Didn't Kerry earn the "right" to protest?

It seems to me although I'm not a veteran that Kerry probably earned his right to protest the Vietnam war because umm......HE SERVED IN THE VIETNAM WAR!!!!
Just offering a non-veteran perspective and I was not alive in the 60's so I don't know the emotions of that time/era. Please someone tell me if I'm wrong. Thanks.

Originally posted by TheBigD
It seems to me although I'm not a veteran that Kerry probably earned his right to protest the Vietnam war because umm......HE SERVED IN THE VIETNAM WAR!!!!
Just offering a non-veteran perspective and I was not alive in the 60's so I don't know the emotions of that time/era. Please someone tell me if I'm wrong. Thanks.

You are right! Just as the SwiftBoat Vets have the right to protest against John Kerry also. They also have the right to call him a traitor, which many people believe he is.

Kerry did more than protest. He repeated the lies of a bunch of frauds at the "Winter Soldier Investigation" to the Congress. He mischaracterized the US military as a bunch of barbaric criminals. He went to Paris without authority to meet with the enemy. I have written extensively on this subject right here on this site replete with documentation.

No one can whitewash what Kerry has done. He is a turncoat of the worst kind. He will sell this country out to our enemies in a heartbeat. He has done it before. His character is exposed in every flip-flop, in every botox shot, in every air-brush tan, in every reincarnation. Open your eyes. The man is a so transparent we could call him the invisble man if he wasn't so orange. Maybe the name chameleon is a good name. afterall.

[edit on 04/9/29 by GradyPhilpott]

I'd like to add that the Vietnam was has been over for thirty plus years. Kerry should get over it. He brought his record up at the convention and brought this on himself. It is so obvious he has nothing of substance to talk about other than his war "record".
If any IRL person talked on and on about the past as Kerry does, we'd say they wer losing touch with reality. Living in the past.

We should all remember: Freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to criticize the government.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Kerry did more than protest. He repeated the lies of a bunch of frauds at the "Winter Soldier Investigation" to the Congress. He mischaracterized the US military as a bunch of barbaric criminals.

What did he say that wasn't true? I wasn't around in during the Vietnam era, but I heard first hand from someone, who served in the Green Beret and Special Forces in Vietnam, about some pretty horrific stuff. He told me about half his unit died in Vietnam. After returning home, everyone else in his unit died from suicide or other things, since they couldn't return to civilian life. As I understand it, John Kerry just told people about what was going on. Could you please explain?

He went to Paris without authority to meet with the enemy. I have written extensively on this subject right here on this site replete with documentation.

Who did he meet with? Did he aid the enemy? Did he hurt the US in any way? You upset that Dan Rather met Saddam? I don't get it.

If you have no idea what you are talking about, sometimes it is good to be silent

Didn't Kerry earn the 'Right' to protest?

Yeah, he did. It happened when his mom and dad were Americans, then they had a kid.

Voila, you've got an American with a load of freedom of speech.

Originally posted by Loki
Didn't Kerry earn the 'Right' to protest?

Yeah, he did. It happened when his mom and dad were Americans, then they had a kid.

Voila, you've got an American with a load of freedom of speech.

Hey, I like that best of all the explanations.......thanks for putting it into perspective.

No one has to earn Constitutional rights in America, as someone already alluded. Kerry certainly didn't earn the rigth to consort with, or give aid and comfort to the enemy during a time of war.

Kerry was a traitor then and he is a traitor today. Do not forget that. If he is elected you can expect nothing less of him. Any man who would lie about his fake tan will lie about anything and Kerry has a long history of being loose with the truth.

I have written extenisvely on this site regarding this issue. You may feel free to peruse my posts for more information and documentation.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
No one has to earn Constitutional rights in America, as someone already alluded. Kerry certainly didn't earn the rigth to consort with, or give aid and comfort to the enemy during a time of war.

Kerry was a traitor then and he is a traitor today. Do not forget that. If he is elected you can expect nothing less of him. Any man who would lie about his fake tan will lie about anything and Kerry has a long history of being loose with the truth.

