Re: Re: Re: Why Vets are so emotional about Kerry
 

ya mean 1984. . right?

George Orwell was right...

Does difficulty with reading comprehension lead to conservatism or does conservatism lead to problems with reading comprehension?

No. . it's just hard to believe.

I know I figured.. .based on your continued barage of half-baked leftist claims, that you must be one of those anti-WTO, starbucks trashing, emotional anarchists, just trying to impress the girls. :cool:













:p




:Djust kidding

Nah, that's me ;) Gotta convince the wife to like me somehow...

AND WHAT UNIT WERE YOU WITH WEENIE,?????? YOU MUST HAVE A COMBAT INFANTRY BADGE, AS WELL PURPLE HEARTS AND OTHER AWARDS..................AND YOU MUST HAVE SEEN THE TET OFFENSIVE

fly:

?

what's with the shouting?

And, yes, there are those among us here who served. Perhaps not in 'Nam, but we served.

Were you there?

Kerry was the leading talking head and communist sympathizer...He essentially played defense counsel for the North Vietnamese by selling how they were ready to negotiate and promised a return of POWs/MIAs...Lies...There was no one more critical to the anti-war movement than John Kerry, he was the lead spokesman.

I have a lot to learn?...

"The only reason American soldiers are bleeding and dying in Vietnam today is because our leaders have tied their hands behind their backs." -- General Curtis LeMay, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force

"The faster you move in a war, the fewer casualties there are, and the sooner the fighting is over. This war could be won in less than three months, but not the way it is being fought now." -- General Paul D. Harkins, commanding general of U.S. forces in Vietnam

"Anyone who believes that American fighting men were defeated in Vietnam is wrong; they were defeated at home...we were fighting with our hands tied behind our backs." -- W.T. Grant, in Wings of the Eagle. Grant, helicopter pilots in the 17th Assault Helicopter Company.

"it is important to expose the fact that our defeat in Vietnam was a political one and not a military one, because as far as I'm concerned, my Marines in Quang Tri proved to me and proved to anybody who came to take a look that we could easily destroy the enemy forces which could not stand up to us at all. It was a one-sided, one-way affair and we were on top." -- General Ray Davis (Marines)



We would have won that war if it wasn't for pussy Democrats sympathizing with communist dictators and playing politics at home, as opposed to letting our superior military KICK THEIR ASSES.

The cost?...American lives and a communist dungeon for the left-over Vietnamese.

As we speak the Democrats are trying to turn Iraq into a quagmire...Even going as far as calling it that in hopes that it comes true (see Ted Kennedy).

Enlighten me Denis...What exactly happened after the Paris Peace Accords were violated by the North?

Let me tell you, and then you can refute me if I am wrong...The Democrats got hold of Nixon (Watergate - mind you a lesser crime than the Clinton's 900 FBI files on politcal enemies) and they decided to double-cross our allies in South Vietnam when the North violated the very treaty JOHN F. KERRY shilled.

"American unwillingness to provide adequate assistance to allies fighting for their lives, could seriously affect our credibility throughout the world as an ally." -- Gerald Ford (1975)

The Democrats abandoned the South Vietnamese (and you thought abandoning the Kurds was bad).

The Democrats lost a war that Nixon won...

WOW. . .powerful accusation.

.. .mostly because it rings so true.

The dem's are spinning what they can to high-lite what's wrong in Iraq (and at home). They've got nothing but negative. ..and they don't seem to care who gets hurt. It's an end justifies the means game for them.

Island:

I really do not think so. I am waiting for the Republicans to develop a platform they all can agree on before making any judgement on what they stand for in 2004. Seems to be some dissention in the ranks on key issues that have to be hemmered out. So far, I have seen no cogent plan to improve things at home or abroad. I think that is necessary in order to make any intelligent decision.

Of course, to the True Believers, those are just details. Somehow, things will just work out if we bumble along as always.

From what I understand, the next shoe to drop will be Kerry's post-Vietnam record...ooohhh get the popcorn and be prepared for the real shrieking to begin.

