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From: "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@hawaii.rr.com>
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References: <4038200C.2DCFA865@att.com>
Subject: Re: John Kerry Denies Quotes Accusing U.S. Soliders of War Crimes
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Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 17:51:02 GMT
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It will be interesting to see if the media says anything about this.
"brian" <briantrent@att.com> wrote in message
news:4038200C.2DCFA865@att.com...
> In a stark about-face, Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry is
now denying that he ever accused
> U.S. soldiers of committing war crimes in Vietnam, despite amply
documented comments - some televised, others
> delivered while under oath - in which he did exactly that.
>
> Asked on Thursday whether he had accused his fellow soldiers of committing
war crimes in Vietnam during his
> April 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry
told CNN's Judy Woodruff:
>
> "No, I was accusing American leaders of abandoning the troops. And if you
read what I said, it is very clearly
> an indictment of leadership. I said to the Senate, where is the leadership
of our country? And it's the
> leaders who are responsible, not the soldiers. I never said that."
>
> However, a transcript of Kerry's April 22, 1971, testimony contains
accusations that his brother soldiers
> committed all manner of atrocities, charges he based on interviews of
returning Vietnam vets earlier that year
> at the Winter Soldier Investigation, an event Kerry organized with
anti-American actress Jane Fonda.
>
> Kerry told the Senate that Winter Soldier witnesses "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."
>
> Speaking under oath, Kerry continued:
>
> "They told stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut
off heads, taped wires with 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 Genghis Khan."
>
> A few days before his Senate testimony, Kerry gave the following account
on NBC's "Meet the Press":
>
> "There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes,
yes, I committed the same kind of
> atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took
part in shootings in free fire zones.
> I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine
guns, which we were granted and
> ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in
search and destroy missions, in the
> burning of villages."
>
> The future presidential candidate added:
>
> "All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary
to the Geneva Conventions and all of
> this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the
government of the United States from the top
> down."
>
> Appearing on "The Dick Cavett Show" in July 1971, Kerry admitted that he'd
never actually seen some of the
> atrocities he testified about, but still maintained that U.S. soldiers
fighting in Vietnam routinely violated
> the Nuremberg Principles.
>
> "I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody
cut a head off or something like
> that," he told Cavett. "However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I did
take part in harassment and
> interdiction fire, I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which
the houses of noncombatants were
> burned to the ground."
>
> Kerry continued:
>
> "And all of these acts, I find out later on, are contrary to the Hague and
Geneva conventions and to the laws
> of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry
out the application of the
> Nuremberg Principles, is in fact guilty."
>
> CNN's Woodruff declined to confront Kerry with his previous comments
accusing his brother soldiers of
> committing war crimes in Vietnam.
>
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