Mark Steyn has a brilliant column on why John Kerry’s military service is a cover for his weakness on defense. Despite Kerry’s distinguished service in Vietnam, the actions he took afterwards make him unfit to be Commander in Chief. His actions as a member of the anti-war movement can only be described as shameful. He deliberately attempted to harm the mission that his own former comrades were still trying to achieve in Vietnam, endangering not only their mission, but their lives. As Steyn notes:
The only relevant lesson from Vietnam is this: then, as now, it was not possible for the enemy to achieve military victory over the US; their only hope was that America would, in effect, defeat itself. And few men can claim as large a role in the loss of national will that led to that defeat as John Kerry. A brave man in Vietnam, he returned home to appear before Congress and not merely denounce the war but damn his “band of brothers” as a gang of rapists, torturers and murderers led by officers happy to license them to commit war crimes with impunity. He spent the Seventies playing Jane Fonda and he now wants to run as John Wayne.
The Democrats have always been more concerned with who someone is rather than what they think – appearances do matter, but Kerry’s war service does not, nor should it, insulate him from criticism for years of weakening the US military. Kerry voted against nearly every weapons system that won the wars in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He voted against the first Gulf War, an act that shows a fundamental weakness on defense issues. His record belies his supposed strength on defense.
As James Lileks quite correctly asks:
I’m waiting for an ad that simply puts the matter plainly: who do you think Al Qaeda wants to win the election? Who do you think will make Syria relax? Who do you think Hezbollah worries about more? Who would Iran want to deal with when it comes to its nuclear program – Cowboy Bush or “Send in the bribed French inspectors” Kerry? Which candidate would our enemies prefer?
O the shrieking that would result should such an ad run. You can’t even ask those questions, even though they’re the most relevant questions of the election.
Of course, Hizb’Allah has already given us the answer to that question:
“The resistance movement [against the U.S. in Iraq] may not be able to remove the U.S. from Iraq within a year, but it will be able to remove Bush, [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and [National Security Adviser] Condoleezza Rice, together with their Zionist friends, from the White House,” Nasrallah assured his listeners. Nasrallah’s scenario requires no deep understanding: Suicide attacks and sabotage operations against the American forces in Iraq will cause American public opinion to turn against the president and not re-elect him, thus bringing about the disappearance of this group of leaders from the White House.
Of course the Democrats aren’t working for Hizb’Allah, and I don’t mean to accuse the Democrats of being “fifth columnists” as some would. However, this does show that removing the Bush Administration would end the war on terror and give our enemies the kind of space and time they need to reconstitute and become an even greater threat.
John Kerry’s anti-war beliefs hurt US soldiers and millions of people in Southeast Asia in the 1970s when his actions helped embolden the Viet Cong. Today Kerry’s stance on the war emboldens the insurgents in Iraq to kill more US soldiers and Iraq civilians in the hopes that the Kerry Administration will not have the political will to continue the war. Such an accusation is not criticizing Kerry’s patriotism, it is criticizing his judgement. As it was 30 years ago, Kerry’s bad judgement serves to harm our soldiers abroad.
I thought that it was only the Patriot Act that was attempting to limit speech. I’m not going to waste my time reading an article that doesn’t interest me in the least. What does interest me is that your attack is completely historically ignorant. I think history has shown that the war protestors were right. Kerry did his duty for his country even though he disagreed on principle. He saw, first hand, what was happening- what was actually, truly and really happening in Vietnam. He didn’t make it up- is standing up for the truth now considered unpatriotic? I don’t think that’s a thoughtful interpretation and, frankly, it surprises me coming from you. I’m sorry that you don’t feel any of your commentators were up to your level of logic. I don’t think your blog will be as much fun with such restrictions as those posted above. Good luck.
Kerri,
I suppose you won’t see this because you decided to stop by, drop some insults, and leave. Yes, history has shown the protestors were right. Just ask the millions of refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos that continue to flee the communist utopia that the protestors helped create. Or the two to three million people murdered by the Communists in Cambodia. Yeah, go ahead and hitch your horse to that wagon.
Kerry’s allegations of war crimes were proven to be largely false. He accused people of committing crimes in areas they had never been in. His record is clear and it is frankly shameful.
Huh. Let’s look at their war records.
Kerry pulled a guy out of a river under machine gun fire and saved his life.
2 million dollars of taxpayer money trained Bush to fly planes, but after his training Bush apparently decided that he never had to fly again – two years before his hitch was supposed to be up, despite the fact that the plane he was trained to fly, while obsolete, was still in use in Vietnam.
