Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

[DoKGonZo]

Anon,

A common theme in these discussions (not just here) is that someone who thinks Kerry is OK or thinks Bush isn't just has to be a pinko liberal democrat. Those who think the other way are quickly branded right-wing elitist republicans.

I'm from Boston and I would have sooner voted for Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes than Mike Dukakis (who was my city councilman when I was growing up in Brookline, no less). So I don't give a hoot in hell about "party lines" or regional bias  either. If John McCain was running I'd vote for him over Kerry or W in an instant.


I look at Kerry's statement before senate as that of a guy who came back and felt he had to get someone in power to realize that what was going on over there wasn't a John Wayne movie. I didn't read his remarks about attrocities as an attack on the troops, but on the policies that put the troops into a situation where they had no choice but to respond to brutality with brutality.

That's just how I read it. I'm not saying it's right, wrong, or otherwise - that's just what I see in reading his words and in remembering what things were like back then.

[Lizking]

Personally, I can't stand Kerry, and would not vote for him for anything, but he did his duty and served well.  He made an bellybutton of himself when he came home, but it seems to have worked for him.  So pick on the Weasliy Senator all you want, but there is no call to argue or impugn his service.

[DoKGonZo]

Originally posted by Martlet
Ahhhh, so the Germans who ran the concentration camps and the soldiers who marched the Jews into the showers were innocent?

What about the Japs that executed POWs and used them as bayonet practice.  They were innocent too?

You're comparing three completely different things.

I don't believe Japan signed the Geneva Convention so they weren't bound by those accords as far as prisoner treatment (someone please correct me if I'm wrong ... I don't feel like googling now). Also it was part of their culture to never surrender - so they saw those who did as not worthy. You could accuse these guards of war crimes and they simply wouldn't understand why - back then, anyway.

The Holocaust (and, yes campers, it really did happen) was part of a national policy and carried out by subhuman scum. Those pukes should all be strung up as there's no way you can NOT know that genocide is wrong.

US troops in VN were put in a situation of fighting mostly a guerilla war. Against an enemy who'd been fighting invaders for generations - and didn't care what it took to win, or how long. Our troops knew what they were doing was unpopular at home, the casualty rate was high, and you never knew who was the enemy. So troops put into that situation - trying to survive - are prone to shoot first, or get out of hand when faced with savagery by the other side.  Plus this is happening 20+ years later - the world grew up a whole lot during WW2.

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by MrLars
Put into the proper context, no. The real criminals are those who's policys forced the military to conduct unlawfull actions.

So he was just following orders..

[anonymous]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
Anon,

A common theme in these discussions (not just here) is that someone who thinks Kerry is OK or thinks Bush isn't just has to be a pinko liberal democrat. Those who think the other way are quickly branded right-wing elitist republicans.

I'm from Boston and I would have sooner voted for Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes than Mike Dukakis (who was my city councilman when I was growing up in Brookline, no less). So I don't give a hoot in hell about "party lines" or regional bias  either. If John McCain was running I'd vote for him over Kerry or W in an instant.


I look at Kerry's statement before senate as that of a guy who came back and felt he had to get someone in power to realize that what was going on over there wasn't a John Wayne movie. I didn't read his remarks about attrocities as an attack on the troops, but on the policies that put the troops into a situation where they had no choice but to respond to brutality with brutality.

That's just how I read it. I'm not saying it's right, wrong, or otherwise - that's just what I see in reading his words and in remembering what things were like back then.

docgonzo this is not "aha you wrong". i see how you looking at statement. have you ever seen this http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=Historians

"One of them was John Kerry, Vietnam Navy veteran and aspiring politician who had been among those who organized the protest. Kerry flung a handful of medals -- he had received the Silver Star, a Bronze Star Medal, and three Purple Hearts -- over the fence. Kerry spoke later that week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, putting a face on the antiwar movement far different from the one seen before -- the scruffy hippie or wild-eyed activist. Kerry represented the All-American boy, mentally twisted by being asked to do terrible things, then abandoned by his government.

From start to finish, the public took Dewey Canyon III at face value, not understanding that they were watching brilliant political theater. Kerry, a Kennedy protege with white-hot political aspirations, ascended center stage as both a war hero and as an antiwar hero throwing away his combat decorations. His speech, apparently off the cuff, was eloquent, impassioned.

