reasons, most noteably in that it was being fought as a small version of WW II. Our nation had yet to learn how to deal with the sort of political/guerrilla war, whereas that sort of war was precisely what had been going on in the far east for a long time.

We pulled out and the pretense was that it had been a bad war, but then Carter comes along and makes that into official policy, and before long our nation is mired in international helplessness.

Ronald Reagan took up precisely the same overall strategy that spawned Viet Nam, but he surrounded himself with people that were willing and able to make that policy work. I think it took the hostage crisis to open America's eyes to the fact that all the poor beset third world coutryies are not necessarily innocent victims of our greed. In any event, since that time we have gotten better and better at that sort of warfare, and actually, with nothing but a little half decade hiccup, our entire military history during the late 20th century is defined by many, many wars a lot like Viet Nam, most of which we carried off well.

To characterize Viet Nam as an unmitigated failure is to ignore all the military victories that were carried off even in that country. There is one main failure of Viet Nam, and that was moral relativism and a lack of political will. Most of our nation has learned that lesson from Viet Nam and moved on. It's time for liberals to do the same.

[Kharum]

Originally posted by Lokrian
The war in Viet Nam was prosecuted badly for several reasons, most noteably in that it was being fought as a small version of WW II. Our nation had yet to learn how to deal with the sort of political/guerrilla war, whereas that sort of war was precisely what had been going on in the far east for a long time.

Interestingly enough, this is a pretty close paraphrase of one of the points Kerry made in his statement to the Fulbright committee. We tried to fight a war in a terrain we didn't understand, among a people we didn't understand, against an enemy far more skilled at guerilla warfare and the political uses of terror than we could have anticipated, and in a theater that, even if you accepted the necessity of containment, was not of so paramount importance as to be worth throwing away lives on. All the political will in the world probably couldn't have kept the American people from figuring out this was a bad deal for the Americans.

[QB]Ronald Reagan took up precisely the same overall strategy that spawned Viet Nam, but he surrounded himself with people that were willing and able to make that policy work.[/QB]

No, Reagan employed a more thoroughly tested strategy (one that had been working at since the mid-50s and the coups in Iran and Guatemala). He and his people favored low-intensity conflict when it came to the use of force abroad, the idea being why send in American troops when third world troops with perhaps some CIA assistance can do the job just as well. This is why, for example, we never saw large invasions of Honduras or Nicaragua or Afghanistan. Even Grenada was, in terms of warfare, a very limited action that, in retrospect, could probably have been carried out by most of our larger cities' SWAT teams.

In any event, since that time we have gotten better and better at that sort of warfare, and actually, with nothing but a little half decade hiccup, our entire military history during the late 20th century is defined by many, many wars a lot like Viet Nam, most of which we carried off well.

This has as much or more do with technological progress and the end of the Cold War and Cold War thinking than with lessons learned from Vietnam. The Army I served in during the mid-80s, Reagan's army, was no more prepared to fight a war in Vietnam (or Nicaragua or Honduras or Afghanistan) than it had been 15 years earlier. The US military as it has been redesigned under Bush I and Clinton is a whole different monster, capable of fighting in probably just about any zone of conflict imaginable.

To characterize Viet Nam as an unmitigated failure is to ignore all the military victories that were carried off even in that country. There is one main failure of Viet Nam, and that was moral relativism and a lack of political will.

What does moral relativism have to do with it?

As for political will, would you rather our government had stuck with a war whose costs were rapidly outweighing any possible benefits? Unnecessary wars are all well and good, but either (as in the Spanish-American War) keep them brief or (as in the Mexican War) get some good, sparsely populated real estate out of it. Most Americans supported the Vietnam War prior to the Tet Offensive, only to lose their taste for it when the casualties started to mount. The biggest political hindrance to Vietnam was not a bunch of hippies dancing around Haight-Ashbury, but was working and middle class Americans becoming increasingly antsy about their neighbors' children coming home in body bags from a war that most Americans could see wasn't necessary to preserve their freedom or way of life. If there is a lesson there, it is to not get involved in wars that you can't get the American people to stand behind.

[Pyrosama]

Originally posted by Frobozz
On the other hand Kerry's war background may be moot... We have his entire voting record to point at and laugh.

I agree.

Originally posted by Jabriol
I guess I'll vote for a third-party candidate. Who're the libertarians running?

You could always vote for Ralph Nader. He's announced that he'll be running as an independent. I hear most democrats are pissed at him for pulling some votes away from the democratic nominee. Oh well...such is politics.

[Grantref]

Originally posted by Aristotle
It sounds like you are experiencing a common dilemma: how to pick from a couple of bad choices. That's how I feel as well. I am not happy with ANY of the candidates of either party.

Well if my vote mattered I know who I'd vote for. I can't imagine any way that Kerry could be worse than 4 more years of Shrub. Note the damning with faint praise.