I have written extenisvely on this site regarding this issue. You may feel free to peruse my posts for more information and documentation.

Fake tan? So I guess you'd never vote for this man?



I love the way you pick your candidates!

For some reason, I find myself losing faith in my government. Why: My vote is only worth as much as Grady's vote...



Honestly, can we really think of a man who screams 'COMMIE' whenever John Kerry's name is spoken as rational? I didn't think so, but apparently, I'm mistaken.

[edit on 9-30-2004 by Loki]

As an outside observer of all of this I find it hilarious. A man that had the courage to sign up for the war and fight in it is being dragged through the mud for it by people who are supporting a man who did everything in his power and his fathers to avoid the war and was successful at it. And now that same man is trying to destroy all the evidence that points out his dismal service record. Makes sense to me(Note: extreme sarcasm in that last statement).

Kerry went to war and saw something that morally troubled him. And what he said about the war wasn't against the troops but was against the leaders giving the orders. It was common practice back then to clear a village of VC by burning and turning it's inhabitants into refugees. Tell me I'm wrong.

Bush is a fanatic that is soo out of touch with the common person that he wouldn't know one unless one of his aides told him it was so. Kerry at least has some form of moral conciense. I don't think Bush does.

Originally posted by DEEZNUTZ
Bush is a fanatic that is soo out of touch with the common person that he wouldn't know one unless one of his aides told him it was so. Kerry at least has some form of moral conciense.

Oh, yes, Kerry can realte to the common man...NOT. His family is even wealthier than Bush, IMHO. You will also note that bush and kerry are related.
For the record, by the time Bush was fully trained to fly, the war had pretty much wound down.

Richard John Kerry, John's father, was born (c. 1916) in Massachusetts. After a stint in the U.S. Army Air Corps, he worked for the Foreign Service and served as an attorney for the Bureau of United Nations Affairs in the U.S. Department of State. In 1937, he met Rosemary Forbes, a member of the wealthy Forbes family. One of eleven children, she studied to be a nurse, and served in the Red Cross in Paris during World War II (she also was a Girl Scout leader for 50 years). The couple married in Montgomery, Alabama in January 1941.

John Kerry's maternal grandfather, James Grant Forbes, was born in Shanghai, China, where the Forbes family of China and Boston accumulated a fortune in the opium and China trade. Forbes married Margaret Tyndal Winthrop, who came from a family with deep roots in New England history. Through her, John Kerry is related to four Presidents, including, ironically, George W. Bush (9th cousin, twice removed).

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by DEEZNUTZ
Kerry went to war and saw something that morally troubled him. And what he said about the war wasn't against the troops but was against the leaders giving the orders. It was common practice back then to clear a village of VC by burning and turning it's inhabitants into refugees. Tell me I'm wrong.

You're wrong.

Kerry definitely wanted to indict the leadership of the war in Vietnam, but he did it on the backs of the soldiers, sailors, and Marines who fought the war.

I have written extensively on this topic and it is difficult to address the lies everytime, because it never occured to me that I would have to do so so often and I never thought to save the documentation.

It takes very little effort to open a thread and tell a lie with no documentation or to answer a question with undocumented prevarications.

However, tonight I have tried to compile some evidence of what Kerry did, not in Vietnam, but upon his return and the impact his actions have had on the men who fought the war, the United States and our enemies.

This is what Kerry said to Congress:

I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation.

-- John Kerry, testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 22, 1971

This is what he said in an interview with the Washington Evening Star:

MR. CROSBY NOYES (Washington Evening Star): Mr. Kerry, you said at one time or another that you think our policies in Vietnam are tantamount to genocide and that the responsibility lies at all chains of command over there. Do you consider that you personally as a Naval officer committed atrocities in Vietnam or crimes punishable by law in this country?

SEN. KERRY: 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 calibre 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 is 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.
www.seanrobins.com...

This is what he said to Tim Russert:

Transcript for April 18
Guest: Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, presidential candidate
NBC News
Updated: 11:47 a.m. ET April 18, 2004

Copyright� 2004, National Broadcasting Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
PLEASE CREDIT ANY QUOTES OR EXCERPTS FROM THIS NBC TELEVISION PROGRAM TO "NBC NEWS' MEET THE PRESS."

