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Lincoln
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Hi everyone. This is a continuation of the thread by the same name only without the "war criminal" part. I just heard an old interview Kerry did on the Dick Cavet show in 19 71 (or there about) admitting that he took part in war crimes in the Vietnam war. Shoud he be tried by the international criminal court? Why would being a war criminal make him a good commander and chief -- because he admitted it?
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DRoseDARs
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"My god, it's full of peas..."
Jul 2002
time: 21:34
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Oh dear, looks like the Washington Post is calling Mr. Thurlow on his bullsh*t. Damn liberal media. 
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...id=694&ncid=716
Military Documents Contradict Kerry Critic
1 hour, 11 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Military records appear to contradict claims by a vocal critic of Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) that the Democratic presidential candidate lied about coming under gunfire during a mission in Vietnam, according to The Washington Post.
The newly obtained records of Larry Thurlow show that he, like Kerry, won a Bronze Star for the same engagement and that Thurlow's citation said he came under "constant small arms fire," the newspaper reported Thursday.
Thurlow, also like Kerry, commanded a Navy Swift boat during the war. Thurlow swore in an affidavit last month that Kerry was "not under fire" when he rescued Lt. James Rassmann from the Bay Hap River.
Thurlow's records, obtained by the Post under the Freedom of Information Act, include references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at all five boats in the flotilla that day. In his Bronze Star citation, Thurlow is praised for helping a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."
Thurlow is a leading member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group of Vietnam veterans who have aired a television advertisement attacking Kerry's war record.
Kerry has described how his boat came under fire from the river banks after a mine explosion disabled another U.S. Swift boat. Kerry and members of his crew say the firing continued as Kerry leaned over to fish out Rassman, who was blown overboard in another explosion.
Thurlow described Kerry's Bronze Star citation as "totally fabricated," saying "I never heard a shot."
Thurlow, a registered Republican, said he is angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities after his return to the United States, especially his claim that U.S. troops committed war crimes with the knowledge of their officers up the chain of command.
Thurlow told the Post that he got the award for helping to rescue the boat that was mined.
"This casts doubt on anybody's awards," he said. "It is sickening and disgusting."
He said he believed his award would be fraudulent if it was based on coming under enemy fire.
"We weren't under fire," he insisted.
Thurlow said he lost his Bronze Star citation more than 20 years ago. He said he would not authorize release of his military records because he feared the Kerry campaign would discredit him.
Members of Kerry's crew have said Kerry is telling the truth. Rassman said he has vivid memories of enemies firing at him from both banks.
*********
Bolded: Methinks THE RECORDS and the testimony of other servicemen discredit you Mr. Thurlow all by themselves. John Kerry's campaign doesn't have to do diddly to acheive that. 
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:34
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He's the one who claimed that he was a war criminal, while generously tarring an entire generation of American soldiers with the same brush. Read up on his organization Vietnam Veterans against the War and the collection of radicals and frauds that formed its leadership, and the sh!t they were claiming. Note how members of this group were meeting fairly regularly with the enemy outside of the U.S. for the purposes of coordinating their messages and providing propoganda copy for the communists. Note the bewildering array of statements made by members of the group, many which sound like they were delivered by POWs and written by their North Vietnamese guards. Kerry was plain wack to have anything to do with these people, much less be the legitimate face of their organization.
What I am confused by is how does a guy earn 3 purple hearts and two commendations for valor in a four month tour of Vietnam, one month of which was spent training and becoming familiar with the assignment? How do two wounds worthy of purple hearts allow immediate return to duty? How does a wound for which he applied for a purple heart (and was turned down cold by his C.O. because it was only a scratch) suddenly get retroactively and mysteriously approved just in time to send him home under the "three strikes" rule? I'm sure his previous connections with the Kennedy's had nothing to do with it, or with his posting to New York City as an admiral's aide immediately afterward, or his being let out of the service early in order to pursue political activities. Nope, that's not how things work in the military.
