posted October 20, 2004 10:54 AM              

Commentary: The Republican War Against Vietnam Veterans
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=840

First John McCain, then Max Cleland, now John Kerry: the Republican attack machine says Vietnam veterans are crazy and are frauds.

By Stewart Nusbaumer

First they assaulted a U.S. Navy pilot shot down over North Vietnam who was imprisoned and tortured for five long years. Shadowy Republican groups whispered he was mentally unfit to be President of the United States because he had been a POW in Vietnam. The rumor spread and spread. They said he had a Black baby and he was morally unfit to hold political office. The propaganda was sneaky and relentless, eventually undermining John McCain’s credibility and his bid to be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. The winner was George W. Bush.

Then they went after a man who lost three limbs--two legs and one arm--on the bloody battlefield of South Vietnam. First in Georgia and then nationally--highlighted by Ann Coulter, a volcano of hate toward veterans--the machine proclaimed that Max Cleland made no sacrifices for America and should not be respected. The man lost three limbs in Vietnam! And Cleland lost his Senate seat to a tough Republican patriot who somehow missed the fighting in Vietnam. Those Republicans sure know how to fight a war.

Among veterans, the smearing and defeat of Max Cleland is referred to as the “Shame of George.” As for John McCain, the dirty tricks that brought him down still burn strong inside his soul. They burn on top of the torture scars from Vietnam.

In both campaigns, Republicans sought not to educate the public but to create doubt in voters, not to discuss the issues, but to undermine the character and reputation of two honorable men. Republicans twisted John McCain's and then Max Cleland's heroic service in Vietnam into a political liability here in America and rendered both men ineffective politically. Two combat veterans defeated by men who supported the Vietnam War--George Bush and Saxby Chambliss--yet hid behind deferments so they would not have to fight in the war. Two honorable American veterans defeated by a ruthless, effective Republican propaganda machine of political dirt.

Knowing that Americans would not tolerate this shameful attack on their combat veterans, the Republicans resorted to innuendoes and slander and sneaky lies--half lies--and distorted facts. “Everything except the truth,” could be their motto. They used a shadowy network that is accountable to no one and is therefore free to say anything. So this Republican attack machine attacks without restraint and without conscience and without morality. It attacks those who oppose their view of America, a view they hide as they disguise their attack.

As the “Vietnam generation” has taken over the reigns of power, this Republican stealth attack machine has begun to focus more and more on those who fought that war. That few Republican leaders fought in Vietnam does not seem to faze these self-described tough patriots. In their eyes, they were simply too important to serve in Vietnam. “I went to where the real war was,” Newt Gingrich told the Washington Post some years ago, “Washington.” Poor Tom Delay tried to join the military he tells us, but they were taking only minorities. Vice President Dick Cheney had "other priorities." This is a vanguard of the arrogant and the nuts, too important to fight a war that lesser Americans should fight.

Their absence from a war that they had strongly supported does upset a particular group of Americans. Vietnam veterans call these Republicans “Chickenhawks”: chicken because during Vietnam they refused to fight in a war they supported and hawks because in middle age (beyond draft age) they are extremely willing to send others to wars. Since the Republican Party is a haven for Chickenhawks--“chicken house,” is what combat vets call the Party, the conservatives' clandestine attack machine needed a good cover. It needed something to cover the truth that those who did not go to Vietnam, but were strongly for the war being fought, are now thrashing those who did the fighting in that war.

The ugly, chicken truth was beginning to show, so something had to be done.

New Face to Old Sleaze

To extend their successful smear and discrediting campaign against Vietnam veterans, the Republican attack machine adopted a group of far-right Vietnam veterans as mouthpieces, as their front boys. As the Chickenhawks had others fight the Vietnam War, a war they supported with real gung-ho intensity, so today they have Vietnam veterans fight their political war here. Some men just love exploiting other men.

The “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” is a Republican group of right-wing veterans who are telling Americans that John Kerry did not do what he said, that John Kerry did not act honorably in Vietnam, that John Kerry is unfit to be President of the United States. They are saying John Kerry is a fraud and George Bush should be president.

It was only a few months ago that Republicans were saying that John Kerry acted dishonorably when he returned home from the war; now they want us to believe that he also acted dishonorably in Vietnam. It's amazing how dishonorable just one man can be, when smeared by Chickenhawks and their mouth pieces.

Those who actually served with John Kerry, however, disagree, as does the U.S. Navy.

