posted
Moore campaigned against the Democrats and the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2000Election. He campaigned for and voted for Nader; and has taken his measure of responsiblity for ensuring Dubya's victory. Moore is an entertainer: ie one whose function is to amuse his audience, and to get people talking about his product. Moore admits to being a propagandist: ie one who presents facts&arguments which bolster his case, while failing to mention the facts&arguments against. Kinda like a lawyer; except he doesn't pretend to be unbiased. Moore still doesn't twist half-truths into the outright lies which are oh-so-typically spread by neo"conservative"Republicans.
quote:Still, Bush has an advantage... ...although both candidates are expected to accept $75 million in public funding for the general election, Bush has the upper hand...Public money kicks in as soon as candidates accept the nomination. After that, they can't raise or spend private funds. Kerry's problem is that the clock starts on July 29 -- five weeks before the GOP convention. So Kerry has five fewer weeks in which to raise private money and must stretch his $75 million over 13 weeks, vs. Bush's 8 weeks, until Election Day on Nov. 2.
So for the past month Dubya has been campaigning on private contributions, while Kerry has been spending the limited Federal matching funds after turning over the balance of his private campaign money. By the time the RepublicanConvention is over, Kerry will probably have less than $50million to spend while Dubya will have $75million to spend until the election. That's a 3to2 monetary advantage for Dubya IF Dubya decides to accept matching funds
If not, Dubya can continue spending the ~$70million which will be sitting in his campaign fund after the RepublicanConvention, and continue raising more money until the 2004Election. It can then be expected that Dubya will have well over ~$100million vs Kerry's ~$50million: ie at least a 2to1 spending advantage for Dubya, and against Kerry. If contributions to the BushCampaign are at the same average rate as in previous months, it'll be an even greater 12to5 advantage in favor of Bush.
Plus Dubya gets taxpayer-subsidized at a rate of ~$20thousand per hour for flying himself and his campaign staff and reporters around in AirForceOne during the campaign, while Cheney and his bunch will be taxpayer-subsidised at a rate of over $10thousand per hour while flying AirForceTwo. Kerry has to pay for his own and Edwards' transportation as well as for his and Edwards' campaign staff and reporters out of his campaign funds.
I can certainly see why Dubya would wanna cut out the 527 campaigns. Especially before Dubya even has to announce his intentions inregards to giving up private money and accepting federal matching funds.
Besides if Republicans continue with their 527s after Dubya's request that they cease (wink wink), the attitude will be "What can a Republican President of the UnitedStates do about it?" While candidate Kerry will be hammered if antiBush 527s break the "truce" in response.
quote: I refused to go see Fahrenheit 9/11 because I felt that it would not be any more than misleading information...
More misleading than the media reports you're getting now?
You honestly never considered the possibility that it might be more truthful than misleading? You just refused to even hear what it had to say, and prejudged the creator's integrity? Have you had reason to mistrust this man in the past? Is there any basis to your immediate mistrust?
I know we've certainly been given reason to mistrust the subject of his film.
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quote:As for Cheney's propensity toward lying, your statement has been rebutted and your question has been answered many times.
No, it hasn't. Basically, none of those posts show anything except that the Bush administration changed their view of how dangerous Iraq was based on 9/11, not because they participated but because it became brutally clear that Al Queda is interested in killing thousands at a time.
To repeat: No one has EVER shown me a quote that has an administration official saying Hussein helped Al Queda with 9/11.
posted
Excellent breakdown, aspectre. Calling for an end to all 527 ads instead of merely demonstrable hatchet jobs would hurt Kerry a great deal more than Bush.
-o-
quote:Have you had reason to mistrust this man in the past? Is there any basis to your immediate mistrust?
Um, the numerous demonstrated untruths and distortions in Bowling for Columbine, maybe? The fact that similar issues are begining to be documented for this film? I'm voting against Bush, but goodness, how can you imply that Moore is any kind of paragon of honesty?
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Now I have. From the Washington Post, June 17, 2004:
quote:In late 2001, Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed" that Sept. 11 mastermind Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official before the attacks, in April 2000 in Prague; Cheney later said the meeting could not be proved or disproved.
Bush, in his speech aboard an aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003, asserted: "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding."
In September, Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press": "If we're successful in Iraq . . . then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."
