In article t,
Steven P. McNicoll wrote:

"david raoul derbes" wrote in message
news
In article .net,
Steven P. McNicoll wrote:

"david raoul derbes" wrote in message
...

There is nothing wrong with you, Mr. Galanti or whoever opposing Kerry,
obviously, indeed it's a duty to do so if you don't like him as a
candidate. The new ads are in my opinion more of a problem for Kerry,
in that it is video of him testifying in Congress. No one disputes that
he did so. Previously, there were disputes as to whether or not there
was gunfire, and so on; here we have a videotaped record.

That said, I want to make three points.

First, the testimony of Kerry saying that atrocities were committed
has been to a small extent taken out of context. He was quoting what
_other_ people said. He did not say that he, Kerry, had witnessed
decapitations or rapes or other war crimes, but that others had, and
had told him that.


Kerry did say that he had committed atrocities himself.

"I committed the same kinds of atrocities as thousands of others in that
I
shot in free fire zones, used harassment and interdiction fire, joined in
search and destroy missions, and burned villages. All of these acts were
established policies from the top down, and the men who ordered this are
war
criminals."

John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 1971

What you've posted is not completely contradictory to what I said. The
sorts
of things I was writing about (rapes, decapitations) and the sort of
things
you're talking about are, in my opinion, the differences between
misdemeanors
and felonies. I think that Kerry's calling these things "atrocities" was
a weird way of trying not to smear his fellow soldiers, i.e., I'm just
as guilty as you are. It was dumb, and he regrets some of the language
that he used.


You said the testimony of Kerry saying that atrocities were committed was to
a small extent taken out of context, that he was "quoting what _other_
people said." He said he committed atrocities himself.



And I answered that. But here it is a second time.

I believe that Kerry regarded himself then, and regards himself today,
as a spokesperson for all those who served in Viet Nam.

He was testifying in Congress angry not so much at himself, or his
fellow veterans, but at the politicians and probably to a lesser
extent at his superior officers.

He was reporting on the "Winter Soldier" conference, in which people
claimed to have committed actual atrocities (e.g., mutilation of
corpses.) I do not know if rape was among these atrocities; I have not
read any of the "Winter Soldier" testimony.

Now, if he was going to say that terrible things had taken place, rather
than put himself up on some pedestal, he was going to say that he had
himself "committed atrocities". I'm sure that in his mind, nearly any
action in this God-forsaken war was an atrocity, because the war itself
was an atrocity. Firing into a group of people, only some of whom were
actually combatants, is probably an atrocity. I'm sure that quite a few
Viet Nam veterans did just that; and had I been there, I've no doubt I
would have done the same, given enough fear or anger or frustration.
Do I think that Kerry mutilated corpses? I doubt it. Did he take part in
a My Lai-style massacre? I doubt it, but as many readers may recall,
Bob Kerrey, a Senator, did, and confessed to it about a year ago. (Kerrey's
actions were not nearly so culpable as William Calley's in my opinion,
but Kerrey feels very, very guilty about it.)

I do not believe that Kerry in any testimony accused any soldier by name
of any atrocity; I do not believe that Kerry implied that all soldiers
had committed atrocities (though many, many Viet vets think that this is
precisely what he did). This is the source of their anger. I believe it
is misplaced, but as I told another poster, I did not serve in Viet Nam,
and it is not my place to comment on how those brave men feel.


My guess is that many, many soldiers of the last century fired randomly
into places out of fear, anger or were ordered to do so. This is a very
different thing from rape.


Yes it is, but I don't recall Kerry mentioning rape.

I don't know; I meant only to suggest that the actions that Kerry may have
taken might well be in his mind atrocities, but in my mind they are different
from cold-blooded murder of noncombatants, mutilation of corpses, and so on.

The truly terrible thing about all this is that Kerry wanted nothing else but
to get all the men home from a war he was certain was a mistake, and badly
prosecuted in the bargain. Of course many good men and women did not want that;
they wanted to win a war against Communism. But I believe that most of the
soldiers just wanted to go home, and did not think that this was a war worth
fighting. In my opinion, those who thought Viet Nam a blunder were correct.
We failed to keep the North from overrunning the South. No doubt many innocent
people were executed. But civil wars are as old as human history. Has the
security of the United States suffered as a result of the North Vietnamese
conquest?

I happen to think that Iraq was a mistake, but not as grievous as Viet Nam
(as bad as Ho Chi Minh was--and he was a monster--he was Little Mary Sunshine
next to Saddam). The terrible thing is that it is being prosecuted in an even
more heinously stupid fashion than Viet Nam. I would have thought that almost
impossible, but George and his gang have managed it.

David Derbes