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| 5/24 |
| 2004/8/21-22 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:33062 Activity:very high |
8/21 David Hackworth rips the Swifties a new one:
http://csua.org/u/8ph (sftt.org)
Even the Weekly Standard knows its a bust:
http://csua.org/u/8pi (weeklystandard.com)
\_ Wow. Is that all you got out of reading those? You are amazing.
-- ilyas
\_ Well, no, but why post a paragraph summary? Don't be obtuse,
ilya.
\_ Well, those are critical of attacks on Kerry, but in a ...
much larger context which was missing in the summary.
Your summary made it seem like you are picking and choosing
what you want to hear and ignoring the rest. -- ilyas
\_ Uh, no. Its just the motd. One sentence is enough.
\_ Ok, but you are doing Rush Limbaugh style one-sentence
summaries. It's ok, really, but don't be surprised
if people point this out. I could do a similar one
sentence summary for the weekly standard thing:
'Democrats afraid of being seen as pacifist wimps.'
*shrug*. -- ilyas
\_ Be easy, ilya -- it's not that big a deal. Really.
\_ We all know they're liars and in it for the money so why do you
waste your time trying to refute anything? You only lend them
undue authority.
\_ Without refutation, their claims are given tacit legitimacy.
It's a shame that they've become such a prominent force, and
that the Bush administration refuses to excoriate them. I
wonder if Kerry's been as scrupulous as he'd have us believe,
though.
\_ I guess you missed McClellan's comments when the first swift
boat commercial aired.
\_ I guess I did -- do you have a URL handy?
\_ http://csua.org/u/8pj (Yahoo news)
\_ Huh -- that's interesting. Thanks!
\_ Hackworth is a great read, but he's been getting a bit loopy lately.
His first priority is loyalty to the troops that serve and have
served. However, his dismissal isn't terribly valuable when it
reads just like every other dismissal I've seen--including the
motd--which have been entirely composed of ad hominem, argument by
authority, and of course guilt by association. The actual claims of
the swift boat veterans have not been answered.
\_ Thank you! Add to that shill, uninformed denials like the
performance put on by Chris Matthews when Michelle Malkin
started talking about the claims that some of Kerry's wounds
were self-inflicted. As if someone who lied about atrocities,
divorced a 300 million dollar wife for a 700 million dollar
wife, and said nothing against Farenheit 9/11's numerous lies
which served him, could suddenly be trusted against the
collective word of over 250 vets, some of whom were decorated.
\_ And none of whom actually served on the boat which he was on.
\_ Kerry's peers were eyewitnesses to his actions, not his
subordinates.
\_ Except of course for Steve Gardner.
\_ And I'm sure we're only one FOIA request away from
seeing a service record that contradicts his statements
too!
\_ Yes they have been answered. Which claim is unanswered, in your
reasoned opinion? Since you're so adamant why don't you sum it
up for us?
\_ Was the squad of boats under enemy attack during the
Kerry's 3rd purple heart. If so, why do the other
boat commanders say they weren't, why were there no
bullet holes and why was no one shot? Suppressing
fire =! enemy fire.
By all accounts Thurlow was the true hero that day.
More, was Kerry's boat hit by another mine or not?