Quick question: How many LIVES have George W. Bush's LIES cost us? Versus, let's say, Michael Moore's (alleged) lies, Bill Clinton's lies ("I did not have sex with that woman"), and John Kerry's (alleged) lies?
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posted
Someone in a different forum who was a Lt. Col. in the military, offered this assessment of Kerry's action for which he was awarded a silver star:
quote:Did any of you here previously hold a commission as an officer in the military, particularly in the Navy? Are you aware of the circumstances of Sen Kerry's Silver Star?
It regarded his beaching of his swift boat, and jumping off to chase down a wounded Viet Cong, shooting him behind a hut (out of sight of his crew). His Silver Star citation discussed his "heroism" in that regard.
There are some problem in that regard, however:
1. A Naval officer is NEVER supposed to leave his command, his boat, and his men. Kerry admits jumping off and chasing an enemy, going out of sight of his crew, and then coming back. Naval regulations actually should have given him a reprimand, if not relieving him of command, rather than an award. Correct procedure would have been for him to order a couple of his men to chase the guy down, if he thought the danger to his boat or the mission was so great that the killing of that guy was imperative. If I had been his commanding officer, I would have relieved him. (I was a Lt Col in the military).
2. Killing a wounded combatant is a war crime. Kerry claimed that "all" the people in his unit committed war crimes, but the only one we have actual evidence of is Kerry himself.
3. It is also a given in the Navy that one doesn't beach one's boat, except in rare and defined circumstances. And to beach one's boat while under fire, as Kerry claims, is dereliction of duty. Think about it: these small boats had a couple of weapons and not much armor. [Their hulls were made of aluminum.] Their chief defense was their speed and mobility. If one beaches one's boat, you remove all that and make it a sitting duck. Kerry's men are lucky that they all didn't DIE because of his stunt. Instead of making his boat safer, it made his boat in much greater danger, and unnecessarily so.
This is a Silver Star that should never have been given, as far as I am concerned. I put it right up there with the Silver Star that Lyndon Johnson got for riding 13 minutes in a reconaissance plane during WW2. What he [Kerry] did was not "heroic" - it was stupid, dangerous, and placed his ENTIRE COMMAND in unnecessary jeopardy. It is not evidence that he is fit to be Commander-in-Chief - rather it is evidence of BAD command decisions.
posted
Tom, I think you must have me confused with the other Ron. I don't recall saying anything about Limbaugh and the "'Chelsea white house dog' slur." I don't know if Limbaugh is rude or not. I have never listened to a single one of his broadcasts. The only radio I listen to is WWJ-all news radio in Detroit. Sometimes I listen to WJBK to listen to a Tigers game. Or I switch to FM radio to listen to classical music on the Canadian station. That's it. Aside from WWJ, I get my news from cable TV news and from the Internet.
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posted
Ron, I believe an argument could be made that Kerry made the wrong choice. If his gambit wasn't successful, I'm sure it would have ended in a court martial instead of a Silver Star.
quote: Another member of the crew confirmed Kerry's account for the Boston Globe and expressed no doubt that Kerry's action had saved both the boat and its crew:
The crewman with the best view of the action was Frederic Short, the man in the tub operating the twin guns. Short had not talked to Kerry for 34 years, until after he was recently contacted by a Globe reporter. Kerry said he had "totally forgotten" Short was on board that day.
Short had joined Kerry's crew just two weeks earlier, as a last-minute replacement, and he was as green as the Arkansas grass of his home. He said he didn't realize that he should have carried an M-16 rifle, figuring the tub's machine guns would be enough. But as Kerry stood face to face with the guerrilla carrying the rocket, Short realized his predicament. With the boat beached and the bow tilted up, a guard rail prevented him from taking aim at the enemy. For a terrifying moment, the guerrilla looked straight at Short with the rocket.
Short believes the guerrilla didn't fire because he was too close and needed to be a suitable distance to hit the boat squarely and avoid ricochet debris. Short tried to protect his skipper.
"I laid in fire with the twin .50s, and he got behind a hootch," recalled Short. "I laid 50 rounds in there, and Mr. Kerry went in. Rounds were coming everywhere. We were getting fire from both sides of the river. It was a canal. We were receiving fire from the opposite bank, also, and there was no way I could bring my guns to bear on that."
Short said there is "no doubt" that Kerry saved the boat and crew. "That was a him-or-us thing, that was a loaded weapon with a shape charge on it . . . It could pierce a tank. I wouldn't have been here talking to you. I probably prayed more up that creek than a Southern Baptist church does in a month."