He went to war when many others of his class refused, and for that he should be commended. But touting himself as a war hero so ceaselessly in order to mitigate the damage he himself did to his reputation immediately after the war makes his war record fair game. As he still refuses to make his military records available for scrutiny we must try to read the tea leaves.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
He's the one who claimed that he was a war criminal, while generously tarring an entire generation of American soldiers with the same brush. Read up on his organization Vietnam Veterans against the War and the collection of radicals and frauds ...
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You're doing what you complain about others doing. You're tarring an entire generation of American soldiers who decided the war was wrong after serving in Vietnam.
Yes, there were radicals and probably frauds within the anti-war movement. Many of them left, including Kerry, when the organisation became more radical.
But to say that they were all radicals and frauds is simply wrong. It's just like the fact that while American soldiers committed atrocities, not everyone of them did.
quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
As he still refuses to make his military records available for scrutiny we must try to read the tea leaves. |
From the Kerry website:
When the U.S. Navy sent Kerry his official Naval records, his military medical records were not included. Kerry reconstituted the military medical records from his personal files.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/...2004_0423b.html
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Lincoln
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But I guess he could get a job at the AbuGrave prison. I think they need a few more war criminals there...
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Lincoln
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I just thought of a campaign button for the Kerry campaign:
"KERRY, burning villages for truth, justice and the American way. He came forward when other war criminals are still in denial. Vote for openess and a cushy warm feeling -- vote Kerry!"
I'm not sure if that would all fit on a button though...
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Drake Tungsten
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Knee deep in alien womyn...
Oct 2001
time: 14:34
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An updated version of the WaPo piece...
quote:
Records Counter a Critic of Kerry
Fellow Skipper's Citation Refers To Enemy Fire
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 19, 2004; Page A01
Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.
In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day.
But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."
As one of five Swift boat skippers who led the raid up the Bay Hap River, Thurlow was a direct participant in the disputed events. He is also a leading member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group of Vietnam veterans dismayed by Kerry's subsequent antiwar activities, which has aired a controversial television advertisement attacking his war record.
In interviews and written reminiscences, Kerry has described how his 50-foot patrol boat came under fire from the banks of the Bay Hap after a mine explosion disabled another U.S. patrol boat. According to Kerry and members of his crew, the firing continued as an injured Kerry leaned over the bow of his ship to rescue a Special Forces officer who was blown overboard in a second explosion.
Last month, Thurlow swore in an affidavit that Kerry was "not under fire" when he fished Lt. James Rassmann out of the water. He described Kerry's Bronze Star citation, which says that all units involved came under "small arms and automatic weapons fire," as "totally fabricated."
"I never heard a shot," Thurlow said in his affidavit, which was released by Swift Boats Veterans for Truth. The group claims the backing of more than 250 Vietnam veterans, including a majority of Kerry's fellow boat commanders.
A document recommending Thurlow for the Bronze Star noted that all his actions "took place under constant enemy small arms fire which LTJG THURLOW completely ignored in providing immediate assistance" to the disabled boat and its crew. The citation states that all other units in the flotilla also came under fire.
"It's like a Hollywood presentation here, which wasn't the case," Thurlow said last night after being read the full text of his Bronze Star citation. "My personal feeling was always that I got the award for coming to the rescue of the boat that was mined. This casts doubt on anybody's awards. It is sickening and disgusting."
Thurlow said he would consider his award "fraudulent" if coming under enemy fire was the basis for it. "I am here to state that we weren't under fire," he said. He speculated that Kerry could have been the source of at least some of the language used in the citation.
In a telephone interview Tuesday evening after he attended a Swift Boat Veterans strategy session in an Arlington hotel, Thurlow said he lost his Bronze Star citation more than 20 years ago. He said he was unwilling to authorize release of his military records because he feared attempts by the Kerry campaign to discredit him and other anti-Kerry veterans.
The Post filed an independent request for the documents with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which is the central repository for veterans' records. The documents were faxed to The Post by officials at the records center yesterday.