NBC News

MEET THE PRESS

Sunday, April 18, 2004


(after viewing Kerry's statements in the 1971 interview)
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.

MR. RUSSERT: But, Senator, when you testified before the Senate, you talked about some of the hearings you had observed at the winter soldiers meeting and you said that people had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and on and on. A lot of those stories have been discredited, and in hindsight was your testimony...

SEN. KERRY: Actually, a lot of them have been documented.

MR. RUSSERT: So you stand by that?

SEN. KERRY: A lot of those stories have been documented. Have some been discredited? Sure, they have, Tim. The problem is that's not where the focus should have been. And, you know, when you're angry about something and you're young, you know, you're perfectly capable of not--I mean, if I had the kind of experience and time behind me that I have today, I'd have framed some of that differently. Needless to say, I'm proud that I stood up. I don't want anybody to think twice about it. I'm proud that I took the position that I took to oppose it. I think we saved lives, and I'm proud that I stood up at a time when it was important to stand up, but I'm not going to quibble, you know, 35 years later that I might not have phrased things more artfully at times.
msnbc.msn.com...

This is the way the communists use Kerry's words:

In fact, like in any of the dozens of countries they invaded, it was the Americans who perpetrated well-documented atrocities in Viet Nam, both at the individual and mass levels.


American POWs treat themselves to a refreshing game of volleyball.
My Lai is a byword for callous mass murder while the Bach Mai hospital and Kham Thien street bombings, though less well-known outside Viet Nam, were no less brutal for their manner of execution. As if to show they were not merely capable of �impersonal� atrocities (by dropping bombs), the Americans helped run the notorious Con Dao prison with its �tiger cages�. In each of these 3m by 1.5m cages, they held five Vietnamese prisoners.

Conditions at the prison prompted a visiting US legislator, William R Anderson, to write to then-president Richard Nixon slamming the human rights violations and asking him to reconsider American involvement in the south of Viet Nam.

Candidate in this year�s American presidential elections, John Kerry, who fought in the war, went further in his criticism. In a statement to the US� Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1971, he said the war crimes committed by US soldiers in Southeast Asia "were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

Of course, America's enemies will cheer at this lopsided, distorted presentation of the facts of Vietnam because it comports with their own views.

The historians speak:

As its dominant tactic in their battle against the war, the antiwar movement successfully demonized Vietnam veterans by calling a series of "tribunals" or hearings into war crimes. But... they were packed with pretenders and liars.
-----
After being blocked from holding a ceremony honoring the war dead at Arlington National Cemetery, the veterans marched to the Capitol to present sixteen demands to Congress. At the end of the day; they held a candlelight march around the White House. After a man who said his son died in Vietnam blew taps, the soldiers began flinging their war medals over a high wire fence in front of the Capitol: Purple Hearts, Bronze Star Medals, Silver Stars -- bits of ribbon and metal hurled in the face of the government that had so betrayed them. Some, after throwing away what had cost them so dearly, broke down and cried.

One of them was John Kerry, Vietnam Navy veteran and aspiring politician who had been among those who organized the protest. Kerry flung a handful of medals -- he had received the Silver Star, a Bronze Star Medal, and three Purple Hearts -- over the fence. Kerry spoke later that week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, putting a face on the antiwar movement far different from the one seen before -- the scruffy hippie or wild-eyed activist. Kerry represented the All-American boy, mentally twisted by being asked to do terrible things, then abandoned by his government.
ice.he.net...

Stolen Valor:

The Tribunals

"As perfectly ignorant of Vietnam as the men who sent them there, [soldiers] found themselves monkey in the middle of a people's war so savage that babies were routinely used as trip plates for bombs and disemboweled cadavers swung from village signposts," wrote Paul Solotaroff in Rolling Stone magazine in a 1993 story about homeless Vietnam veterans.