Who saved more lives? Well, I guess I have to give that one to Bush – the problem is, all the lives he saved were Viet Cong.
just for the record: somebody else complained about the posting rules…
Where do I go with something like this? Kerry actively pissed all over the mission when he returned from Vietnam, tacitly helping the Viet Cong. Bush did volunteer to go to Vietnam for Palace Alert, but couldn’t have because he didn’t have the training.
If we accept that kind of logic, you have to argue that Clinton actively aided the Viet Cong as well. I have a feeling you don’t want to go down the road. At least Bush served in some capacity unlike Dean or Clinton who weaseled their way out of even the most basic military service.
Kerry had a fine service record – but that isn’t the point. Kerry’s legislative record on military issues is horrendous. He voted against funding almost every major piece of military hardware we have. He voted against the first Gulf War, which is inexcusable. His positions on the war on terrorism would make America weaker.
I don’t care if he ran through enemy fire to save a busload of crippled nuns and kittens. His judgement on key issues is still wrong and he is not fit to be Commander in Chief.
Furthermore, as many Vietnam veterans have noted since 1972, if anyone gave aid and comfort to the VC John Kerry would be it.
Okay, Jay, deal time. You don’t try to hold Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry as a credible source (‘rubbing shoulders with Hanoi Jane Fonda’? that’s worse than the “shark-infested Gulf of Mexico” crap!) and I’ll try not to hold…oh, who’s comparable to that bullshit…okay, Al Sharpton. I’ll hold Al Sharpton as an unreliable source if you acknowledge that VVAW was not a “pro-Communist” organization.
“Just ask the millions of refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos that continue to flee the communist utopia that the protestors helped create. ” Well, we COULD have asked the 2 to 3 million vietnamese we killed, or we could have asked the generations that were wiped out by twenty years of war, or we could have asked those killed to prevent the end of the colonial period, or we could have asked Diem, or we could have asked the tens of thousands of American soldiers that gave their lives for what their country said was important. But none of them can answer now, either, can they? Do you honestly think those 2 million refugees were fleeing from an economic system? More importantly, do you honestly think that the Viet Minh gave a rat’s ass about the size of anti-war protests in the US? Are you actually telling me that an anti-war protestor is “objectively pro-enemy”? Because I think that’s the point where I laugh, and possibly raise a finger in a time-honored acknowledgement of idiotic assertions.
James, you seem to be arguing that the Vietnamese were better off with us staying and fighting a losing war that only served to kill millions and did nothing to stem the tide of pan-Vietnamese nationalism. If we’d left that unwinnable conflict in 1965 instead of 1973-75, the only differences would have been the body counts and the reconstruction costs. We couldn’t save South Vietnam, and it’s really pointless of you to argue that we could.
“Kerry actively pissed all over the mission when he returned from Vietnam, actively helping the Viet Cong. Bush did volunteer to go to Vietnam for Palace Alert, but couldn’t have because he didn’t have the training.”
Okay, first of all, if opposing the war in the US was in fact a means of aiding the VC (it wasn’t–it was a way to help the American soldiers trapped in an unwinnable war launched and escalated under false pretenses), it would be PASSIVELY helping the enemy, not “actively”. “Actively helping the Viet Cong” would be shooting Americans. As I recall, Kerry was getting shot by the VC, which is not usually a great way of showing sympathy.
Moreover, is your point that Bush, who could have volunteered for any number of combat assignments, managed to volunteer for one that he was underqualified for and this somehow makes him BETTER than Kerry on the issue?
You know, that link that Jay provides to a page of different logical fallacies is pretty useful, and I highly recommend it to you. Somewhere on that page they gotta cover this…Kerry being a genuine war hero is somehow a bad thing while Bush avoiding Vietnam service ( Houston Chronicle 5/8/94 Bush: “I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes.” ) and volunteering for an assignment for which he didn’t meet the minimum requirements is a good thing.
If we accept that kind of logic, you have to argue that Clinton actively aided the Viet Cong as well.
Why not? I didn’t vote for Clinton either, remember.
I don’t agree that protesting the war was helping our soldiers (unless causing them to lose morale and be spit on when they got home and called “babykillers” is somehow helping them.)
However, you’re correct, the term “actively” implies a stronger relationship that can be conclusively proven. I’ll make a correction.
That’s not my argument. My argument is that we’re decided who would be the best Commander in Chief right now. Kerry’s war record is a credit to him, but that has little bearing on his ability to lead the military in this current crisis. We’re not electing a biography, we’re electing a President, and Kerry’s legislative record is anything but heroic.