Who's boat was Rassman on? Why was Kerry's boat
the only one to flee, 5000 m in one version, and if
it was hit by a mine how could it have sped up to flee? |
| 5/24 |
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| csua.org/u/8ph -> www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target%20Homepage.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=79&rnd=514.2296327774012 DefenseWatch "The Voice of the Grunt" 08-16-2004 Hack's Target Once More a Nation Divided By David H Hackworth The Vietnam War rages on. Witness the barrages being fired by Viet vets on the right and the left: George W Bush is a draft-dodger; Once again, that tragic war divides America and this time around its vet pitted against vet. Sure, Bush dodged the draft, along with a reported 14 million other Americans with the savvy to work out that Vietnam was a no-win, sorry war. But although he had the luck and the connections to land a spot in the Air Guard, he did put his butt on the line flying a machine for which he was entitled to hazardous-duty pay and that's because zooming around in a jet fighter was and still is highly dangerous. And sure, Kerrys campaign push on how he Ramboed his way through the war for four months rubs a lot of vets the wrong way. And it does take its toll on those of us who prefer our heroes to be modest, unassuming types like Alvin York who stayed the course until it was Over, over there. But politics and style aside, Kerry did serve with distinction in Vietnam when he easily could have avoided that killing field. His service to his country shouldnt be diminished by the same despicable, politically motivated tactics visited upon Sens. John McCain in South Carolina and Max Cleland in Georgia, also Viet vets. This kind of gutter-bashing doesnt belong in American politics, and vets shouldnt allow themselves to be used as ammo for cheap shots at one of their own. The stalwart Brown Water Navy warriors who fought at Kerrys side say he was A-OK, which is good enough for me. The muckrakers such as John ONeill and his Swiftboat snipers who didnt sail on his boat but served anywhere from 100 meters to 300 miles away are now coming off like eyewitnesses when in fact not one of their testimonies would hold up in a court of law. A judge would call these men liars and disallow their biased statements. Ive been in a fair number of battles in my lifetime, first fighting for my country in several hot wars, then covering a dozen conflicts as a correspondent. And Ive learned that if you cant see the fight right up close, smell it, hear it and touch it, you cant possibly bear witness. Joe Klein wrote in The New Yorker that Nixon aide Charles Colson formed the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace in 1971 solely to attack John Kerry. He was very articulate, a credible leader of the opposition. We found a vet named John ONeill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. We had ONeill meet the president, and we did everything we could do to boost his group. ONeill and his chorus of haters are still in their get-Kerry mode. I suspect the decades-long fury is still fueled by Kerrys high-profile anti-war stance when he returned home. That was a position that was taken by hundreds of thousands of other Viet vets, including myself in 1971 which, according to Joe Califono's recent book, Inside: A Public Life, almost cost me my life. McCain has already asked President Bush to distance himself from this dishonest and dishonorable attack. Advice that Bush should take one step further by ordering Vietnam draft-dodger Karl Rove and the rest of the character-assassination squad who zapped McCain and Cleland to back off. And then publicly stand tall and say that this type of behavior insults every vet whos served America in peace and war. As our commander in chief, Bush also needs to bear in mind that the US Navy and its high standards for handling awards are now on trial as well. Hopefully, the presidents righteous actions will expedite that institutions exoneration along with Lt. Hopefully, too, these angry, troubled vets still haunted by the Vietnam War will eventually find closure. But one thing I know for sure it wont come from fratricide. org co-founder and Senior Military Columnist for DefenseWatch magazine. |
| csua.org/u/8pi -> www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/493kldgc.asp?pg=1 Respond to this article FOR THE PAST couple weeks Republican activists have bent themselves to the task of proving that John Kerry, who was awarded five medals during four months of service in the Vietnam war, isn't a war hero, and the marvelous intensity of their exertions started me thinking. As normal Americans lose interest in politics, and as their moderating influence fades from the general conversation, politics has become increasingly the plaything of obsessives. And what obsessives bring to politics, unsurprisingly, are their own obsessions, rooted in the uneasiness and insecurities that we all share to one degree or another. Punditry may not be a branch of psychopathology--not yet, anyway--but in some cases the most penetrating political analysis should follow the method of Bertie Wooster's valet, Jeeves: "The first essential is to study the psychology of the individual." It's amazing, the mysteries that can be illuminated by the psychological approach. Consider the recent self-presentation of the Democratic party. The party as we know it today was founded in 1972, when its old guard was swept away by the McGovernite revolution. And it remained such through the