His piece later evolved into a 1995 book called "The House of Purple Hearts. Solotaroff's inverted reasoning illustrates common attitudes of the left.

"One register of the savagery in which Vietnam vets were steeped is the degree of fear and loathing they inspired back home. At the airport in Oakland, California, people spat upon them and jeered, hurling rocks and plastic bags of chicken blood. That scrim of opprobrium seemed to lift somewhat ten years ago when the Vietnam Memorial was unveiled. America was reminded that these men were its sons and began seeing them as victims as well as demons."

First criminals and demons, now victims. Solotaroff repeated this recurring theme, which has remained remarkably consistent since the earlyseventies. As its dominant tactic in their battle against the war, the antiwar movement successfully demonized Vietnam veterans by calling a series of "tribunals" or hearings into war crimes. But like Solotaroff's book, they were packed with pretenders and liars.
ice.he.net...

Excerpts of America in Vietnam:

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.
ice.he.net...

Yesterday's Lies: Steve Pitkin and the Winter Soldiers:

My name is Steve Pitkin, age 20, from Baltimore. I served with the 9th Division from May of '69 until I was airvaced in July of '69. I'll testify about the beating of civilians and enemy personnel, destruction of villages, indiscriminate use of artillery, the general racism and the attitude of the American GI toward the Vietnamese. I will also talk about some of the problems of the GIs toward one another and the hassle with officers.

-- Steve Pitkin, Winter Soldier Investigation, February 1, 1971.


----------
Steve Pitkin never intended to speak at the Winter Soldier Investigation. He agreed to come to Detroit in January of 1971 mostly to support his fellow veterans, but also to see David Crosby and Graham Nash perform and hopefully meet a few girls. He didn�t really have any place else to go.

Unlike most members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Pitkin had seen combat in Vietnam. He was caught in a mortar attack shortly after arriving in country as a Private First Class, and suffered minor wounds to both legs. During the months that followed his injuries became infected and "jungle rot" set in. He was eventually medivaced to an Army hospital in Okinawa, where the doctors gave him anti-fungals and antibiotics, and managed to save his feet. Specialist Pitkin would leave the Army with a Purple Heart, an honorable discharge, and a lifetime case of hepatitis C from the transfusions.

Back in the States, Pitkin did not receive a hero's welcome. At Travis Air Force Base in California he was showered with feces thrown by anti-war protestors. Later, while he waited in his Class A uniform for a plane at San Francisco International Airport, people stopped to snarl obscenities and occasionally spit. Even a World War II veteran paused to come over and call him a coward. He went back home to Baltimore, but it wasn�t home any more. Steve Pitkin was 19 years old.
ice.he.net...

More links for those who seek the truth and have the academic drive to do the research:

ice.he.net...

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lists.village.virginia.edu...

ice.he.net...

ice.he.net...

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www.humaneventsonline.com...

www.vnsfvetakerry.com...

www.25thaviation.org...

www.cnsnews.com...

www.latimes.com...

frontpagemag.com...

www.seanrobins.com...

washingtontimes.com...

www.chronwatch.com...

www.ashbrook.org...

www.ashbrook.org...
www.americasvoices.org...

www.issues2000.org...

www.learnedhand.com...

w114.wnd.com...

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You will have to cut and paste this. If when you get to the search page there are no results click "Search ATS" and click "Google Search":

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[edit on 04/9/30 by GradyPhilpott]

BigD says:

"It seems to me although I'm not a veteran that Kerry probably earned his right to protest the Vietnam war because umm......HE SERVED IN THE VIETNAM WAR!!!!"

Wrong.

He does not have a right to protest the Vietnam war because he served in the Vietnam war.

He has the right to protest the Vietnam War because he is an American citizen living in America.

Since I'm a couple of years older than Kerry and a Vietnam era veteran myself (although I was not in Vietnam), I do know the mood of the times, and it was a complicated time indeed.

I personally don't think that Kerry's (or Bush's) military service in the 1960's or 1970's means much when it comes to being a president.

However, many people seem to overlood that fact that Bush has four years of military service that Kerry does not have, and that is as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces (2000-2004).

