August 31, 2004

Unexpected Result of the Presidential Campaign: Some Repudiation by America of Guilt Over Vietnam

Most people seem to believe that Kerry’s testimony to Congress in 1971, accusing Vietnam veterans of heinous war crimes, was based on personal experience.

In fact, few realize that Kerry’s testimony was explicitly based, not on any personal experience at all, but only on hearsay; and that hearsay had taken place, not even on the ground in Vietnam, but in America, at an anti-war gathering. Per Jeff Jacoby:

On April 22, 1971, Kerry went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to indict the American war effort in Vietnam for horrendous war crimes. These were “not isolated incidents,” he testified, “but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.”

He offered no evidence. Instead he trumpeted the charges of the “Winter Soldier Investigation,” an antiwar gathering a few months earlier at which men claiming to be Vietnam veterans—many were later exposed as frauds—described the atrocities they had allegedly committed.

“They told stories,” Kerry said, “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 a 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.”

That hearsay is part of the foundation for our nation’s feelings of guilt about the Vietnam war. Has it every been substantiated? On the contrary. Per Col. George E. “Bud” Day, “the most decorated officer since Gen. Douglas MacArthur”, who shared John McCain’s cell in the Hanoi Hilton:

Kerry cast a long dark shadow over all Vietnam Veterans with his outright perjury before the Senate concerning atrocities in Vietnam. His stories to the Senate committee were absolute lies.. fabrications.. perjury.. fantasies, with NO substance. That dark shadow has defamed the entire Vietnam War veteran population, and gave “Aid and Comfort” to our enemies..the Vietnamese Communists. Kerry’s stories were outright fabrications, and were intended for political gain with the radical left ..McGovern, Teddy and Bobby Kennedy followers, Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, and the radical left who fantasized that George McGovern was going to be elected in 1972. Little wonder that returning soldiers from Vietnam were spit upon and castigated as “baby killers”. A returned war hero said so….

The word is getting out. The actions of the Swift Boat Vets have brought to the forefront the inherent falseness, of Kerry’s slandering the Vietnam vets who, in his acceptance speech, he called his “band of brothers.”

Yesterday I was listening to Al Rantel, and he was talking about the testimony Kerry made to Congress in 1971. Al made the point that these accusations are without foundation, and that even if they could be accurately applied to a very few soldiers, to apply them to the majority of soldiers would be a great injustice.

As a result of the Presidential campaign, this false basis for our nation’s feelings of guilt about the Vietnam war is being exposed. That guilt is being rejected by many as unjust.

It is the most unexpected possible turn of events that Kerry’s unintentional achievement in this election may be the repudiation of the very wounds he helped lead America to inflict on itself, more than 30 years ago.