But years later, after his election to the Senate, Kerry's medals turned up on the wall of his Capitol Hill office. When a reporter noticed them, Kerry admitted that the medals he had thrown that day were not his. And Kerry's emotional, from-the-heart speech had been carefully crafted by a speechwriter for Robert Kennedy named Adam Walinsky, who also tutored him on how to present it. TV reporters totally ignored another Vietnam veteran, Melville L. Stephens, a former aide to Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, chief of Naval Operations, who that same day urged the Senate not to abandon America's allies in South Vietnam. "Peace for us must not come at the cost of their lives," Stephens said in a speech he wrote himself."

[MrCoffee]

Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
So he was just following orders..

Grunherz, during the VN war, Vietnam was divided up into various military regions. Various Army groups and the Marines were responsible for certain regions. the Mekong Delta region was not an area that the standard Amry or Marines was responsible for. It was mostly river and swamp areas, nomans land. So the Navy and some other special units were tasked with this area. In order to cover the region adequatly from VC infiltration in the S, certain strategies were encompassed at certain times etc.. where nobody was alowed in certain areas. Most civilians grew to know about this and avoided this area at certain times. Hence the free fire zone.

[DoKGonZo]

Originally posted by anonymous
docgonzo this is not "aha you wrong". i see how you looking at statement. have you ever seen this http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=Historians
 

Yes. I'm aware of that.

FWIW, Anon and Liz, my opinion is that Kerry started out with the noblest intentions and then trumped the notariety into a really nice political career for himself. He's a very smart man and a career politician.

The last guy I felt like voting for  was Perot.

[anonymous]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
Yes. I'm aware of that.

FWIW, Anon and Liz, my opinion is that Kerry started out with the noblest intentions and then trumped the notariety into a really nice political career for himself. He's a very smart man and a career politician.

The last guy I felt like voting for  was Perot.

perot was and is a classy guy. did you ever hear about party he threw in san fran california for son tay raiders? ill email you picture of it if you want pretty neat.

[Martlet]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
You're comparing three completely different things.

I don't believe Japan signed the Geneva Convention so they weren't bound by those accords as far as prisoner treatment (someone please correct me if I'm wrong ... I don't feel like googling now). Also it was part of their culture to never surrender - so they saw those who did as not worthy. You could accuse these guards of war crimes and they simply wouldn't understand why - back then, anyway.

The Holocaust (and, yes campers, it really did happen) was part of a national policy and carried out by subhuman scum. Those pukes should all be strung up as there's no way you can NOT know that genocide is wrong.

US troops in VN were put in a situation of fighting mostly a guerilla war. Against an enemy who'd been fighting invaders for generations - and didn't care what it took to win, or how long. Our troops knew what they were doing was unpopular at home, the casualty rate was high, and you never knew who was the enemy. So troops put into that situation - trying to survive - are prone to shoot first, or get out of hand when faced with savagery by the other side.  Plus this is happening 20+ years later - the world grew up a whole lot during WW2.

That's great.  Of course, it has absolutely zero to do with MrLars excuse and my reply to it, but thanks for posting anyway.

Reading the thread next time micht help.

[DoKGonZo]

Originally posted by Martlet

Reading the thread next time micht help.

Bicht me.

[Sceadu]

First, who the hell is Weasel?

  Second, the documents have all been scanned and are all available on the web, including the one listing Bush as suspended from flying. Perhaps you should try spelling your keywords properly, or learning how a Boolean search works.

  Third, what kind of idiot believes that the politics didn't play a huge part in who was allowed into the Guard units during Vietnam?  The Guard was known to be the place to go to escape Vietnam.  All Guard commands are political appointments made by state governors, except the National command which is a political appointment made by the president.  The Guard is the only military organization in which that is the case.  That is why it became the refuge for the sons of the powerful during Vietnam.

  Fourth, Bush only got into Yale because his father and grandfather went there.  As a legacy, he got in despite his C average in high school, which left him below the cut off for non-legacies.  Bush graduated from Yale with... another C average.  He was a cheerleader at Yale.  All public records.  Bush was accepted to Harvard Business School despite having a below standard grade point average at Yale, because daddy was U.S. Special Envy to China at the time, and he was, wait for it... again a legacy.  

