The Moderate Republican

What do we stand for? No warning? What about courage, love of country, of honor?
http://www.gpln.com/wetry.htm

By the way, if your read the transcripts or watched the full version of the testimony, Kerry didn't say he personally witnessed atrocities, he was quoting the statements of another soldier. This is clear in the 'scripts and the footage.

I might have been willing to listen to their argument but with the deceptive editing of the testimony for their purposes and the clearly self contradicting lies about Kerry's medals make the not so swift fellas a fraudulent bunch.

I go with facts, the navy records officialy support Kerry's version of events.

If anyone thinks the attack ads are not hurting Bush, read the letters to the editor from the once Republican and currently swing state NH:

http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=OPINION03

If the Civil War is any guide, Vietnam will be part of our politics until everyone in the country who experienced it is dead.

Anyone familar with McCain's run and Cleland's defeat in Georgia knew this was coming and previews of the book have been floating around Internet for almost 6 months now. But I at least, expected the ads to come in late September. Running them now only gives Kerry a chance to rise to the challenge.

Kerry's anti-war protests and his Senate testimony are fair game, but attacking his service record spreads trash (which is all those attacks are) on anyone who's served. And there are no ends that justify such means.

But another veteran for truth says it better than I can.
http://www.telluridegateway.com/articles/2004/08/20/news/opinion/opinion01.txt

Bush wraps himself in the flag and hides behind the U.S. Military to advance his policy; but when the integrity of the U.S. Military is attacked, he goes missing.

What happend in Vietnam is relevant if it tells us about the man. John Kerry stated quite plainly that he not only personally saw but personally participated in what he himself defined at the time as "war crimes". John Kerry was an officer in the Navy. He took an oath. Part of that oath required him to stop war crimes he saw and, if that was impossible, at least to report them at once. Again, by his own admission, he did neither.

Does what happened in Vietnam matter? It does if it tells us something about the man. This man broke a clear oath in a situation he states was very clear. He instead took a chance to go home early, and then used the war crimes issue to jump start a political career - conveniently ignnoring the fact he never reported these crimes.

At the time he himself states some of these crimes took place, Kerry was a commanding officer. As such, he had a direct obligation NOT to allow his unit to participate in such activities, and the real power to not do so. He chose instead to participate and say nothing.

I don't believe Kerry about the "war crimes". I can discuss why in detail if you want, and that will be easy because his examples are quite specific. But the important point is that Kerry publicly labelled these events as war crimes under the Geneva and Hague conventions; as an officer, he had been trained in those conventions and what his duties were with respect to them; and he by his own admission did not meet those duties.

I do not want a self-admitted liar and oath-breaker to command our military in a war, or lead our people in a fight for survival.

Finally, I have some experience of men in war. I do not know a single soldier who walked away from his buddies on a technicality. The men I knew stayed, sometimes even extended their stays, in combat areas rather than leave men they considered brothers. That Kerry used the rarely-taken avenue of leaving after three purple hearts says worlds about the man. I also think the evidence is quite strong that his purple hearts were, at the least, marginal. Given the other evidence of his character, I find it believable that he deliberately used scratches which only technically qualify in order to get to the magic number of three which let him leave early. That says even more of him.

We err if we think character does not matter.

Dennis - would Kerry's health plan help you? From what I've heard about many of Kerry's plans is they rely on tax credits. I find this especially offensive for education, when I think what would be simpler, and less beaurocratic would be to increase the Pell Grant program - which is an established and effective way to deliver college financial aid.

Let's suppose that instead of the Vietnam war dragging on for more than 10 years and America basically failing to achieve any of its objectives in that war, it lasted only 2-3 years and America managed to defeat the Communist North.

Would the debate now be focused on what Kerry and Bush did in Vietnam? Would anyone care? I think the answer is no. (Of course, there are a lot of other things that would have been different in our history as well - but let's ignore that for the sake of this argument).

The reason it wouldn't matter is because it would have no relevance to the current war in Iraq - or perhaps, it might have an entirely different relevance.

Iraq right now is looking too much like Vietnam did - not yet in terms of casualties, of course, but in terms of why the war is being fought, why we may be winning battles but losing the war and its objectives. That of course is the connection, and why the issue of serving in Vietnam, or not serving, or winning medals or not winning medals, is so keenly played up.

Why are we fighting in Iraq? Well, why did we go to Vietnam? We went there to block the threat of Communism. We went there to keep Vietnam "free and democratic". Or at least, those were the ostensible reasons. Really, of course, we wanted to preserve a government that was dependent on us and friendly to us, rather than a government hostile to our interests. There's nothing new or surprising about that - we've fought those kinds of wars before, and for the past 200 years. It's the war we've fought in Afghanistan, both in the 1980's through the Mujahadeen, and in 2001 to the present through our own troops. It's the war we've fought in Iraq now, replacing Saddam Hussein (formerly an ally, then an enemy by 1990) because he did not conform to our requirements.

But Vietnam opened our eyes much wider to the consequences of fighting such wars, and made us question whether or not we should continue to fight such wars. And that's a question that still hasn't been answered - but Iraq is now bringing up those questions again, even if no one actually says so or directly tries to answer the question.

So in a sense, military service in Vietnam is very central to how the president or his contender will handle Iraq in the future. We could hope that the two will clarify that and come right out to say that, but they won't of course.

Kerry wants us to believe that because he actually served and served honorably in Vietnam, he is more fit to oversee a war that protects our interests. He wants us to believe that Bush is not fit to do so because he never served, and therefore doesn't understand how to properly execute a war, justify a war, and does not have any sense of the consequences of war. (Whether or not that's true has yet to be seen.) He hopes to play up the question of whether or not the Iraq war was worthwhile and whether or not the costs of that war are worth bearing.

And that all hinges on the crucial fact of history that Vietnam turned NOT to be worth the sacrfice or costs. We did not achieve our goals. Communism took hold, but Communism also turned out to be more paper tiger than vicious bear. Thousands of Americans died; thousands of Vietnamese died; the conflict spilled into neighboring countries and ended up being the root cause of tens of thousands more deaths in Cambodia and Laos. And for what?

But if Vietnam had been a success... if the sacrifices of our soldiers and the Vietnamese had achieved something critical and important... if we could look back on the war now and say, "We had to fight because..."

I think no one would even be questioning anyone's Vietnam service, nor would anyone really worry about Bush's service or lack thereof. That's because Iraq would still remind us of Vietname - but in a positive sense.

Amen.

My brother has been under-employed for 3 years. He finally realized he could use the VA for medical care. Bush has been cutting back on it (though he's making a show of granting some this election year, but then he hasn't been known for keeping campaign promises). Kerry has been a life-long advocate of veteran rights and benefits. Guess who I'm voting for.

Kerry talks a good game about getting all Americans covered by insurance, and at least acknowledges that there's something still wrong with the economy.

Who ever heard of a jobless recovery anyway. This, THIS is the best economic growth in 20 years. Where? I don't see it here at the bottom yet.

Kerry could have been crawling up Ho Chi Min's butt in '68 for all I care. Give people some disposable income so the kinds of jobs my brother tends to get (food service-related)will revive.