Charles Gibson, who served on Kerry's boat that day because he was on a one-week indoctrination course, said Kerry's action was dangerous but necessary. "Every day you wake up and say, 'How the hell did we get out of that alive?'" Gibson said. "Kerry was a good leader. He knew what he was doing." Although Kerry's superiors were somewhat concerned about the issue of his leaving his boat unattended, they nonetheless found his actions courageous and worthy of commendation:
When Kerry returned to his base, his commanding officer, George Elliott, raised an issue with Kerry: the fine line between whether the action merited a medal or a court-martial.
"When [Kerry] came back from the well-publicized action where he beached his boat in middle of ambush and chased a VC around a hootch and ended his life, when [Kerry] came back and I heard his debrief, I said, 'John, I don't know whether you should be court-martialed or given a medal, court-martialed for leaving your ship, your post,'" Elliott recalled in an interview.
"But I ended up writing it up for a Silver Star, which is well deserved, and I have no regrets or second thoughts at all about that," Elliott said. A Silver Star, which the Navy said is its fifth-highest medal, commends distinctive gallantry in action.
Asked why he had raised the issue of a court-martial, Elliott said he did so "half tongue-in-cheek, because there was never any question I wanted him to realize I didn't want him to leave his boat unattended. That was in context of big-ship Navy — my background. A C.O. [commanding officer] never leaves his ship in battle or anything else. I realize this, first of all, it was pretty courageous to turn into an ambush even though you usually find no more than two or three people there. On the other hand, on an operation some time later, down on the very tip of the peninsula, we had lost one boat and several men in a big operation, and they were hit by a lot more than two or three people."
Elliott stressed that he never questioned Kerry's decision to kill the Viet Cong, and he appeared in Boston at Kerry's side during the 1996 Senate race to back up that aspect of Kerry's action.
"I don't think they were exactly ready to court-martial him," said Wade Sanders, who commanded a swift boat that sometimes accompanied Kerry's vessel, and who later became deputy assistant secretary of the Navy. "I can only say from the certainty borne of experience that there must have been some rumbling about, 'What are we going to do with this guy, he turned his boat,' and I can hear the words, 'He endangered his crew.' But from our position, the tactic to take is whatever action is best designed to eliminate the enemy threat, which is what he did."
Indeed, the Silver Star citation makes clear that Kerry's performance on that day was both extraordinary and risky. "With utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets," the citation says, Kerry "again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his boat only 10 feet from the Viet Cong rocket position and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy . . . The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lt. Kerry in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire were responsible for the highly successful mission."
posted
Considering that Lt.Colonel ain't a USNavy rank, his comment might as well have come from ChuckyCheese.
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quote:Considering that Lt.Colonel ain't a USNavy rank, his comment might as well have come from ChuckyCheese.
A. He didn't claim it was a Navy rank. B. Many people in services with Lt. Colonel as a rank know a lot about small-boat tactics. You know, like the Marines? C. Assuming the guy actually was a Lt. Colonel, his opinion is certainly more informed than yours on this subject. D. The ad is still stupid.
quote: 2. Killing a wounded combatant is a war crime. Kerry claimed that "all" the people in his unit committed war crimes, but the only one we have actual evidence of is Kerry himself.
Crime? Are you insane? Unarmed, maybe, but armed and dangerous, weather wonded or not is so much a crime that he got a medal for it.
Make up your mind...either he deserved his medal, or he didn't...you can't have it both ways. Right now it sounds like you are saying that he was never under fire so he didn't deserve it-and that he killed someone who was shooting (or still able to shoot) at him and belongs in jail. Which is it? If there was no shooting, how did he kill someone in a firefight that never happened?
If the service record is what matters to you, condider this...we have documentation that Bush was AWOL, and that he was cited for no shows to his unit. In all the units I am aware of he should have been arrested and court-marshalled for deriliction of duty.
And don't say it doesn't happen, because it almost happened to me...until I could prove that the train was 4 hours late....Hours, not months or years...hours!
You have NO experience in the service, and all the quotes (or over 90%) you have "quoted" are usless. It is a hack job, and so far almost all your quotes have come straight off the SWVT site, which is like allowing Moore to give the keynote speach at the Republican Convention...