rest of the Cold War, even when--as in '72--it nominated a decorated war hero as its presidential candidate. Over the years a few Democrats have objected to this reputation, of course, and the cleverest polemicists have even flipped their party's peacenik image against their opponents in the war party. Beginning in the 1980s, Democrats have delighted in scolding various Republicans as "war wimps"--public officials and think-tank types who advocate the use of military force and who did not themselves serve in the military. On the kindest interpretation, the "war wimps" charge is based on a non sequitur, linking two things that have nothing to do with each other (military service as a young man, on the one hand, and sound judgment in geopolitical affairs, on the other). On a not-so-kind interpretation, it entails the repudiation of a crucial democratic principle: civilian control of the military. After all, if only men with military experience are justified in ordering other military men into combat, then national security has been ceded to an unsupervised warrior class--something that Democrats used to warn us against. And besides, by this definition, several of the country's wartime presidents, including Democrats Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, were war wimps. As an argument, then, the war-wimp charge is incoherent, even illiberal. It's also inexplicable--until you realize that it isn't an argument at all, but a sign of severe psychological frustration, a means by which a desperate Democrat might overcompensate for years of being called a peacenik wimp. The same frustration led directly to the bizarre outcome of this year's primaries, when Democrats nominated a charmless and undistinguished candidate whom no one seemed to like very much and who displays a dazzling lack of the most elementary political skills, such as being able to deliver a speech without boring half his audience into paralytic catatonia. WARNING: The page you have accessed is dependent on JAVASCRIPT which is not supported by your browser. Due to this limitation, you may experience unexpected results within this site. |
| csua.org/u/8pj -> news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040805/pl_afp/us_vote_ads_040805184948 The advertisement by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth accuses Kerry of exaggerating his bravery in the Vietnam War, lying about the first of his three Purple Hearts and lying to get his Bronze Star. The group also charges that, by testifying against the war when he returned to the United States and alleging that US soldiers had committed wartime atrocities, Kerry betrayed US forces still in Vietnam. With national security issues atop the agenda for the November 2 election, Kerry has been touting his service as the skipper of a patrol boat known as a "Swift Boat" in an implicit contrast to Bush, who did not go to Vietnam and faces questions about whether he completed his National Guard service. His former crewmates have aggressively campaigned on his behalf, appearing at his side at political rallies and telling audiences stories about Kerry's exploits during the war. Senator John McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war who challenged Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, has denounced the group. And the Kerry campaign has branded the allegations as "garbage," noting that none of the men levelling the accusations served on Kerry's boat. The group attacking Kerry does not have formal ties to Bush's reelection campaign, and benefits from a loophole in campaign finance restrictions that enables it to spend as much "soft money" as it wants on its political message. org, has fiercely attacked Bush -- are known as "527s," a reference to the tax-code provision that grants them special status. McClellan coupled his comments about the ad to a broader call for closing the loophole that allows the groups, most of which are hostile to Bush, to operate. "The president deplores all the unregulated soft money activity," he said, calling the ad "another example of the problem with the unregulated soft money activity that is going on." "We hope the Kerry campaign will join us in calling for an end to all this kind of activity," said McClellan. The group pulls no punches in its 60-second spot, which is running in the up-for-grabs states of Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin and features 13 veterans attacking the senator from Massachusetts. One of the veterans says Kerry's "account of what happened and what actually happened are the difference between night and day." Another says: "When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry." The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse. |
| weeklystandard.com The Fan Films Strike Back Thanks to digital cinema and the Web, geeks are filming their own "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" stories. And they're pretty close to making something better than the junk their heroes have been dishing out lately. The Fall of Troy Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, and Wolfgang Petersen take on the IIiad and lead Hollywood's assault on the classics. Paternalism and Abu Ghraib Why should Iraqis react any differently to the prisoner-abuse pictures than Americans did to the Falluja mutilations? New York, New York The POTUS, the press, and protesters: The Republican convention could be either a hit, or a disaster. Question of the Week Rumsfeld In light of the prisoner-abuse scandal, should Donald Rumsfeld resign his post? |