Thurlow and other anti-Kerry veterans have repeatedly alleged that Kerry was the author of an after-action report that described how his boat came under enemy fire. Kerry campaign researchers dispute that assertion, and there is no convincing documentary evidence to settle the argument. As the senior skipper in the flotilla, Thurlow might have been expected to write the after-action report for March 13, but he said that Kerry routinely "duked the system" to present his version of events.
For much of the episode, Kerry was not in a position to know firsthand what was happening on Thurlow's boat, as Kerry's boat had sped down the river after the mine exploded under another boat. He later returned to provide assistance to the stricken boat.
Thurlow, an oil industry worker and former teacher in Kansas, said he was angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return to the United States and particularly Kerry's claim before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that U.S. troops in Vietnam had committed war crimes "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."
" 'Upset' is too mild a word," said Thurlow, a registered Republican, of his reaction to Kerry then. "He did it strictly for his own personal political gain, and it directly affected every single one of us as we were trying to put our lives together."
Two other Swift boat skippers who were direct participants in the March 13, 1969, mine explosion on the Bay Hap, Jack Chenoweth and Richard Pees, have said they do not remember coming under "enemy fire." A fourth commander, Don Droz, who was one of Kerry's closest friends in Vietnam, was killed in action a month later.
The incident featured prominently in an anti-Kerry television ad produced by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth earlier this month. "John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star," says Van Odell, a gunner on PCF-23, one of the boats that came to the rescue of the stricken boat. "I know. I was there."
The Bronze Star controversy is also a major focus of an anti-Kerry book by John E. O'Neill, "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," which will hit No. 2 on The Post's bestseller list this weekend. The book accuses Kerry of "fleeing the scene" and lying repeatedly about his role.
Members of Kerry's crew have come to his defense, as has Rassmann, the Special Forces officer whom he fished from the river. Rassmann says he has vivid memories of being fired at from both banks after he fell into the river and as Kerry came to his rescue. The two had an emotional reunion on the eve of the Iowa Democratic caucuses in January, an event that some political analysts believe helped swing votes to Kerry at a crucial time.
The Bronze Star recommendations for both Kerry and Thurlow were signed by Lt. Cmdr. George M. Elliott, who received reports on the incident from his base in the Gulf of Thailand. Elliott is a supporter of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and has questioned Kerry's actions in Vietnam. But he has refused repeated requests for an interview after issuing conflicting statements to the Boston Globe about whether Kerry deserved a Silver Star. He was unreachable last night.
Money has poured into Swift Boat Veterans for Truth since the group launched its television advertisement attacking Kerry earlier this month. According to O'Neill, the group has received more than $450,000 over the past two weeks, mainly in small contributions. The Dallas Morning News reported yesterday that the organization has also received two $100,000 checks from Houston home builder Bob Perry, who backed George W. Bush's campaigns for Texas governor and for president.
Bush campaign officials have said they have no connection to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is not permitted to coordinate its activities with a presidential campaign under federal election law. |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2004Aug18.html
Hardly an open and shut case. Thurlow seems pretty adamant about his version of events and the other two skippers involved in the incident agree with him.
Props to the Washington Post for further exposing the bias in the media with this piece, though. I guess the reason why they haven't published a piece about Kerry's Cambodia lie or attempted to obtain Kerry's military records is that they were too busy independently obtaining the records of one of Kerry's critics and publishing a story about them on the front page. Behavior like this is going to be almost impossible for even the most partisan of hacks to spin...
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Drake Tungsten
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Knee deep in alien womyn...
Oct 2001
time: 14:34
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Well, at least the folks in Minneapolis get to know what's really going on...
quote:
Unwrapping Kerry's story of Christmas in Cambodia
John H. Hinderaker and Scott W. Johnson
August 18, 2004 HINDERACKER0818
On March 27, 1986, John Kerry took the floor of the U.S. Senate and delivered a dramatic oration indicting the foreign policy of the Reagan administration. As is his habit, Kerry drew on his Vietnam experience in explaining his opposition to the policy.
"I remember Christmas of 1968, sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and having the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there."