It'll be interesting to see how the "war hero" transitions into explaining his anti-war hero credentials.

Far out. You guys love wars :rolleyes: I always get the feeling listening to this sort of thing that as long as not too many of your own guys die, the number of the enemy who do is irrelevant.

That, or you see war as kind of like a game of Age of Empires...

I don't see any specific implication of Kerry in those quotes - I see the US forces being hamstrung by rules (designed to try and protect the innocent).

:cool: Cam you crack-me-up. it's not like that, and I think you know it.

Some of us accept the simple fact that "war" will happen. (given the # of whack-jobs in this world, coupled to the statistical chances that one of these whacky-guys will find himself in POWER .. .and start pushing into another country.)

Sure, it's nice to think that society can *guilt* a dictator in to behaiving reasonably. Usually, with a few well placed "Hey, beee coool, man."(s) . . .Infact it is abundantly obvious that this is the only line of defence the doves have. . .. .well, sometimes, they'll break out the HEY. I said beee coool! . . or I'll tell all my friends you've got problems."


WHich takes me to point 2; understanding that "war" is just the word we use to define the more extreme end of how we struggle with each other . . .how we resolve our problems.

imagine for a second, if you will, that people all existed with out the physical interaction .. as we interact here on-line, for example . .."virtually." What then happens? . ..people may "flame" each other, as an extreme measure, when they can't control their positions.

When you have both (or more) flaming each other (a flame-fest) you have "war". . .all of the "Hey, beee coool, man."(s) don't do squat. . . .unless they come from Z-man with the Nukes, who has the power to drop the seldom used "Banned-Bomb."

Think about it for a while. I'll let you place which posters act like which countries. As I write this I can think of one match, for one country. . .NZ ;) . . .well maybe another for France too.:cool:

Revisionist history is so much fun. I know a once-struggling automotive journalist who became far more famous promoting the theory that the Holocaust never happened. He had the same imperviousness to facts that I see here among the handful of Kerry/Democrat haters.

So now, if I understand Mul correctly, the all-powerful Democrats were responsible for constraining our activities in Vietnam? Ever hear of a guy named Nixon, Mul? He wasn't a Democrat. Nixon and Kissinger were focused on ending -- not winning -- the war because they assessed it correctly as not winnable. Those soldiers you quoted without context or dates were talking like soldiers, but soldiers do not declare war, they run it with the tools they are given.

The story of our involvement in Vietnam is one of lies (from the Gulf of Tonkin 'attack' to exaggerated body counts to CIA and military operations in Cambodia) perpetrated by a government manipulating truth to maintain popular support. The generals failed to figure out how to run the war. They made excuses. They tried to be politicans. But Americans are smarter than the politicians usually recognize.

There will always be a small minority that trust everything the government tells them (domino theory). But sooner or later, they have an opportunity to discover the truth.

John Kerry, like a lot of other vets, believed what he was told, but discovered that while our strategy in Vietnam may have been for the good, our tactics weren't always consistent with a higher moral purpose, and that what we were having soldiers do in our name was corroding what America stands for.

-------------excerpt from Kerry testimony-------------

At any time that an actual threat is posed to this country or to the security and freedom I will be one of the first people to pick up a gun and defend it, but right now we are reacting with paranoia t this question of peace and the people taking over the world. I think if were are ever going to get down to the question of dropping those bombs most of us in my generation simply don't want to be alive afterwards because of the kind of world that it would be with mutations and the genetic probabilities of freaks and everything else.

Therefore, I think it is ridiculous to assume we have to play this power game based on total warfare. I think there will be guerrilla wars and I think we must have a capability to fight those. And we may have to fight them somewhere based on legitimate threats, but we must learn, in this country, how to define those threats and that is what I would say to the question of world peace. I think it is bogus, totally artificial. There is no threat. The Communists are not about to take over our McDonald hamburger stands. [Laughter.]...

