>Why should Kerry be attacked for things he 1) did decades ago and 2)
>says he deeply regrets? Anyway, calling the Vietnam War "genocidal"
>is a bit of a stretch.
The term "genocide" is within Kerry's vocabulary, and he has applied it rather liberally.
"John Kerry has told a national gathering of black leaders and voters that President George W. Bush was ignoring 'genocide' in Sudan" (Patrick Healy, "Kerry Says U.S. Ignores Sudan 'Genocide' Threat," <em>Boston Globe</em>, <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/529729.htm">July 16, 2004</a>).
If what's happening in Sudan is "genocide" in his opinion, why shouldn't Kerry regard the Vietnam War as far more genocidal, as he once did?
However, Kerry has taken pains to distance himself from his own moral and political judgements on the Vietnam War, and he speaks of his having called some of the American actions "atrocities," and the American political leaders of the time, "war criminals," and so forth as inappropriate excess of an honest but angry young man, disappointing his former activist friends in Vietnam Veterans Against the War (e.g., Joe Miller, "John Kerry on Angry Young Men and War Criminals," <http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=82>):
<blockquote>MR. RUSSERT: Before we take a break, I want to talk about Vietnam. You are a decorated war hero of Vietnam, prominently used in your advertising. You first appeared on MEET THE PRESS back in 1971, your first appearance. I want to roll what you told the country then and come back and talk about it:
(Videotape, MEET THE PRESS, April 18, 1971):
MR. KERRY (Vietnam Veterans Against the War): 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-caliber 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. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare. All of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free-fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: You committed atrocities.
SEN. KERRY: Where did all that dark hair go, Tim? That's a big question for me. You know, I thought a lot, for a long time, about that period of time, the things we said, and I think the word is a bad word. I think it's an inappropriate word. I mean, if you wanted to ask me have you ever made mistakes in your life, sure. I think some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an anger. It was honest, but it was in anger, it was a little bit excessive.
MR. RUSSERT: You used the word "war criminals."
SEN. KERRY: Well, let me just finish. Let me must finish. It was, I think, a reflection of the kind of times we found ourselves in and I don't like it when I hear it today. I don't like it, but I want you to notice that at the end, I wasn't talking about the soldiers and the soldiers' blame, and my great regret is, I hope no soldier--I mean, I think some soldiers were angry at me for that, and I understand that and I regret that, because I love them. But the words were honest but on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top. And I think that there were breaches of the Geneva Conventions. There were policies in place that were not acceptable according to the laws of warfare, and everybody knows that. I mean, books have chronicled that, so I'm not going to walk away from that. But I wish I had found a way to say it in a less abrasive way. (<em>NBC News Meet the Press</em>, Transcript, <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4772030/">April 18, 2004)</blockquote>
Kerry as a young man was outraged by US foreign policy, but Kerry as an old man now regrets what he said about it, while using the charge of "genocide" either to simply attack the George W. Bush administration or to prepare the American public for another foreign intervention or both.
Yoshie