Do some research...every single thing I have found has taken less that an hour to find, and most of my sources are from fairly neutral sites, except where I qouted Kerry's campaign....and as he is the one you keep accusing of war crimes that happened in a non-existant conflict.
posted
I personally agree with Bill O'Reilly that really the military records of Kerry OR Bush should not be relevant right now. I don't care what they did 20+ years ago, so much.
I would rather see a lot more talk and interaction about current issues. The media, and both parties, have let this military thing become forefront. I wish it would stop.
posted
heh heh heh heh heh... I like O'reilly... I like Rush too. ESPECIALLY the day when rush spent the whole program taking sound bytes of Kerry. Kerry would contradict himself SOOO much. It was funny. like: "I AM FOR ABORTION!" Next sound byte: "I AM SOLIDLY AGAINST ABORTION!" It was loads of laughter for me and my fiance.
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quote:In late 2001, Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed" that Sept. 11 mastermind Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official before the attacks, in April 2000 in Prague; Cheney later said the meeting could not be proved or disproved.
This is the one that seems particularly damning to me, but I want to see the original quotation to see if Cheney said “before the attacks.” If not, then the juxtaposition of the two is the Post’s, not Cheney’s.
Bush, in his speech aboard an aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003, asserted: "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding."
Neither “ally of al Qaeda” nor “source of terrorist funding” speaks to 9/11, and at leas the second is demonstrably true.
In September, Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press": "If we're successful in Iraq . . . then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."
I want to see the rest of this one, too. By September, we already knew Sadaam was out of power and not coming back, so this can’t just be referring to removing Sadaam. I’d be interested to see if the rest of this interview speaks about the importance of an Islamic democracy in combating terrorism.
Edit: And only the first statement could have been used to garner support to go to war, since the rest happened afterwards.
quote:heh heh heh heh heh... I like O'reilly... I like Rush too. ESPECIALLY the day when rush spent the whole program taking sound bytes of Kerry. Kerry would contradict himself SOOO much. It was funny. like: "I AM FOR ABORTION!" Next sound byte: "I AM SOLIDLY AGAINST ABORTION!" It was loads of laughter for me and my fiance.
There's not a person alive who, if taped as much as Kerrey has been, would not generate enough contradictory statements to fill a radio show. It's all in the editing.
posted
Beren, notice that the Boston Globe article also states that the gunner on Kerry's boat could not depress the 50 calibre machine gun far enough to target the VC holding the Rocket-propelled grenade launcher, because Kerry had beached the boat. Had Kerry not beached the boat, the gunner could have taken out the VC with the RPG easily, with no "heroics" needed. And the boat, still being in the water and mobile, would have been a harder target to hit.
And notice that there was said to be other enemy fire, coming from both banks. And Kerry beached the boat, making it a sitting duck.
How many think this was really a smart command decision?
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posted
There's a link on that same page to a discussion scheduled for 2 with John Hurley, National Director of Veterans for Kerry.
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posted
While many are demanding that Kerry release the additional hundred or so pages of his military records that he has not yet released, even those records he has released, and that you can read on his own website, are raising questions.
For example, there are two different citations written for Kerry's silver star (and a third one is known to exist), and two for his bronze star, a situation that is said to be bizarre by people knowledgeable in military procedures. Not only that, but Kerry's Silver Star is said to include a combat V. According to a U.S. Navy spokesman, "Kerry's record is incorrect. The Navy has never issued a 'combat V' to anyone for a Silver Star." Naval regulations do not allow for the use of a "combat V" for the Silver Star. One investigator of fraudulent claims has said that the only records he has seen where a combat V was said to be issued with a silver star, were fraudulent.
Second, someone filed a form DD215 to amend his original form DD214, and the amending form is dated March, 2001. Why is this record being amended 30 years later? What this form amended was the number of campaign stars attached to his Vietnam Service Medal.
Third, why did Kerry get four campaign stars attached to his Vietnam Service Medal, when he was only there in Vietnam for two campaigns?
Fourth, and what strikes me as most curious, is the fact that Kerry was required to serve in the Naval Reserves for a time after returning from Vietnam, and should have been discharged from the Naval Reserves in 1972. But documents on Kerry's own website show that he did not get his discharge from the Naval Reserves until 1978. Why the six-year delay?
Could it be that during his participation in the antiwar protest movements during those years, he refused to show up for his Naval Reserve appointments? Was he AWOL, a deserter? One wonders who might have pulled strings to get him an "honorable" discharge six years late?
