Monday, December 05, 2005

Kerry's consistent in one area: Defaming military

Failed Presidential candidate John Kerry (D-MA) appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday to discuss, primarily, the Iraq war.

Host Bob Schieffer asked one question of failed Presidential candidate Kerry (I know I’m being redundant but I just like the sound of that!) which caught my attention. When asked why he thought he lost in 2004, Kerry replied, “…I’m not going backwards, Bob. I’m going forwards. I’m going to take the lessons I learned, take the mistakes I made.”

One of the many mistakes Kerry made he couldn’t overcome. In fact, it haunted him for over 30 years.

Following is the statement John Kerry made before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 1971.

I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ensured that the American people would not forget Kerry’s denigration of American serviceman.

So Kerry learned from that mistake, right? Certainly he couldn’t commit another resounding blunder as despicable as undermining our troops in a time of war.

I take you once again to Senator Kerry’s appearance on Face the Nation this past Sunday. When Schieffer pointed out Senator Joe Lieberman’s (D-CT) comments about the “…remarkable political transformation going on in Iraq”, Kerry replied, “…There is no reason that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the-of-the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not, Iraqis should be doing that.”

I grew quite weary of the nonsensical rhetoric "I support the troops, not the war." Well, Kerry takes it ones step further by saying the American soldiers are "terrorizing" homes of Iraqis.

There you have it.

Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

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