_...I don't want to get into the game of saying I represent everybody over there, but let me try to say as straightforwardly as I can, we had an advertisement, ran full page, to show you what the troops read. It ran in Playboy and the response to it within two and a half weeks from Vietnam was 1,200 members. We received initially about 50 to 80 letters a day from troops arriving at our New York office. Some of these letters -- and I wanted to bring some down, I didn't know we were going to be testifying here and I can make them available to you -- are very, very moving, some of them written by hospital corpsmen on things, on casualty report sheets which say, you know, "Get us out of here." "You are the only hope he have got." "You have got to get us back; it is crazy." We received recently 80 members of the 101st Airborne signed up in one letter. Forty members from a helicopter assault squadron, crash and rescue mission signed up in another one.

I think they are expressing, some of these troops, solidarity with us, right now by wearing black arm bands and Vietnam Veterans Against the War buttons. They want to come out and I think they are looking at the people who want to try to get them out as a help.

However, I do recognize there are some men who are in the military for life. The job in the military is to fight wars. When they have a war to fight, they are just as happy in a sense, and I am sure that these men feel they are being stabbed in the back. But, at the same time, I think to most of them the realization of the emptiness, the hollowness, the absurdity of Vietnam has finally hit home, and I feel is they did come home the recrimination would certainly not come from the right, from the military. I don't think there would be that problem....

_...You see the mind is changing over there and a search and destroy mission is a search and avoid mission, and troops don't -- you know, like that revolt that took place that was mentioned in the New York Times when they refused to go in after a piece of dead machinery, because it doesn't have any value. They are making their own judgments.

There is a GI movement in this country now as well as over there, and soon these people, these men, who are prescribing wars for these young men to fight are going to find out they are going to have to find some other men to fight them because we are going to change prescriptions. They are going to have to change doctors, because we are not going to fight for them. that is what they are going to realize. There is now a more militant attitude even within the military itself....

I don't really know how to answer that. The first thing that jumps into my head is pretty reactionary (and not the best line of argument), but I'll try it anyway.

One could also accept the simple fact that abortion will happen. The implication of what you state above is that one should always support it, or always support it when it is "right". Or always pursue it to its conclusion when there is an alternative.

I think war should be a last resort --> both Iraq and Vietnam are good examples of it NOT being a last resort.

MONEY GUY,
NOBODY IS SHOUTING , I WAS THERE AND IN THE INFANTRY,AND I HAVE SEEN WHAT IT TAKES TO GET A REAL PURPLE HEART OR SILVER STAR. YES AND I HAVE COMBAT AWARDS THAT I REALLY EARNED IN MY FOURTEEN MONTHS THERE, AND I REALLY WENT INTO CAMBODIA ON FOOT.
I HAVE SEEN WAR FIRST HAND AND HAVE NO USE FOR PRETENDERS OR PEOPLE WHO WOULD LIKE TO GLAMORIZE IT FOR THE PERSONAL GOALS.
I WAS DRAFTED, NOTHING NOBLE JUST GOT SEE THE REAL THING, AS AN UNWILLING PARTICIPANT, WHO SURVIVED IT

Turn off your caps lock flyenby...it is considered shouting in internet etiquette.

fly: Typing in all capitals is considered "shouting". Thart's all I meant.

Well then, we are about the same age, served in different branches. I would like to explore your comment further about those who glamorize war for their personal goals. If I understand you, we are in complete accord. It seems to me that the most hawkish on this BB and others are those who have never served and probably would try to avoid it if all possible, acting as if war is some kind of arcade game that you can reset and all the players come back to life.

I have probably done what a lot of folks have not. I have actually read the testimony given in 1971. If one were to read it and not know who had made the statements, they might just be surprised how much of it they (1) would agree with and (2) not recognize after the opposition has parsed it out of all recognition.

Amazing how willing people are to drink the hemlock of lies and misrepresentations on all sides.

Yeah, I was surprised not only by what Kerry said in '71 -- very articulate for a 20-something-year-old -- but also how applicable it is to the mess we're in today in Iraq.