> Veteran files libel suit against director of anti-Kerry film
> 10/18/2004, 10:42 a.m. ET
> By DAVID B. CARUSO
> The Associated Press
> ...Kenneth J. Campbell, now a professor at the University of Delaware,
> said
in the suit that "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" combines footage
of him appearing at a 1971 war protest with narration that claims that
many of the supposed veterans who took part in the event were later
"discovered as frauds" who "never set foot on the battlefield, or left
the comfort of the States, or even served in uniform."
Chomsky rubbished this book by Guenter Lewy: America In Vietnam, Oxford
Univ. Press.
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/staticpages/index.php?page=20040216201143824
www.wintersoldier.com - Excerpt -- Guenter Lewy
> ...Another organization active in airing charges of American atrocities
> in Vietnam was the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), which was
> founded in 1967; by 1970 it was said to have 600 members. From 31
> January to 2 February 1971, the VVAW, with financial backing from
> actress Janes Fonda, convened a hearing, known as the Winter Soldier
> Investigation, in the city of Detroit. More than 100 veterans and 16
> civilians testified at this hearing about "war crimes which they either
> committed or witnessed"; (26) some of them had given similar testimony
> at the CCI inquiry in Washington. The allegations included using
> prisoners for target practice and subjecting them to a variety of grisly
> tortures to extract information, cutting off the ears of dead VCs,
> throwing VC suspects out of helicopters, burning villages, gang rapes of
> women, packing the vagina of a North Vietnamese nurse full of grease
> with a grease gun, and the like. Among the persons assisting the VVAW in
> organizing and preparing this hearing was Mark Lane, author of a book
> attacking the Warren Commission probe of the Kennedy Assassination and
> more recently of "Conversations with Americans", a book of interviews
> with Vietnam veterans about war crimes. On 22 December 1970 Lane's book
> had received a highly critical review in the "New York Times Book
> Review" by Neil Sheehan, who was able to show that some of the alleged
> "witnesses" of Lane's war crimes had never even served in Vietnam while
> others had not been in the combat situations they described in horrid
> detail. Writing in the "Saturday Review" a few days later, James Reston,
> Jr., called "Conversations with Americans" "a hodgepodge of hearsay"
> which ignored "a soldiers talent for embellishment" and a "disreputable
> book." (27) To prevent the Detroit hearing from being tainted by such
> irregularities, all of the veterans testifying fully identified the
> units in which they had served and provided geographical descriptions of
> where the alleged atrocities had taken place. Yet the appearance of
> exactitude was deceptive. Sen. Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon was impressed
> by the charges made by the veterans and inserted the transcript of the
> Detroit hearing into the "Congressional Record." Furthermore, he asked
> the commandant of the Marine Corps to investigate the numerous
> allegations of wrongdoing made against the Marine in particular.
The results of this investigation, carried out by the Naval Investigative Service, are interesting and revealing.
Many of the veterans, though assured that they would not be questioned about atrocities they might have committed personally, refused to be interviewed. One of the active members of the VVAW told investigators that the leadership had directed the entire membership not to cooperate with military authorities. A black Marine who agreed to be interviewed was unable to provide details of the outrages he had described at the hearing, but he called the Vietnam War "one huge atrocity" and "a racist plot." He admitted that the question of atrocities had not occurred to him while he was in Vietnam, and that he had been assisted in the preparation of his testimony by a member of the Nation of Islam. But the most damaging finding consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit. One of them had never been to Detroit in all his life. He did not know, he stated, who might have used his name.(28) Incidents similar to some of those described at the VVAW hearing undoubtedly did occur. We know that hamlets were destroyed, prisoners tortured, and corpses mutilated. Yet these incidents either (as in the destruction of hamlets) did not violate the law of war or took place in breach of existing regulations. In either case, they were not, as alleged, part of a "criminal policy." The VVAW's use of fake witnesses and the failure to cooperate with military authorities and to provide crucial details of the incidents further cast serious doubt on the professed desire to serve the causes of justice and humanity. It is more likely that this inquiry, like others earlier and later, had primarily political motives and goals. <SNIP>
"America in Vietnam", Guenter Lewy, Oxford University press, 1978, Chapter 9, Atrocities: Fiction and Fact, pgs. 316 - 322.
-- Michael Pugliese