Wounded three times and awarded two medals for bravery: is that acting dishonorably in Vietnam? The Chickenhawks say John Kerry lies. They say all the crewmembers who served on the boats with John Kerry lie. They say that the U.S. Navy that treated John Kerry’s three wounds and gave him two medals lies. But Kerry, the crewmembers, and the Navy are telling the truth. That means the Republicans and their veterans' mouthpieces are lying, if one actually considers the facts.

The Republican machine attack on veterans is now fully focused on John Kerry, using the same unethical tactics used earlier against John McCain and Max Cleland. The same sleazy methods to defame three honorable men who served and sacrificed for America--one a tortured prisoner, another with three limbs amputated, and another with three combat wounds.

And who are these people? Are they enemies of America? No way, since they are forever telling us that they are upstanding, good Americans.

Insulting Veterans, Disgracing America

When anger reaches a certain level, one has two options: rage or repression. I’m teetering on a violent explosion, or possibly catatonic silence. I’m not sure, but I know that some injustices are too unjust to deal with rationally.

You see, I’m a disabled Vietnam veteran. One leg was amputated and the other has nerve damage, my spleen and a testicle were removed, and I have lots of shrapnel scars. But I’m just another Marine who made it home, minus a few parts. The war is over for me, a long time ago. Yet some Americans want to bring this war back, and to bring it back to hurt us who fought that war. It is not the longhaired hippies of yesterday or the war protestors that marched in our streets against that divisive war or the "liberal" media that are attacking us, but supposedly patriotic Americans.

And these so-called patriotic Americans say they represent the heartland of America. But do they? I don’t think so.

By trashing these three combat veterans, two Democrats and one Republican, they have trashed all combat veterans of the Vietnam War. Is this what Americans want? These men and women have insulted the 58,000 Americans who died in that horrible war and also the parents, most of whom are now in their graves, who lost a son in Vietnam.

This ugly Republican attack machine does not speak for the heartland of America; it is attacking the heart of America. Their war against Vietnam veterans is a war against America. They see what they believe is a soft spot in America, veterans of the Vietnam war, and they are attacking.

Let's remember these are the very same people who do not like the American working class, those struggling to make ends meet today. And they do not care about their children who suffer from the wounds of war--just look how Republicans in Congress are attempting to cut the VA budget during this war as they give tax cuts to the wealthy. The war on Vietnam veterans is an extension of this Republican class war, a branch of the Republican war against working Americans. Not only do these Republicans not represent the heartland of America; they don’t represent anything about this country.

A Few Facts

Let's look at the facts, something that shoots horror into the heart of the Chickenhawks. John Kerry volunteered for the military and then volunteered for service in Vietnam, where he was wounded three times and was awarded a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for valor. We know this is true. George W. Bush supported the Vietnam War yet avoided fighting in that war by joining the Guard; he selected the option not to go to Vietnam, then refused to show up for his physical and lost his right to fly. We know this is true.

Bush also appears to have been AWOL for many months, if not a year or more.
There is military documentation that says I did not go AWOL, I wonder why the entire Republican establishment cannot find the same for George Bush?

So who was dishonorable in their military service during the Vietnam War? It’s a simple question with a simple answer when the facts are known.

Yet the Republican Attack machine is pervasive and powerful, refining its sneak attacks and hiding its real intensions. They have the money and they have the resources to do a truly excellent smear job on John Kerry, just ask John McCain and Max Cleland. The question is, in this election will enough Americans conclude that John Kerry’s conduct during the Vietnam War was dishonorable and will this push a crucial battleground state or two into George Bush’s column? The Republican attack machine has won in the past, will it now beat John Kerry?

If enough Americans are given only the steady diet of Fox News propaganda and hear only the megaphone of corporate media, then Kerry will be beaten.

If John Kerry’s credibility as a soldier in Vietnam is destroyed, then his political credibility in America will be destroyed. Destroy the honorable warrior, and then the sleazy non-warrior will win. Ask McCain and Cleland. So write a letter to your local newspaper, give them the facts, and demand the truth. Call your television stations and tell them you are sickened by the slandering of John Kerry’s military record. Tell them it is un-American! Call your radio stations and tell them to forbid innuendoes and slander that stab our Vietnam veterans in the back. Tell them we are proud Americans, not hiding cowards. Tell them!

This is your country, not the country of these Chickenhawk Republicans. But you must be willing to fight for your country, as did John McCain, Max Cleland, and John Kerry, or it will become their country. And then America will no longer be America.

Stewart Nusbaumer is editor of Intervention Magazine. You can email him at Stewart@interventionmag.com

posted October 20, 2004 03:56 PM            

Beyond that, Bush had nothing to do with rumors that McCain fathered a black child...and he told McCain that on national television.