   What other points can we make about Bush being substandard and riding the coat tails of others?  How about being on the board of 5 different companies, all of which failed?  How about the fact that he didn't make his first profit in business until the Texas Rangers were sold, and his minor share in the team which he puchased with borrowed money finally made him a millionaire?  Bush was allowed to buy into the Rangers because of his name alone, certainly not because of his business sense.  Small wonder, then, that the person who purchased the team - Texas billionaire Tom Hicks - was later appointed by Bush as chairman of UTIMCO, the University of Texas Investment Management Company which used to be called the Permanent University Fund, where Hicks proceeded to award lucrative investment contracts from the billions in the fund to other Bush campaign contributors.  Money goes in one end and comes out the other.  

   Oh, and while we're discussing it, the lawyer who represented Bush in the Rangers deal, a member of Bush family friend James Baker's Baker and Botts law firm, was later given a job at the SEC.  Guess which lawyer at the SEC investigated Bush's Harken stock trades? That's right.  Bush's own lawyer from the Rangers deal. Duh.  

   It's all in the public record.  It's no secret.  The sheep are just too dazed and/or stupid to think for themselves.

[anonymous]

if theres links all over to the docs you spoke of like his minimum score flying aptitude test then show me one. but there isnt you are full of sheet. you can yap all you want your big convenient conspiracys all fall apart in the light. low apt scores for flying and daddy trying to influence dont add up to being selected for and finishing training to be fighter pilot. and i dont believe a guy who got shot down in combat more than once would pull strings to keep anyone out of harms way. you make assumption for dads lack of character and sons cowardice for which you have zero proof. show me your make believe docs that somehow show bush jr isnt fifty times the man and brain you will ever be or get back in your room and clean it like mom told you to.

[Sceadu]

Originally posted by anonymous
if theres links all over to the docs you spoke of like his minimum score flying aptitude test then show me one. but there isnt you are full of sheet. you can yap all you want your big convenient conspiracys all fall apart in the light. low apt scores for flying and daddy trying to influence dont add up to being selected for and finishing training to be fighter pilot. and i dont believe a guy who got shot down in combat more than once would pull strings to keep anyone out of harms way. you make assumption for dads lack of character and sons cowardice for which you have zero proof. show me your make believe docs that somehow show bush jr isnt fifty times the man and brain you will ever be or get back in your room and clean it like mom told you to.

  Impressive, you couldn't find a single one?  Are your shoes tied or are they the kind with velcro closures.
 
  Here's 5 minutes work with a search engine:

http://www.awolbush.com/index.html  This one has all the documents in .pdf files for both Bush and Kerry.
   
http://bushwatch.org/awol.htm  This one has quotes from various newspaper articles which researched the facts.

http://bushwatch.org/family.htm  A timeline of various Bush family underhanded dealing and cronyism from 1918 to 2000.

http://bushwatch.org/bushwater.htm  This is commonly known as the Bush money tree.

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by Sceadu
Impressive, you couldn't find a single one?  Are your shoes tied or are they the kind with velcro closures.
 
  Here's 5 minutes work with a search engine:

http://www.awolbush.com/index.html  This one has all the documents in .pdf files for both Bush and Kerry.
   
http://bushwatch.org/awol.htm  This one has quotes from various newspaper articles which researched the facts.

http://bushwatch.org/family.htm  A timeline of various Bush family underhanded dealing and cronyism from 1918 to 2000.

http://bushwatch.org/bushwater.htm  This is commonly known as the Bush money tree.

They missed one:

1958: Young George W Bush sneaks up to little classmate Tiffany Jackson and says that girls are icky. Tiffany is distraught and cries.

[anonymous]

Originally posted by Sceadu
Impressive, you couldn't find a single one?  Are your shoes tied or are they the kind with velcro closures.
 
  Here's 5 minutes work with a search engine:

http://www.awolbush.com/index.html  This one has all the documents in .pdf files for both Bush and Kerry.
   
http://bushwatch.org/awol.htm  This one has quotes from various newspaper articles which researched the facts.

http://bushwatch.org/family.htm  A timeline of various Bush family underhanded dealing and cronyism from 1918 to 2000.

http://bushwatch.org/bushwater.htm  This is commonly known as the Bush money tree.

i dont see any document showing minimum score on pilot aptitude. are you admitting you are a liar? everything else well the source says it all. as for five minutes work with search engine i get the feeling you have all these as bookmark. ill ask again you were Sailor where when and what was your job?