Stolen Honor
I had a chance this weekend to view the documentary Stolen Honor, which details the effects of the anti-war movement, and John Kerry's actions in particular, on American POWs in Vietnam. Katie O'Beirne provided a nice write-up on NRO a couple of weeks ago, which is worth a read.
Stolen Honor was produced by Carlton Sherwood, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. In it, he interviews 13 former POWs. Two received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Many were imprisoned more than seven years. What I gained from watching this documentary was a sense of perspective.
John Kerry's war credentials are "unimpeachable," as the story goes. He is a "war hero," and the Bush campaign cannot touch this due to Bush's own Vietnam story (or lack thereof). While the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth put enough holes in Kerry's story to sink it, a few inconsistencies have left a glimmer of plausible deniability, meaning, in the real world of network news, the accusations were "debunked." Fine. Tragic, but fine.
The accusations of these 13 POWs though, should not go away, and cannot be "debunked". The thrust of their message is that they took torture to avoid saying the exact things that John Kerry said freely. Vietnam was a war won not by bullets, but by propaganda. The Tet offensive, for example, was a military failure for the North, but has evolved in popular mythology as being a great loss for the U.S.
POWs were tools in this war. They were tortured until they admitted they were war criminals. Some servicemen went to extraordinarly lengths to not be tools of this propaganda machine. John McCain and James Stockdale bloodied themselves so that the North could not put them in front of a camera or in front of peace activists. They suffered immeasurably because of this.
Kerry's 1971 testimony gave the North ammunition in this propaganda war. The POWs interviewed for this documentary said that the enemy used this testimony as part of their torture. They said it emboldened the enemy, prolonged the war, and prolonged their captivity.
John Kerry has not yet apologized for his actions. Now he has drawn parallels between the war in Iraq and Vietnam. We should draw our own. Once again we are in a war that will not be lost with bombs and bullets, but can be lost by propaganda. Once again John Kerry is giving the enemy ammunition in their war, telling the world our actions are "a collossal failure", that we should not have invaded, that the war occurred under false pretenses, and that the world is less safe because of it.
Kerry's actions today, in a time of war, show exactly why he never apologized for his testimony against his "band of brothers" in 1971: he isn't sorry.
Senator Kerry wants to be Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. He's not fit for KP.
To order Stolen Honor, visit their website: http://www.stolenhonor.com
Stolen Honor was produced by Carlton Sherwood, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. In it, he interviews 13 former POWs. Two received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Many were imprisoned more than seven years. What I gained from watching this documentary was a sense of perspective.
John Kerry's war credentials are "unimpeachable," as the story goes. He is a "war hero," and the Bush campaign cannot touch this due to Bush's own Vietnam story (or lack thereof). While the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth put enough holes in Kerry's story to sink it, a few inconsistencies have left a glimmer of plausible deniability, meaning, in the real world of network news, the accusations were "debunked." Fine. Tragic, but fine.
The accusations of these 13 POWs though, should not go away, and cannot be "debunked". The thrust of their message is that they took torture to avoid saying the exact things that John Kerry said freely. Vietnam was a war won not by bullets, but by propaganda. The Tet offensive, for example, was a military failure for the North, but has evolved in popular mythology as being a great loss for the U.S.
POWs were tools in this war. They were tortured until they admitted they were war criminals. Some servicemen went to extraordinarly lengths to not be tools of this propaganda machine. John McCain and James Stockdale bloodied themselves so that the North could not put them in front of a camera or in front of peace activists. They suffered immeasurably because of this.
Kerry's 1971 testimony gave the North ammunition in this propaganda war. The POWs interviewed for this documentary said that the enemy used this testimony as part of their torture. They said it emboldened the enemy, prolonged the war, and prolonged their captivity.
John Kerry has not yet apologized for his actions. Now he has drawn parallels between the war in Iraq and Vietnam. We should draw our own. Once again we are in a war that will not be lost with bombs and bullets, but can be lost by propaganda. Once again John Kerry is giving the enemy ammunition in their war, telling the world our actions are "a collossal failure", that we should not have invaded, that the war occurred under false pretenses, and that the world is less safe because of it.
Kerry's actions today, in a time of war, show exactly why he never apologized for his testimony against his "band of brothers" in 1971: he isn't sorry.
Senator Kerry wants to be Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. He's not fit for KP.
To order Stolen Honor, visit their website: http://www.stolenhonor.com
Comments