Magog: Unguarded
Magog: Unguarded
Swarming Around... cats living with dogs... total chaos.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Hey, let's make him president!

Wizbang posts the epilogue to Unfit For Command. The most striking part, I found, was the story related by Vietnam vet Steven J. Pitkin. Read the whole thing, but digest this and see how comfortable you feel with Herman as our commander-in-chief:

During the Winter Soldier Investigation, John Kerry and other leaders of that event pressured me to testify about American war crimes, despite my repeated statements that I could not honestly do so. One event leader strongly implied that I would not be provided transportation back to my home in Baltimore, Maryland, if I failed to comply. Kerry and other leaders of the event instructed me to publicly state that I had witnessed incidents of rape, brutality, atrocities and racism, knowing that such statements would necessarily be untrue. Succumbing to the pressure, Pitkin testified that in Vietnam he came to feel like an animal, that “You’re so scared that you’ll shoot anything, that you’ll look at your enemy, and these people that you’re sort of a visitor to—you’ll look at them as animals. And at the same time you’re just turning yourself into an animal, too.” Even today Pitkin feels John Kerry pressured him into giving false testimony to the Winter Soldier Investigation: “The second day I was there, Kerry and the other leaders told me they wanted me to testify. They knew I was one of the very few real combat veterans in the room. I told them I didn’t have anything to say. Kerry said, ‘Surely you’ve seen some of the atrocities.’” Pitkin did not feel he could resist testifying the way Kerry and the other VVAW leaders wanted: I kept saying “no” and the mood turned ugly. One of the other leaders whispered to me, “It’s a long walk back to Baltimore.” I’m not proud of this, but I finally agreed to speak. They told me what to talk about—American troops beating civilians and prisoners, shelling and destroying villages for no reason, and acts of racism against the Vietnamese. John Kerry knew that the Winter Soldier testimony was a pack of lies. I know, because I was there, and I told some of those lies.

posted by the wolf | 9:11 PM
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