I think Bob Kerrey's admission will show J. Kerry was right about Vietnam

[NNN0LHI]

The truth is that in any war this kind of stuff will happen. War dehumanizes people. It is sick. It should really be used as a last resort as Kerry thinks, not as a first resort as Bush thinks.

Don

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1298289.stm

Senator 'admits Vietnam massacre'

Former United States Senator Bob Kerry, a possible contender for the White House in 2004, has admitted that his commando unit massacred civilians when he was a Navy officer in Vietnam, The New York Times has reported.

Mr Kerry was awarded a Bronze Star for the 25 February 1969 action in the village of Thanh Phong in the Mekong Delta.

The two-time Democratic senator from Nebraska says his unit of seven Navy Seals - elite commando troops - killed at least 13 women and children during indiscriminate night-time firing.

One of the men under his command at the time disputes Mr Kerry's version of events, claiming that the unit rounded up the civilians and killed them to hasten their escape.

more

[Catch22Dem]

1. It's KERREY

I swear, intentionally misspelling it as "Kerry" ought to be a goddamn crime!!! And when was Bob Kerrey a contender for the 2004 election?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. I don't think it was intentional here. eom

[Catch22Dem]

5. Here?

"here" in the article? Or "here" in the original thread? I wasn't blaming NNN0LHI for anything.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. Whoa!!! I didn't see that!

BBC no less! Damn!

[Catch22Dem]

10. Yeah, and you'd think they could fix it after 2 years! (n/t)

[NNN0LHI]

12. Yea, I cut and pasted the name from BBC

I should have known better. I changed the headline too. Sorry.

Don

[Catch22Dem]

16. No, it was the article, I was bitching about

Not you at all! Hope you didn't think so. :)

[Beaker]

14. Bob Kerrey WAS seen as a possible 2004 contender...

back in 2001, when this article was written and run.

[RichM]

2. Which JK position about Vietnam are you referring to? The time when

he was an antiwar activist 30 yrs ago? Or the more recent time when he expressed contempt for antiwar activists, told them it was time to "get over it" & that Vietnam was an exception to the usual way US power is used in the world?

[einniv]

6. Do you have a link for his statement about protestors?

Thx in advance

[einniv]

11. No links? How about ths one that says the opposite of your

assertions?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0210-02.htm
Saturday, August 31, 2002

After meeting for an hour with Kerry's senior policy adviser, Mark Sterman, 10 members of MoveOn.org, which organized the rally, said they were encouraged that the senator supports their right to ask questions and voice concerns. They said Sterman urged them to lobby congressional members and enlist peers to demonstrate their dissent.

In a statement, Kerry said that ''while I've expressed my clear desire to eliminate the threat that Saddam Hussein represents, I want us to arrive at a policy that does that and advances the cause of America.''

Kerry also accused Bush of failing to make a case in the international arena or to the American public that would justify initiating a conflict with Iraq or to detail an exit strategy in the event of war.

[RichM]

15. Here you go. This article quotes a passage from Kerry's own book...

http://www.pressaction.com/pablog/archives/001294.html

"As a veteran of both the Vietnam War and the Vietnam protest movement, I say to both conservative and liberal misinterpretations of that war that it's time to get over it and recognize it as an exception, not as a ruling example, of the U.S. military engagements of the twentieth century. If those of us who carried the physical and emotional burdens of that conflict can regain perspective and move on, so can those whose involvement was vicarious or who knew nothing of the war other than ideology and legend."

[Catch22Dem]

4. This article is from 2001?

:wtf:

[oldshoe]

8. What's the controversy?

Is this a generational thing? But I was born in 1954, and just missed 'Nam by a year; but so many vets I knew back in the early and mid 1970s all talked about how our guys would kill with little regard for life.

If Soldier A got wounded, his unit would often shoot at and usually kill someone from the nearest village. Proof was strictly optional and poorly supplied. This doesn't mean every unit was out of control, only that enough were for the stories to have been very common back then and very first-hand.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

9. I struck up a conversation with a WW II vet once

in a restaurant and asked him what it was really like to fight in WW II. He had lots of stories as he had been a medic in Europe and had been at the Battle of the Bulge. He really tried to drive this point home, what a horror war is.

He said there were atrocities on all sides because, for example, they were supposed to take German prisoners with them, not kill them, but there were times when they would say, "No way I'm going to risk losing my life over some enemy prisoner."

Hearing such stories makes me think I really do not know what I would have done if I had ever been a young adult sent into a battle.

[NNN0LHI]

13. My father has told the same type of stories to me

He was at Iwo Jima and Okinawa during WW II. People should not forget the horror of war. Otherwise we keep repeating our mistakes.

Don