To emphasize the importance of this incident to his subsequent political development, Kerry asserted: "I have that memory which is seared --seared -- in me, that says to me, before we send another generation into harm's way we have a responsibility in the U.S. Senate to go the last step, to make the best effort possible to avoid that kind of conflict."
The story of his 1968 Christmas in Cambodia is one that Kerry has told on many occasions over the years. He invoked the story in 1979 in the course of his review of the movie "Apocalypse Now" for the Boston Herald. Most recently, Kerry told the story -- with remarkable embellishments involving a CIA man who gave him his favorite hat -- last year on separate occasions to reporters Laura Blumenfeld of the Washington Post and Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe.
Certain elements of Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story were incredible on their face. Kerry attributed responsibility for his illegal 1968 mission to Richard Nixon, despite the fact that Lyndon Johnson was president at the time. The Khmer Rouge who allegedly shot at Kerry during his "secret" mission did not take the field until 1972.
Moreover, there is no record that Swift boats -- the kind of boat under Kerry's command -- were ever used for secret missions in Cambodia. Their size and noise make them unlikely candidates for such missions. Indeed, the authorized biographer of Kerry's Vietnam service -- historian Douglas Brinkley -- omits from his book, "Tour of Duty," any mention of a covert cross-border mission to Cambodia during Kerry's service.
Over the past few weeks, the Christmas in Cambodia tale, a keystone of John Kerry's Vietnam autobiography, has been revealed to be fraudulent. On Christmas 1968, Kerry was docked at Sa Dec, 50 miles from Cambodia, in an area from which the Cambodian border was inaccessible.
Last week, after the falsity of Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia account became public, the Kerry campaign issued a statement "correcting" the story. According to the Kerry campaign, the mission referred to took place in January 1969, when Kerry "inadvertently or responsibly" crossed the border into Cambodia. However, three of Kerry's Swift boat crewmates have denied entering Cambodia at any time, and no one has corroborated Kerry's claim.
The suggestion that Kerry may have "inadvertently" strayed into Cambodia -- leaving aside whether that was even possible -- constitutes a complete retreat from the point of Kerry's original story: that he lost his faith in government because the president lied about having sent American troops into Cambodia. And, of course, it contradicts his story about ferrying a CIA man to Cambodia.
Given the attention lavished on President Bush's service in the Air National Guard earlier this year, we thought that newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times would want to devote comparable attention to John Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story. We also thought they would want to consider what the falsity of Kerry's story might have to tell us about the uses to which Kerry is putting his Vietnam service in the current presidential campaign.
To date, however, we have been wrong. Neither the influential mainstream newspapers nor the broadcast television networks have reported the meltdown of Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story. Only readers of Internet blogs such as ours have kept current on the exposure of Kerry's tall tale. Or on the Kerry campaign's lame efforts to resurrect a version of the story that contradicts what Kerry has said for the past 25 years, but allows Kerry to continue using his Vietnam experiences, real and imagined, for his own political purposes.
Whatever the reason -- and we have our suspicions -- when it comes to scrutiny of Sen. Kerry's veracity, the mainstream media are saluting, but they are decidedly not reporting for duty.
John H. Hinderaker and Scott W. Johnson are Minneapolis attorneys and proprietors of the Web log "Power Line" (www.powerlineblog.com), one of 13 Web sites given credentials to cover the Republican convention in New York later this month. |
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4933509.html
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:34
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quote:
Originally posted by GePap
Lord, this crap still.
Lets see who here believe them: Oh wait, the anti-Kerry people and ONLY the anti-Kerry people. Talk about preaching to the choir.
Yawn. |
GePap, why of course. Kerry is not the liar. Bush is the liar. We all know this because the "anybody but Bush" crowd have been repeating it for more than an year. It must be true.
When Michael Moore was asked why he says that Bush lied, he explained that there were no WMD. QED.
All this prooves, if Moore is correct, is that Bush had better intel than anyone else on the planet in that he alone among world leaders KNEW that Saddam had no WMD. Wow.
But it clear, GePap, that he real liar is not Bush. It is Kerry. That man has serious, SERIOUS, character flaws.
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19-08-2004 04:53
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