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#591
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Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
On 18 Jul 2004 22:40:58 -0700, (Fred the Red Shirt) wrote: (B2431) wrote in message ... The fact remains kerry accused us of all being involved with or have knowledge of war crimes. I disagree. That is a gross distortion of the facts, just like the way neocons used Sherman's words form a protion of one of his letters to 'prove' that he had confessed to war crimes. ... If what he said was true he had an obligation to take it public. He not ONCE said the majority of vets served honourably. Perhaps someone should point that out to him and ask him to address that. Somehow I don't think it would satisfy you if he did, even if he had done so back then. What Kerry said was clearly figurative speech, just like when I say we Americans are responsible for the wrongdoing that America does anywhere in the world today? Here's what Kerry said (again!) on Meet the Press: "There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals." -- John Kerry, on NBC's "Meet the Press" April 18, 1971 Does that sound allegorical or less than a literal admission of war crimes? No, this time you picked out a quote wherein Kerry referred to specific activities. Read again: "I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers" NOWHERE in the paragraph you just quoted doe he accuse you of all being involved with or have knowledge of war crimes. I'm not sure if I should question your competency or your honesty but something is not right. I've once gone through the litany and challenged that free fire zones, harrassment, interdiction, .50 cal, search-and-destroy, air raids, etc are NOT in any way violations of the Geneva Convention. And I addressed those issue in this thread where you or someone else discussed them. So could you pick it up there, if you wish to continue? I challenged Kerry's assertion regarding .50 cal as "our only weapon against people" comparing it to his narrative of one of his BS awards indicating he had an M-16 which jammed so he picked up another M-16 in the boat. The sentence is pretty awkward. I think one could honestly parse it as 'there were times when conducting harrassment and interdiction fire that the 50 cal was the only weapon we used.' 'were our only weapon' by itself is of course literally as well as gramatically incorrect. 'We' (America) literally had tanks and aircraft and all sorts of other weapons. Heck, we had nuclear weapons too, just not in Vietnam. Do you suppose that, given the sentence is both ungrammatical and blindingly obviously literally incorrect he might have mispoken? Just because he doesn't talk like Bush doesn't mean he never screws up. Did I just stab you in the back? And here's from Kerry's Senate testimony (under oath): "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. And here where he does use 'all' he is clearly speaking generally. 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 here, of course, he is clearly referring to specific anecdotes. 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." And here of course, he is speaking generally again. Now Mr Rasimus, I gather from your writing that you are a literate man of at least moderate intelligence. You have indicated that you are older than myself, that you work for the Smithsonian and you read the Washington Times. Few people outside of the DC area (and not a whole lot there either) read the Times so I figure you live in the DC area. I would guess that over the years you have heard at least as much Senate 'testimony' as I have. You must have listened on one or more occasion when people 'testified' by reading prepared speeches and were then 'questioned' by Senators whose questions were themselves also speeches. So please, don't expect me to believe that you hope that when someone testifies befor the Senate they are speaking literally. You know better. Don't expect me to believe that you cannot tell when a speaker shifts between general statements to specific anecdotes and back again. You're smart enough, and you're experienced enough. It is odd that you do not seem to have expected others in the newsgroup to be similarly endowed with those attributes. It certainly sounds like LITERAL testimony. Of course, the fact that his "150 honorably discharged....etc" veterans turned out to not be so makes it questionable, but let's give John the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know it at the time. I appreciate that last sentence was written in an effort to be fair. But I still ask you to show some evidence that the 'testimony' of the 'Winter Soldiers' was debunked. Lots of people make that claim. -- FF |
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#593
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"Fred the peabrained moron" wrote:
