My problem with what your saying is this:
Kerry admitted to participating in war crimes. Since those include shooting in free-fire zones, and the chances are high that he killed innocents, then he indeed admitted to murder. The fact that he wasn't charged and/or convicted is irrelevant.
What you're doing is labeling Kerry, and any other man, O'Neil and all the other "swifties" as murderers. I have a real problem with that, and I refuse to do that! You keep saying over and over again that because Kerry was shooting in a free-fire zone, that he must have killed innocents. That's just outrageous! There is no proof of anything of that nature. What Kerry is saying, is that by the Genevea Convention and Hague Conventions, free-fire zones, set up by those high on the chain of command, are criminall. So if any of the men, Kerry, O'Neil, "the swifties" and the thousands and thousands of other men that served there, served in those zones, or shot their guns there, in defense or offense, they were shooting in free-fire zones, something illegal to begin with. Just serving there, without firing a shot, is against the Geneva Convention because free-fire zones are against the Geneva Convention. To accuse any of them of murder without any sort of proof is just outrageous!
That's a very dangerous and slippery slope, Elwood, one thousands, and thousands of Vietnam vets would not want to be sliding down because of your conclusion and accusations! Or do you just want to make Kerry the war criminal (and a murdering one at that
) and no one else?
Look at O'Neil's and Kerry's exchange again, edited to take out irrelevent parts, that you can back a couple of pages to read:
MR. O'NEILL: [Unintelligible] John. Can you tell me about any war crimes that occurred in that unit, Coastal Division 11? And a second question: Why didn't you attempt to get out of the unit or submit a request when you were there if you saw anything that shocked a normal man?
MR. KERRY: We Well, I'll come back to the question.
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like you to answer that question, if you would. You obviously are quite good on the polished rhetoric, but I did serve in the same place you did, and not for four months but for 18 months, and I never saw anything, and I'd like you to tell me
about the war crimes you saw committed there, and also why you didn't do something about them, although [unintelligible].
MR. KERRY: Did you serve in a free fire zone?
MR. O'NEILL: I certainly did serve in a free fire zone.
MR. KERRY: [Reading] "Free fire zone, in which we kill anything that moves man, woman or child. This practice suspends the distinction between combatant and non-combatant and contravenes Geneva Convention Article 3.1."
*I hope you understand that when Kerry says "we", he is speaking in generalities as in the US military, not him and the man standing next to him*
MR. O'NEILL: Where is that from, John?
MR. KERRY: Geneva Conventions. You've heard about the Geneva Conventions.
MR. O'NEILL: I suggest I suggest
MR. KERRY: May I complete my statement?
MR. O'NEILL: Sure, go ahead.
MR. KERRY: Thank you. Yes, we did participate in war crimes in Coastal Division 11 because as I said earlier, we took part in free fire zones, harassment, interdiction fire, and search-and-destroy missions...
...But I know that there's no way in the world you can say that you didn't ride through the Ku Alon River or the Bodie River [phonetic spellings] and see huts along the sides of the rivers that were totally destroyed. Did you see them destroyed?
MR. O'NEILL: I think
MR. KERRY: Were they destroyed?
MR. O'NEILL: May I answer the question?
MR. KERRY: Were they destroyed?...
... MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to continue with my statement, if I may. No, we never I never I never burned a village, that's absolutely correct.
On those particular raids, as you
know, from the time you came into the Ku Alon River to the time you left the Bodie, you're receiving almost continuous fire the entire time.
If you went on a little further and I had the experience of being there after you, which is fortunate you would have seen that right there on the Ku Alon River at the present time there's a village of 10,000 people that came out from that entire area,
refugees refugees not from us, but refugees from the Viet Cong. People who came there just to have their own type of government and just to be free,
and I think we all realize that, as honorable men, we'd never I don't' know the semantics, perhaps, as well as you, but we all realize that we'd never do anything dishonorable...
So ... Kerry says he burned huts in free-fire zones, O'Neil said he didn't. I believe them both, especially since O'Neil was there months after Kerry. O'Neil says they were under constant fire in the free-fire zones. His duty was to stop the "enemy". If they were being fired upon, those firing were the enemy. Whether they were in a free-fire zone or not, it was O'Neil's duty and the duty of every soldier in Vietnam to fire back and stop the enemy. Kerry and O'Neil didn't set up the free fire zone. O'Neil says "we all realized we'd never do anything dishonorable". Do you believe him? I do! What a mix up. One sees what they did as war crimes, the other sees what they did as nothing dishonorable. I believe them both. And having our soldiers, in situations such as this, getting killed for God knows what reason, is exactly what divided our country during the 60's and 70's.
Look at that transcipt! O'Neil himself didn't even know about the Geneva Convention and the connection to the free-fire zones until the Dick Cavett show!! But somehow Kerry detractors think he should have known while he was there and done something about it.
How can you fault the men who truly did what they were told to do for their country, the best they could for their country,
who served with honor and dignity, if they didn't find out what they did was wrong until after they got hom? I simply can't and won't. If Kerry does, so be it, that's on him, he earned the 3 Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, a Silver Star, and two citations to be able to judge his own service.
Since you really can't ignore the fact he admitted to (defined legally) war crimes, you are free to not hold him accountable because of the circumstances or whatever reason. Others may not feel that way. I don't. The fact remains unchanged.
Let me ask you this?
Do you only hold Kerry accountable? If so, why? You were the one that made the analogy, "If you rob a bank but don't get caught, you're still a bank robber." How many "bank robbers" served and fought for our country in Vietnam? One ... John Kerry? Two, Kerry and O'Neil? Or thousands and thousands and thousands? Who are you willing to accuse and hold accountable? Only those that vocalized that what they did in Vietnam was wrong, or everyone who was involved in the same exact activities, all the "bank robbers" who didn't get caught?
The Abu Grahib thing? Different circumstances, different orders, different wars, different everything. We'll just have to agree to disagree on the issue of "apples and apples" or "apples and oranges".
