Under The Same Sun: Does Mr. Kerry Deserve a Medal For Killing Your Countryman, Ma'am?

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October 19, 2004

Does Mr. Kerry Deserve a Medal For Killing Your Countryman, Ma'am?

In an exemplary feat of the kind of tough journalism we need today, Nightline went back to the Vietnamese village that Kerry now boasts of having chased down and killed Ba Thanh, a Vietnamese fighter with the NLF, to get to the bottom of things. Empire Notes has a must-read post, including transcripts of Nightline's shameful, shameful conduct:

The unlearning of the lessons of Vietnam is now complete. The presidential campaign was for at least two months dominated by an absurd discussion on the subject, in which the only "moral" issue was, apparently, how many Vietnamese Kerry had killed and how tough the ones he killed were. ABC's Nightline finally put the icing on the cake by going to consult the other witnesses to Kerry's action or nonaction -- the Vietnamese.
...

It's difficult to communicate how disgusting and macabre this is. It's like questioning the family members of a murder victim in order to figure out whether the killer deserves a medal. Imagine the reaction of the average American being questioned on whether a particular Iraqi resistance member deserves a medal for personally killing some American soldier or whether the soldier was merely killed in an explosion. And the Iraqi resistance is fighting in its own country to expel foreign invaders, not occupying and destroying another country, as the United States did in Vietnam.

It really is the saddest thing. I've seen some of the Swift Boat ads which include snippets of Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971. And even in those brief, distorted, weirdly-narrated ads, the young Kerry is very moving. I think it may be one of the best testimonials ever given on the subject of colonial war by a member of the aggressive nation.

Just how did that young man die, and who is this opportunist, war-mongering, death-celebrating politician I can't bear to listen to, masquerading around in the remmants of that man's shell? I really recommend reading his testimony in full, and reading it often. Then he spoke a deep truth -- now he talks about "Iraqification" the same way politicians of his day spoke of Vietnamization, which that Kerry understood perfectly well:

Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.

And the Kerry-then, speaking on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, proclaimed their desire to fight one last battle, a noble one unlike the ignominious one they had been pushed into:

We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission, to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbarous war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and the fear that have driven this country these last 10 years and more and so when, in 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory but mean instead the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.

Sad to say, that battle has been thoroughly and completely lost. Vietnam did not become the place that America finally turned, that burden remains with us today. On that day, that John Kerry confronted the nation with this unforgettable question: how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? I'd like to ask the current Democratic Party presidential nominee, also named John Kerry, another question. How do you kill your own soul for a shot at power? I would have hoped that it were not possible, that once awakened, a conscience could not be discarded as if it were just another empty campaign promise by just another power-hungry politician.

Posted by zeynep at October 19, 2004 10:57 PM

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Comments

Excellent post. I got a call from Clean Water Action last night telling me about Kerry's "exemplary" record on the environment. I can't help but question--what makes anyone think that someone who has so completely sold out on his most heartfelt convictions so he can become president won't sell out on everything else he's ever done so he can remain president? People always mention the Supreme Court. I suspect that President Kerry would nominate Ted Olson or John Ashcroft to the Court in a Boston minute if he thought it would win him a couple of swing states in 2008. And most Democrats would still defend him, saying he'd only started one new war, compared to the three that Bush started--It's not the Court, it's the wars!

Still, better than Bush, but what sort of standard is that? Here's the best argument for Kerry I can come up with: "Vote Kerry--he'll be easier to impeach."

Posted by: Bob at October 20, 2004 03:31 PM

This is truly appalling behavior on the part of America's imperialist journalists. The full irony of a Kerry candidacy is that he reached his humanitarian peak 33 years ago and it has been all downhill since then. The 1971 Kerry is someone that most Democrats as well as progressives could have gotten excited about. Unfortunately the 2004 Kerry is just another recycled white, rich guy who hasn't had a revolutionary idea in at least 20 years and probably much longer than that. I sincerely support Nan O. D'Abovv for the next president of this plutocratic joke of a government. It would be a joke that is if it were not so horrifically tragic.

Sincerely,
Old & In The Way

Posted by: Phil Cicchi at October 21, 2004 02:30 AM

Posted by: texas holdem at March 11, 2005 07:09 PM

Under The Same Sun

reflections on a world where the sun never sets

October 19, 2004

Does Mr. Kerry Deserve a Medal For Killing Your Countryman, Ma'am?

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