The Wall Street Journal notes my accusation that former Navy Lt. Kerry slandered his fellow Vietnam veterans when he testified before the Senate in 1971. I linked to the testimony, but the WSJ didn’t bother quoting from it. The front-page piece quotes Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, explaining that Kerry “certainly earned the freedom to take the actions he took.” What did those who served in Vietnam do, Senator Hagel, to earn the outrageous charges Kerry leveled against them? In his disgraceful testimony, Kerry accused American troops of committing war crimes in Vietnam. He said that such atrocities “were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.” Citing phony stories from phony veterans, Kerry claimed that American soldiers, “raped, cut off ears, cut off heads. . . cut off limbs. . . randomly shot at civilians. . . poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside. . .” Sen. Hagel says that he disagrees with some of Kerry’s “protest tactics,” but “I think it will be a very flimsy point.” One of those tactics was falsely claiming that (racist, according to Kerry) American soldiers routinely engaged in savagery.
Note: Speaking of “flimsy,” Sen. Hagel has been meeting with advisers to discuss his prospects for the GOP
nomination in 2008.