"Brett" wrote in message ... "Fred the peabrained moron" wrote "Brett" wrote in message ... "George Z. Bush" wrote: ... in my day the law didn't require you to register if you had volunteered and were waiting for your reporting date. It did, You sure about htat? Well since you eliminated what the response was given to I'm sure my response to the comment originally presented that you cut away was correct. Easily corrected: George Z. Bush" wrote: "Ed Rasimus" wrote in message ... On 19 Jul 2004 08:57:38 GMT, (WalterM140) wrote: I turned 18 in 1973. My draft lottery number was somewhere between 183 and 187. But no one was drafted from my year, the first such year since the start of the Vietnam era draft. I turned 18 in 1973 also. I asked my recruiter if I should register and he said not to worry about it. Walt You recruiter told you to break the law and you did? It becomes clearer with each posting why think the way you do. Unless they changed the law back in the 70s, in my day the law didn't require you to registerin my day the law didn't require you to register if you had volunteered and were waiting for your reporting date. It did, you didn't have to register between 1975 until 1980, when Jimmy Carter got concerned about the Soviet's in Afghanistan. ******* Now, are you sure that the law did require Walt to register for the draft after he had volunteered and was waiting for his reporting date? Now peabrain since he was over 18 and he was under 27 and he wasn't on ACTIVE DUTY at the time, the law did require him to register and they did change the law during the 1970's. |
#594
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Subject: Bush Flew Fighter Jets During Vietnam
From: (WalterM140) Date: 7/21/2004 9:09 PM Pacific Standard Time Message-id: Well, I joined the Marine Corps on my 18th birthday and my recruiter told me not to worry about it. That's not the same as you claimed originally. What Marine unit were you in? My claims have been consistent. I was at Parris Island from 11/12/73 to 2/11/74. I had ten days leave and seven days transit time before I had to report to Intantry Training School at Camp San Onofre -- Camp Pendleton. Here's a picture I took from San Onofre of Mount Mother****er in 1974: http://members.aol.com/walterm140/mountmother****er.jpg I graduated from ITS on 4/12/74. I had a follow on school at Portsmouth -- the Sea Duty Indoctrination Course. That was a 4 week course. From McGuire AFB I flew to Rota, Spain and joined the Marine Detachment of the U.S.S. Simon Lake. Here's a picture of the Lake: http://www.beachrealty.com/simonlake/as336.jpg Here's a picture I took in the Marine Detachment in 1975. That's Tye Wright and FiFi King in the foreground. In the left background is Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock. Gunny Hathcock killed 93 men in Viet Nam. Some of his real accomplishments were fictionalized in the movie "Sniper." http://members.aol.com/walterm140/mardet75.jpg Here's a picture I took on a CAX at 29 Palms in 1983: http://members.aol.com/walterm140/cax84.jpg Here I am at the Marine Corps Ball in 1983: http://members.aol.com/walterm140/oki83.jpg Oh. Here's a picture of my Porsche 928: http://members.aol.com/walterm140/porsche928.jpg Is that enough? Walt What percentage of those on this NG who challenge your service ever volunteered for anything, much less the Marines? Arthur Kramer 344th BG 494th BS England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer |
#595
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#598
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He is dead wrong in his support of Bush for reelection, IMHO. Bush
has cost our nation dearly with his unacknowledged mistakes and gaffes, and if we are to believe the saying that "when you're in the hole, the first thing you've got to do is to stop digging" then it's clearly time for a change. What mistakes and gaffes are you referring to? What hole are we in? Well, last night on MSNBC, Chris Mathews quoted Pres. Mubarak of Egypt as saying invading Iraq had created 1,000 Bin Ladens. Bush is a disastrous failure as president. And: "But Zinni broke ranks with the administration over the war in Iraq, and now, in his harshest criticism yet, he says senior officials at the Pentagon are guilty of dereliction of duty -- and that the time has come for heads to roll. Correspondent Steve Kroft reports. “There has been poor strategic thinking in this,” says Zinni. “There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to ‘stay the course,’ the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure.” Zinni spent more than 40 years serving his country as a warrior and diplomat, rising from a young lieutenant in Vietnam to four-star general with a reputation for candor. Now, in a new book about his career, co-written with Tom Clancy, called "Battle Ready," Zinni has handed up a scathing indictment of the Pentagon and its conduct of the war in Iraq. In the book, Zinni writes: "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption." “I