Perhaps true, but Kerry did speek them.
Yes he spoke them but didn’t focus on them and they were true. He said that
“…we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
It was not an investigation - it was a media event, they were not all "very highly decorated veterans" (I'm not sure if they were all honorably discharged either, but I have no data either way at hand at the moment), if they occurred there is no evidence that they weren't isolated incidents without the full awareness of the officers at all levels of command.
So that statement was nearly entirely false.
Never said he did. In fact I said the opposite - that I blame him for spreading sensationalist rumors that he had no personal knowledge of.
Which is a problem, isn't it, since he was testifying before Congress. It would make much more sense to verify your facts before making them public.
The historian in question is pro-Kerry and fails to show that the incidents were commonplace and/or fully known to "all levels of command". Many of the perpetrators listed were punished for them - the historian seems to feel these punishments were lax, but admits that they occurred.
EDIT: Also, the author makes no attempt to tie these examples to specific testimony by any of the "Winter Soldiers". Therefore while similar incidents can be shown to have occurred the specific (at least as specific as they got) allegations of the Winter Soldiers repeated by Kerry remain unproven.
As I said earlier, atrocities occur in every war. The idea that the US Soldiers of the Vietnam war had a greater propensity to committing atrocities or were encouraged by their officers to do so is false.
Yes. And isn't someone who admitted to committing wartime atrocities someone we want as president?
This isn't backpedaling. The investigation by the Naval Investigative Service was performed after the Winter Soldiers media event, not before. Kerry spread the falsehoods of the media event before the real investigation was completed.
The Village Voice link you posted earlier talks about the investigation:
"Moreover, according to official records, CID investigators attempted to contact 41 people who testified at the Detroit session, which occurred between January 31 and February 2, 1971. Five couldn't be located, according to records. Of the remaining 36, 31 submitted to interviews—hardly the "few" asserted by SBVT."
So the author of the Village Voice article claims he saw records relating to the investigation, unless he was the "author with known political bias" you were referring to earlier.
First of all I didn't claim that none of them were real Vietnam veterans. I admitted that some effort was made by the organizers of Winter Soldiers to verify that they were actual veterans, or at least gave the names of actual veterans, but no effort was made to verify that they served in Vietnam or were in a position to have witnessed the events they were speaking of.
Yes they did. Claiming that Vietnam soldiers were horrible baby killers in that anti-war setting was a way to gain public acceptance and acclaim.
They did not give specific information. No solid dates, names of perpetrators, or anything that would ever hold up in a court martial.
The examples given by the Village Voice article are not from the Winter Soldiers event - they are from U.S. Military records.
These "witnesses" did not corroborate specific events and had incentives to lie.
True, there's a lack of evidence that he said they were his medals at the time, but he certainly didn't make it a point to say they weren't, and the event involved vets throwing their own medals and paraphenalia over the fence.
Irrelevent to the issue at hand.
The throwing of the medals was a planned event, yes. How could Kerry have obtained the medals of his friends to throw over the fence if it had not been planned before hand?
He requested early discharge in order to run for office. His testimony came after he was granted that discharge. Therefore he was in the midst of planning his political career when he testified. QED.
I don't think I said "John Kerry never appeared on TV before his testimony". I merely cited several examples of his appearing on high-profile shows as a result of his testimony.
Obviously Meet the Press was aware of what he was going to testify. His appearance there was a direct result of his testimony, even though it occurred first.
Chicken and egg argument. Some of his media appearances led to his testimony, others were a result of his testimony. Either way his testimony was a cornerstone of his public image and thus his political career, which was my original point.
Graduating from Yale in the first place requires a considerable amount of intelligence. Becomming even a mediocre pilot of supersonic jet interceptors, or being accepted to law school on low grades, still requires above-average intelligence. The point stands.
Than an increasing number of Republicans are mistaken. General Petreus' report showed that real progress is being made in Iraq, and the death tolls have all shrunk since the Surge reached full strength and began using its new tactics.
Admittedly many mistakes have been made, but mistakes are made in every war.
Many more soldiers and civilians may have to die before Iraq becomes stable, yes, and many more civilians would die if we left before the job was done and Iraq descended into full civil war. Better to have more deaths and a stable Iraq then save some U.S. soldiers and watch millions more deaths and the formation of a new terrorist safe haven.
In many cases you are mistaken. Many troops have reinlisted knowing full well they would be going back to Iraq. Many troops probably do want out as well, but complaining about one's assignment is a military tradition.
Let's see this evidence then.