It would certainly be ironic if after all the attempts made by Democrats to hurl unsupported accusations at Bush that he was AWOL and a deserter from the Natonal Guard, it turns out that the charges of being AWOL and a deserter actually come back and stick to Kerry for real!
[ August 29, 2004, 01:34 AM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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quote: Could it be that during his participation in the antiwar protest movements during those years, he refused to show up for his Naval Reserve appointments? Was he AWOL, a deserter? One wonders who might have pulled strings to get him an "honorable" discharge six years late?
Get real. There is only one person running for President that has an attendance problem, and it isn't Kerry.
Find proof before you make these allegations...and I don't mean made up stuff from the SwiftVet website.
Or even better, take it from there...it will be as easy to disprove as the rest of their allegations.
BTW, How do you have any idea of how may documents Kerry hasn't released? If he hasn't released them.....
For the last time, he has released his records, barring medical records.
Should Bush have to release his achohol rehabilitation papers, or his substance abuse treatment records?
No.
They are confidential medical records...like Kerry's are too.
The only difference is that Kerry actually has some records to release, while most of Bush's records are AWOL...as he himself was all too often.
And yes...there is actually proof of that.
Look it up...it's in the posts/links I made earlier..
quote: For example, there are three different citations written for Kerry's silver star, and two for his bronze star, a situation that is said to be bizarre and unprecedented by people knowledgeable in military procedures
Which people? What is so unusual about that? Once again, try quoting someone neutral, or at least not as obviously biasised as the SwiftVets....
Are you sure you didn't write for the SwiftVets? Your lack of documentation skills and penchant for completely unfounded and erronous allegations seems strangly familier to anyone who has bothered to read any of the fiction the SwiftVets have written to date....
posted
All the statements I made have been documented repeatedly. But since you cavile at such great length, Kwea, here are a few documented statements that should cause pause for thought:
quote:Former Navy Secretary John Lehman has no idea where a Silver Star citation displayed on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign Web site came from, he said Friday. The citation appears over Lehman's signature.
"It is a total mystery to me. I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me," he said.
The additional language varied from the two previous citations, signed first by Adm. Elmo Zumwalt and then Adm. John Hyland, which themselves differ. The new material added in the Lehman citation reads in part: "By his brave actions, bold initiative, and unwavering devotion to duty, Lieutenant (jg) Kerry reflected great credit upon himself...."
As for the hundred pages of unreleased Kerry military records, that was established by the Washington Post:
quote:Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages.
The only information I have gotten from the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth is their personal testimony--which is very weighty coming from 254 veterans, 60 of whom are decorated, many of whom knew Kerry longer than any of the men on Kerry's own boat (for example, Jim Rassmann was only on Kerry's boat for two days), and most of whom were in the same Swift Boat group as Kerry, and some of whom were Kerry's commanding officers.
Much of the information I gave, which I assume people know, comes from Kerry's own website. Such as the date of his return from Vietnam, and the date of his final discharge from the Naval Reserves six years later, and the reproductions of form DD215 (dated March, 2001) which amends form DD214 and adds two more campaign stars to Kerry's Vietnam Service medal (making a total of four). Which I said was where the information came from.
[ August 29, 2004, 02:47 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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posted
WEll, I have seen many, many vetrans records, from inprocessing to discharge, and most people when they speak of records they speak of the records held by Admin.
Those records are what are called "service records", and they don't include medical files, or every single peice of paper that has Kerry's (or whomevers) name on it.
If you want someones service records, and request them, that is what you get. I should know, as I spent 3 years working jointly in the Admin nd Saftey offices for USAMRIID, one of the top medical reserch facilities in the world, second to only the CDC here in the USA>
There are plenty of files around that aren't considered part of the service records, and as such are not included in service records requests. For anyone, not just for Kerry.
As for you being non-partisan and impartial, hee is yet another example of your "editing" skills (when they suit you), from the last paragraph of the very article you posted fromthe Chicago Sun-Times...oddly enough, the ONLY paragraph you didn't quote here...
quote: Asked how the citation could have been executed over his signature without his knowledge, Lehman said: "I have no idea. I can only imagine they were signed by an autopen." The autopen is a device often used in the routine execution of executive documents in government.
In other words, it was a routine citation, one that he may or may not have seen, but one executed by his very office.