Max Cleland was not, repeat not attacked on his war record, as the idiot reporter you quote suggests.

Max Cleland's record of having his head up Tom Daschle's rear end was attacked and voting in lock step with Daschle was the reason Cleland was defeated.

In case you didn't know, Georgia is a very conversative state, a state where Tom Daschle would never make a single convert to his Marxist ideology.

You can also bet your life the dimocrats running for Senator from Georgia or other House or state offices, will never, in their wildest dreams, consider inviting the Minority Leader of the Senate, Tom Daschle, to campaign for or even appear with them in any campaign commercial or personal appearance.

posted October 20, 2004 05:28 PM            

It's called the cast of thousands.

Seems to work equally well with Kerry lies too.

posted October 29, 2004 02:01 AM              

I know that John McCain told Bush he should be ashamed of himself for attacking Vietnam vets, jwhop. I saw the video of him saying it to Bush. He has also come out and said that John Kerry served honorably. That's all the proof I need.

quote:

---

All I can say is that the practice of one radical leftist posting an outrageous lie about Bush or the Bush campaign/administration on some leftist website and 10,000 others swearing to it, is alive and well.

---

posted October 29, 2004 01:23 PM            

John Kerry is a traitor who committed treason against his own country. A Benedict Arnold, who should get the same treatment Benedict Arnold received.

posted October 29, 2004 03:33 PM            

Did you go to Vietnam, did your husband? Did you serve anywhere in the military? Did your husband?

Let me just jump to the bottom line here LS because it was crystal clear to me from the beginning where this was going.

If I didn't go to Vietnam, then I can't criticize Kerry's treason. Right? Wrong!

Using your logic then, since you served no where in the military and Bush did. Since your husband served no where in the military and Bush did, then neither of you can criticize the President's service in the Air National Guard.

That goes for you too Mirandee, your husband and everyone else here who served no where.

IF, that's the logic you intend to bring to this issue.

It isn't my logic and isn't going to be.

John Kerry is a traitor who committed treason against the United States by giving aid and comfort to the enemy and by collaborating with the enemy during time of war and while he was an officer in the United States Naval Reserves.

Those are undeniable facts, facts from Kerry's own mouth, by recorded history and from the Constitution of the United States.

posted October 29, 2004 06:34 PM              

It was a simple question.

I'd like to know if you were in Vietnam because *if* you had I could understand your contempt for Kerry. I am simply trying to make a clear picture.

You would make an excellent politician, JW, you evade questions wonderfully.

No, JW. I wasn't in Vietnam, as I am only 29. Same goes for my husband. No, I would not be in the military. I choose to have my rights firmly in place. Once you join up, unfortunately, many of those rights are diminished. *If* the military were treated with more reverence by the government, I might consider it... but not until then.

I'm not interested in being this president's G I Joe doll.

posted October 29, 2004 08:41 PM            

Last time, I served in the California Army National Guard. I was on active duty at Fort Ord in California. My enlistment in the Guard was 6 years total time. I received basic, intermediate and advanced infantry training at Fort Ord, California. My Guard unit was never activated. On the other hand, I was in no danger of being drafted. I was married and going to college which made me to all intents and purposes exempt from the draft...unless something had changed or my unit had been activated.

My contempt for John Kerry has absolutely nothing to do with my service or anyone else's service....except Kerry's service. The record is clear Kerry wrote up after action reports and used them as the basis for his medals. At least 2 of his medals were a result of self inflected...though not intentional injuries.

Kerry received a medal for pulling Jim Rassman out of the water....no one else received a medal for that incident even though there were other swiftboats in very close proximity...15-30 yards distance away from the swiftboat which hit a mine and those Swifties were the one's who pulled the crew of that boat out of the water and kept the boat from sinking. Kerry said in his report that they were taking enemy fire for over 5000 yards along the banks. Supposedly there were enemy troops there on the scene firing at the 4 or 5 swiftboats which were very close together in a channel which was only 75 yards wide. Not one member of any crew took a bullet, not one boat had a hole in it from gunfire and they were there more than 45 minutes hauling the crew out of the water and securing the damaged swiftboat for towing. Yet, John Kerry wrote up that report casting himself as a hero. He got a medal and no one else did. You can draw your own conclusions but a medal is given for heroism and there's nothing heroic about performing a simple act of pulling a person from the water. That's exactly what anyone would be expected to do. Kerry sexed up the report with incoming fire from enemy troops..troops who must have been blind or the worst shots on the face of the earth because they didn't manage to put one hole in one single boat that was sitting still less than 50 yards away....if there were any enemy troops there and if they were actually firing at the swiftboats....which is totally absurd. The crews of the other boats say there were no enemy troops and there was no gunfire...except their's when the mine went off and they laid down suppressing fire on the banks of the canal....in case it was an ambush. It wasn't an ambush and they stopped firing when no one fired back at them.

