Reply #20: I completely disagree on Kerry in 1971

[karynnj]

I never heard Kerry disagreeing with the trials of people like LT Calley - who when released from prison was honored in GA by the then Governor, Jimmy Carter, with Lt Calley Day.

Kerry went beyond condemning the actions of Lt Calley, arguing that even people who never went beyond what they were told to do had violated the Geneva Convention, including himself. That public confession from someone who wanted to run for public office could not have been easy and was clearly done to argue for this never happening in the future. He spoke of the fact that the ammo they used was not permitted, but it was the ammo provided. It sounded like he had not known that until after he returned, but had he known it, what were the real choices that he and all other men in similar situations had? He spoke of free fire zones being illegal, but many soldiers could well have thought that a no man's land was the norm.

I don't know about Mass, but in my case, I was referring to Kerry's 71 SFRC testimony, which doesn't say anything about trying soldiers one way or the other, but it placed the blame squarely on the people in charge who gave those commands. Not that he claimed they were blameless. The line saying that he wished a merciful God could erase the memories told the cost many people, including himself, paid for serving in that war.

What comes through is a passionate insistence that the Geneva Conventions be the policy of the country. That those rules guide what people are told to do. You are actually saying that he should have done more than the right has accused him of doing - which was to push for a significant portion of the millions of people who fought in Vietnam to be tried as possible war criminals. Can you site any Senator, Congressman, religious leader etc who called for the massive number of trials of people who did any of the things Kerry listed in the Dick Cavett interviews?

I remember in 1970, at the time of My Lai being in the news, endless late night college discussions on the morality of war itself, whether it was even moral to go to war, and the Nuremberg judgments. What I don't remember is ANY official or statesman arguing for war crimes trials for anyone other than people who committed atrocities that went outside the rules they had. Thomas Dodd, one of the people who worked on the Nuremberg decisions was in the Senate then and he was supportive of LBJ on Vietnam. Father Drinan, a Jesuit priest, sponsored legislation to impeach Nixon over Vietnam, but I can't find anything where he argued that troops, following the rules, be tried.

Not only that, a call to hold all the soldiers accountable would have completely hurt Kerry's call for the country to help the veterans who needed it and would likely have eclipsed his call to end the war.