Shame on you James :)…
“I don’t agree that protesting the war was helping our soldiers (unless causing them to lose morale and be spit on when they got home and called “babykillers” is somehow helping them.)”
Two points:
1.) http://slate.msn.com/id/1005224/
Take the article for what you will (I don’t know how you perceive Slate, though I usually find them to be just as hard on us as on you), but the Lembcke book it cites I have not yet seen a refutation of. Protestors spitting on soldiers is a myth, unless you’re talking about counterprotestors spitting on members of John Kerry’s group–that actually happened pretty often. If you want to call this an o/t response, that’s your prerogative. But the antiwar movement wasn’t spitting on returning soldiers, except in Liberal Hollywood movies.
2.) So do you think that NOT protesting the war, NOT creating an opposition to the deployment of troops and NOT ending the conflict would have been better? Because, frankly, we had no reason to remain in vietnam past the withdrawal of France from NATO. Seriously. Part of the administration’s rationale for the Vietnam war was that European powers could recolonize Indochina. If a country other than France tried it, they could have succeeded and gained a foothold on the Asian continent, giving them access to the developing economy in China, with whom they could then trade on a more favorable level than we could. If France had returned, they would have been caught up in the futility of trying to subdue the country and would have been unavailable for any other conflict, specifically a land war in Europe agains thte USSR. Once France left the integrated military structure of NATO and returned to, as de Gaulle called it,a “wholly French character,” there was no reason for the US to want to keep them from returning to Vietnam, since we were no longer factoring French assistance into the defense of West Germany. The resources of Indochina were lost to potential European hegemonic powers, thus reducing the threat to American geopolitical dominance.
The only reason then remaining for fighting in Vietnam, other than pride, was the Domino Theory. However, the theory was predicated on a false assumption: communist is communist is communist. We failed to recognize the deep and historic divisions between the Chinese and the Vietnamese, as well as the Chinese and the Soviets. We incorrectly assumed that any communist ocuntry would automatically subordinate itself to the USSR, something which Tito proved was not the case.
Going into Vietnam was a bad idea, but staying as long as we did was just idiocy, and I frankly wouldn’t trust someone with American foreign policy that didn’t understand that point.
1) In short, bullshit. I’ve known several Vietnam vets personally who talked about being spit on, called “babykillers”, and beaten by supposed “peace” protestors. There are plenty who can verify such incidents, and denying them is quite frankly disgusting.
2) French colonization didn’t have a damn thing to do with Vietnam – the domino theory was closer to the truth. Despite the differences between Vietnam and the Soviets/Chinese, we knew that the fall of Vietnam would have a spillover effect in the region – and indeed it did. Just see the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge…
Was Vietnam winnable? It’s an open question. Had we gone after the heart of North Vietnam early in the war rather than trying to pussyfoot around, perhaps things would have been different. However, that is not relevant. Kerry’s actions were still disgusting. Falsely accusing soldiers of atrocities is never justified, and Kerry threw away his honor with his shameful actions after the war.
“I think history has shown that the war protestors were right.” – Kerri
What history? Actually Vietnam war military history? The histories written by South Vietnamese who were there after our pullout and who barely escaped execution by the NVA?
Or the version of history that’s most comfortable for you to buy into?
“Are you actually telling me that an anti-war protestor is “objectively pro-enemy”?” – JR
Ayup. I’ll save you the trouble of the one-finger salute by flipping you off now.
The ‘Nam era war protestors degraded the morale of the people fighting the war. They degraded the political will of the politicans back home to prosecute it effectively in the face of percieved home condemnation. And they ate away at the home support of the action there with voters who were only getting one side of the story at the time – the protestors story.
I grew up with Vietnamese boat people and refugees. I suspect I know their feelings on the war andthe protestors a bit better than you seem to. The biggest condemnation I heard from them was that we abandoned them.
The ‘Nam era protestors – including Kerry – share a peice of every death after the fall of Saigon, and a peice of every boneyard in Cambodia.
Don’t like that viewpoint? TFB. There’s a lot of vets who aren’t going to vote for Kerry precisely because of his actions in protesting the war, and in betraying his “band of brothers”. There’s probably more’n a few vietnamese citizens who won’t vote for him for the same reasons. I know at least a few.
john kerry wes nuts in 71 and he still is now if he get in the white house we can forget about it i will leave the usa RICHARD E HYMES SGT USA ARMY RETIRED