Kerry also got a medal for firing a grenade from an M-79 grenade launcher. He fired at a rock on the shore...another incident...at close range. He scored a direct hit on the rock, the grenade exploded on contact..as it was designed to do and Kerry got sprayed with shrapnel...a tiny sliver which lodged on the surface of his arm...removed with tweezers by a medic. Neither Kerry or his boat were under fire..Kerry was just goofing off. That is not the stuff of which medals are won and his commanding officer rejected Kerry request to be put in for a purple heart..a medal earned by engagement with an enemy where you are under attack or attacking. Kerry waited until that commander had been transferred and the medic had been transferred, then put in for the medal again with a commander who had no idea how the incident went down.

Kerry threw a grenade into a boat loaded with rice...duck you idiot...the grenade exploded and rice went flying....some of it into his butt but there was no enemy action. Another non combat action injury by Kerry and another medal...another self inflicted wound.

That's pretty much the medal history of John Kerry.

But that's not the contemptible part of what Kerry did. American military personnel are prohibited from aiding and abetting the enemy and also from collaborating with the enemy...Kerry did both by meeting with delegations from the enemy country and by adopting their negotiating positions...pushing their positions back in the United States and agitating for the United States to accept the enemy positions.

Now, that has nothing to do with my service in the National Guard but it has everything to do with John Kerry and his treason...which is defined in the United States Constitution and laid out very clearly and concisely.

posted October 29, 2004 10:27 PM              

My Papa was in Vietnam. He won't talk about it. Once when I was about 9 I stumbled across some photos (in his sock drawer... damn snoopy girls ). They were from Vietnam. Dead bodies. I was horrified. I didn't know what I was looking at. I took the photos to him to ask him what they were all about, and he WHOOPED my ass! Suppose I deserved it, considering the way I found them. I think he whooped me for more than just that though. I don't think he liked having to go back there. I've been haunted by those photos ever since. Serves me right, I suppose.

posted October 30, 2004 08:01 PM              

How can you judge him or any of the Vietnam vets who returned home to protest that war as committing treason? If you had been there and felt the fear they felt from the time they woke up until they drifted off to sleep out of exhaustion, if you had been shot at, or seen buddies blown up from stepping on land mines, if you had to crawl into one of those tunnels looking for Vietcong, or had to go through those jungles not knowing if you were walking into an ambush because you could not see for the foilage, if you saw the autrocites committed by U.S. soldiers against the Vietnamese people out of anger and frustration of having to be there you might be in a position to judge John Kerry for protesting the war he served in and following his own conscience. You weren't there. You didn't experience the things he did. So you have no right really to judge him. Remember Jesus said, " As you judge others, so will you be judged." Or "By the measure you judge others, so will you be judged." If we judge others harshly we will be judged just as harshly. Leave a man at peace with his own conscience and worry about yours instead.

My brother in law was an MP in Vietnam. He had to go into barracks and take guys out who shot themselves just so they could go home or at least a hospital. He saw some terrible things in Vietnam. He was drafted just like all those other guys there. He didn't go there voluntarily. Neither did they. Most of them didn't want to be there. They didn't know who the enemy was. Little old ladies and children would come up and blow a guy up with a grenade. It was a horrible war that went on for over a decade and would have gone on much longer if not for the protests. You cannot say we would have won that war but for the protests. That would be just an opinion. Most of the shows I have seen on the History channel about Vietnam the experts say it was not a war that could have been won at the time. Maybe now. But not back in the 60's and 70's. Napalm is considered nothing now in comparison to the weapons we have.

posted October 30, 2004 08:13 PM              

That gave me the chills, Mirandee.... having flashbacks from a past life....

I'll tell you what it is, Mirandee. It's called revisionism. Nothing more than plain, simple ol' revisionism... from the people who were never there!

laff

posted October 30, 2004 11:14 PM            

My perspective is not at issue Mirandee. The issue is what John Kerry did and how Kerry's actions relate to prohibited activities by US service personnel.

John Kerry gave aid and comfort to an enemy in time of war. John Kerry collaborated with an enemy of the United States in a time of war. Those activities are prohibited by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and constitute Treason as defined in the United States Constitution.

The same Constitution also prohibits any officer who gives aid or comfort to an enemy of the United States, after having sworn an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, from ever holding the office of Senator or hold any other office, civil or military.