think there was dereliction in insufficient forces being put on the ground and fully understanding the military dimensions of the plan. I think there was dereliction in lack of planning,” says Zinni. “The president is owed the finest strategic thinking. He is owed the finest operational planning. He is owed the finest tactical execution on the ground. … He got the latter. He didn’t get the first two.” Zinni says Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time - with the wrong strategy. And he was saying it before the U.S. invasion. In the months leading up to the war, while still Middle East envoy, Zinni carried the message to Congress: “This is, in my view, the worst time to take this on. And I don’t feel it needs to be done now.” But he wasn’t the only former military leader with doubts about the invasion of Iraq. Former General and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Centcom Commander Norman Schwarzkopf, former NATO Commander Wesley Clark, and former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki all voiced their reservations. Zinni believes this was a war the generals didn’t want – but it was a war the civilians wanted. “I can't speak for all generals, certainly. But I know we felt that this situation was contained. Saddam was effectively contained. The no-fly, no-drive zones. The sanctions that were imposed on him,” says Zinni. “Now, at the same time, we had this war on terrorism. We were fighting al Qaeda. We were engaged in Afghanistan. We were looking at 'cells' in 60 countries. We were looking at threats that we were receiving information on and intelligence on. And I think most of the generals felt, let's deal with this one at a time. Let's deal with this threat from terrorism, from al Qaeda.” Mo MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you another excerpt from your {senator Byrd] book: "We keep hearing the refrain, `Stay the course.' What is the course? Is it that we continue sending American troops to be used as sitting ducks in an Iraqi shooting gallery? How long are we going to be fed the pap that fighting the terrorists on the streets of Baghdad saves us from fighting terrorists on the streets of New York City or Washington, D.C.?" Mo 4-Star Marine General Says Time To Get Rid Of Neocons `The Neo-Cons Have Had Their Day - Now It's Time for a Clean Sweep' Executive Intelligence Review Interview With Gen. Joseph P. Hoar By Jeffrey Steinberg EIR 5-31-4 Gen. Joseph P. Hoar (USMC-ret.), a four-star general, was Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command (1991-94), commanding the U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf after the 1991 war. He also served in the Vietnam War, as a battalion and brigade advisor with the Vietnamese Marines. He was interviewed by Jeffrey Steinberg on May 6, 2004. EIR: You were one of the people who had been critical before the outbreak of fighting, over whether or not the situation warranted going to war. I believe you also had some rather accurate warnings about what might happen, as the war unfolded, especially after the hot phase. What's your thinking on these issues now, in hindsight, as we're over a year past the formal fighting phase? Hoar: There's small comfort in realizing that perhaps you were closer to reality than the elected and appointed figures in the civilian government. Those of us that have had some experience in the region over the years, and don't necessarily have ulterior motivations, particularly people that know very much about Iraq?and I don't necessarily put myself in that category; specifically, I know a fair amount about the political-military situation in the region, but know enough about Iraq to know that any military operation and any subsequent reconstruction efforts, to include the interjection of democracy, were going to be extremely difficult, and perhaps impossible. But, my major concern, Jeff, really was, that while I was in favor of regime change, I was not in favor of it a year and a half or two years ago, and certainly not these means." KIA count in Iraq: 915 For nothng. Walt |
#599
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I can think of no action more despicable than false public
condemnation of warriors on the field of battle, as John Kerry made under oath. I don't think anyone has shown that Senator Kerry made any untruthful statements in his 1971 testimony. snip clueless reference But what does a news story about former senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska have to do with that? Can you show that Kerry made false statements back in 1971? Walt |
#600
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"Peter Kemp" wrote
Each of those you listed, is our sworn enemy. They are free to point their swords at us, or their leadership, and they have chosen us. And this differs to Iraq - how? Kurds, Shiite's, Marsh Arabs, and Exiles. |
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