How many citations a year, for the last 40 years, has he seen? And this was 30 years (or more) ago, right?
So you asy he doesn't remember seeing it , and that he doesn't remember awarding it....implying that he also said that it was undeserved, (not said) or that it was awarded improperly...when you know (as does anyone who bothers reading MOST links you posted) that when he was gived a chance to object to the medal he didn't do so. He actually said that it probably came from his office, and he applied (or a staffer did) an autopen to it.
Have you seen what security an autopen is kept under? Next youwill be claiming that Kerry snuck in (or had "someone" do it for him) and stole one to get an extra citation for an award that he had already earned.
As far as your "documenting" things... [QUOTAll the statements I made have been documented repeatedlyE] [/QUOTE] I would direct you attention to this:
quote: Was he AWOL, a deserter? One wonders who might have pulled strings to get him an "honorable" discharge six years late?
Documentation? You didn't even bother to attempt a fabrication of documentation for this....yet...
You can ask all the questions you want, I suppose, but try a little harder if you expect people here to take you at your word.....or at least me to do so.
I don't have a problem with your, or anyones, political views here, but I reserve the right to object when you try to foist poorly researched, obviously biased speculation as genuine facts.
I don't claim to have all the answers, but I don't like the SwiftVets grinding their oh-so-obvious axe in public.
I don't like the moveon.org ads either, although I haven't commented on it here..that isn't what this thread is about, after all...
They are welcome to try and feed me a line of crap, but until they learn to disguise the smell a hell of a lot better I doubt I will be trying it anytime soon.
There aer SO many more important issues than these that I am ashamed at how much effort I have wasted on this already.
So far I have seen completely unsubstanciated allegations of cowardace, lies, murder, incomeptance, falsifying of documents, and being AWOL....
Any other unsubstanciated comments anyone else would like to make? All you haev to do is "quote" someone like this....
quote: Someone in a different forum who was a Lt. Col. in the military, offered this assessment of Kerry's action for which he was awarded a silver star:
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Did any of you here previously hold a commission as an officer in the military, particularly in the Navy? Are you aware of the circumstances of Sen Kerry's Silver Star?
It regarded his beaching of his swift boat, and jumping off to chase down a wounded Viet Cong, shooting him behind a hut (out of sight of his crew). His Silver Star citation discussed his "heroism" in that regard.
There are some problem in that regard, however:
1. A Naval officer is NEVER supposed to leave his command, his boat, and his men. Kerry admits jumping off and chasing an enemy, going out of sight of his crew, and then coming back. Naval regulations actually should have given him a reprimand, if not relieving him of command, rather than an award. Correct procedure would have been for him to order a couple of his men to chase the guy down, if he thought the danger to his boat or the mission was so great that the killing of that guy was imperative. If I had been his commanding officer, I would have relieved him. (I was a Lt Col in the military).
2. Killing a wounded combatant is a war crime. Kerry claimed that "all" the people in his unit committed war crimes, but the only one we have actual evidence of is Kerry himself.
3. It is also a given in the Navy that one doesn't beach one's boat, except in rare and defined circumstances. And to beach one's boat while under fire, as Kerry claims, is dereliction of duty. Think about it: these small boats had a couple of weapons and not much armor. [Their hulls were made of aluminum.] Their chief defense was their speed and mobility. If one beaches one's boat, you remove all that and make it a sitting duck. Kerry's men are lucky that they all didn't DIE because of his stunt. Instead of making his boat safer, it made his boat in much greater danger, and unnecessarily so.
This is a Silver Star that should never have been given, as far as I am concerned. I put it right up there with the Silver Star that Lyndon Johnson got for riding 13 minutes in a reconaissance plane during WW2. What he [Kerry] did was not "heroic" - it was stupid, dangerous, and placed his ENTIRE COMMAND in unnecessary jeopardy. It is not evidence that he is fit to be Commander-in-Chief - rather it is evidence of BAD command decisions.
Onceagain, this is someone who was in another branch (if he really was in any at all) , and we have no idea or who he is other than who he claims to be...a minor officer, in a completely differnt branch of the service, with no experience on SwiftBoats, who obviously knows better than not just John Kerry (and everyone on his boat that day) but better than his commanding officers.....whom gave him a commendation rather than a court-marshall.
'Nuff said, one way or another.
See you on election day!
BTW, Ron, I was raised in Detroit until 1988....so hearing you mention local radio stations was funky...
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