[Jenn[_2_]]

In article ,
"ScottW" wrote:

"Jenn" wrote in message
...
In article
,
ScottW wrote:

On Jul 9, 7:22 pm, "Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!"
wrote:
On Jul 9, 7:25 pm, "ScottW" wrote:





"Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!" wrote in

s.c
om...
On Jul 4, 12:21 am, "Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!"

wrote:
On Jul 3, 8:29 pm, "ScottW" wrote:

"Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!" wrote in

gro
ups.com...

You've wailed about this speech a few times recently. Where are
the
"really bad parts" IYO?

********************************
Vietnam Veterans Against the War Statement by John Kerry, 1971
to
the
Senate Committee of Foreign Relations April 23, 1971

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.

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,

This will do. Even Kerry no longer stands behind these
words which is the most telling condemnation of them all.

Or perhaps Kerry had talked with CIA operatives?

"The problem was, how do you find the people on the blacklist? It's
not like you had their address and telephone number. The normal
procedure would be to go into a village and just grab someone and
say,
'Where's Nguyen so-and-so?' Half the time the people were so afraid
they would say anything. Then a Phoenix team would take the
informant,
put a sandbag over his head, poke out two holes so he could see, put
commo wire around his neck like a long leash, and walk him through
the
village and say, 'When we go by Nguyen's house scratch your head.'
Then that night Phoenix would come back, knock on the door, and say,
'April Fool, mother****er.' Whoever answered the door would get
wasted. As far as they were concerned whoever answered was a
Communist, including family members. Sometimes they'd come back to
camp with ears to prove that they killed people."
- Lieutenant Vincent Okamoto, intelligence-liaison officer for the
Phoenix Program for 2 months in 1968 and a recipient of the
Distinguished Service Cross. Wounded 3 times, he is the highest-
decorated Japanese-American veteran of the Vietnam War. He has
served
as president of the Japanese American Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Committee and as a Los Angeles Superior Court judge.[3][4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program-Hidequoted text -

So, 2pid, we've seen that Kerry told the truth about the part you said
bothered you the most.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of
command"

Here is the deal, 2pid. (You're too stupid to see this, but it's
true.)

In the military, everything that happens or fails to happen in a unit
is the commander's fault. If you don't believe me, see what happened
to Colonel Bruce Emig, where some subordinate send some nukes off on a
B-52 recently. I doubt that the Colonel was even in the area.

So you've set up this argument: if the unit commanders were NOT aware,
they were incompetent.

And I reject that every unit was guilty of these
acts as Kerry claimed.

That's not what he said, Scott.

"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."

So starting from the President on down, and including Kerry himself,
how many war criminals do you think should be prosecuted?

ScottW

One time. This: "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" does not equal "every unit".