I think it means a lot when a Kerry could have skipped war because he was rich too, but decided to volunteer. Interesting...

Originally posted by DEEZNUTZ
A man that had the courage to sign up for the war and fight in it is being dragged through the mud for it by people who are supporting a man who did everything in his power and his fathers to avoid the war and was successful at it.

Actually Kerry tried to get out of going to Vietnam. He requested
deferment for overseas college. He was turned down. He then
signed up with the Naval Reserves because it was the easiest of
the branches to sign up in and it had the least likelyhood of ever
seeing combat. Kerry DID NOT do two tours of duty in Vietnam -
that's just another Kerry lie. It was three months, three scratches,
and he got out. Kerry was in Vietnam DISPITE the fact that he tried
like hell not to go. He definately didn't have 'courage to sign up'.
He just got stuck going - even though he tried to get out of it.

Originally posted by crontabWhat did he say that wasn't true?

Look at the Winter Soldier investigation. Half of the 'soldiers' turned out
not to be soldiers at all. The other half had made up places and dates
and it turns out that their units weren't anywhere near those places at
those times. Lies. All lies. Kerry pushed them. He still backs them.

Grady,

Respectfully -

Your Ad Hominem attacks on John Kerry severly weaken your point. Unfortunately, like most other conservatives, you are more concerned with the man's style, not the man's substance.

What John Kerry has stated in the past is a matter of public record and is not debatable, so don't bother to continuously re-post links and quotes that we have all seen a thousand times.

The point is that John Kerry had (and has) an opinion, and just because you do not agree with it does not invalidate it. John Kerry experienced combat in Vietnam firsthand, which qualifies him to speak directly to the subject. It is not surprising that your (and many other's) experience in Vietnam was substantially different, however, that fact in of itself does not mean that those things did not happen. What we refer to as "war crimes" today was easily brushed off as the reality of land combat as little as 20 years ago. Personally, I have no problem with killing the enemy and making his hopefully short life as miserable as possible. Thats just my opinion. However, combat obviously had a different effect on John Kerry compared to many others, and he was instilled with the very "wrongness" of the whole conflict, the pain and suffering that both sides were inflicting on the innocents, and that the soldiers were being exploited for the purposes of big business and conflicting geo-political schools of thought. It obviously drove him to lash out against the mechanism that he perceived to be responsible for all this pain and suffering. I'm sure today that if you were to ask him, John Kerry may have said and done things a little differently during his anti-war days. However, that was 30 years ago in a completely different era when John Kerry (and you and I, for that matter) were substantially different people and the moral and patriotic animus was much different.

As far as John Kerry being a traitor, what do you mean? His betrayal of trust, or his attempt to overthrow our government? Those are the Webster's definitions. Since I am going to assume that you seriously don't think that John Kerry has tried to overthrow our government, I will assume that you are accusing him of betraying some kind of trust. Which trust? His honorably completed service to his country in a time of war? His time as a prosecutor in Middlesex county, putting gansters behind bars? His time as a Lt. Govenor of Massachusetts? Or maybe his near 20 years of service in the US Senate is a traitorous act. And please, don't give me some lame BS response about betraying the trust of those he served with, because as a vet myself who served with other Vietnam vets, I know what Kerry was trying to do, and I also know that not all vets think like you do. Jonh Kerry lobbied Congress to end the war and bring our troops home so no one else had to die for a lost cause. Period. Now you tell me what is so traitorous about that. Or maybe you think we should have stayed there for another 3-4 years, at the cost of, say, another 10-20K casualties (just counting our side) so we could withdraw later? How do you explain that to the families of those 10-15K soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines?

You may not like the man, and you may not like his opinions (you know the old addage about opinions.......), however, that does not invalidate the man's right to an opinion or position, and it does not make him a traitor.

I think that the primary difference between John Kerry and George Bush is that John Kerry has experienced, firsthand, the direct human cost of warfare, and has stated that he would not be so cavalier about sending Americans off to their deaths for political purposes. And if that makes him a traitor, well, I wonder what that makes those people who are counter to Kerry's position?