Salon: Ghost war (includes testimony of atrocities committed)

[kskiska]

The Swift Boat Vets say John Kerry's testimony about American atrocities in Vietnam is offensive. But they don't say it's false, because the record backs Kerry's account.

William Faulkner got it right: The past is not dead, it is not even past. In a rancid and ghostly way, the Vietnam War churns on. So does the White House slime machine, though that runs more smoothly today -- George W. Bush's plumbers don't operate out of a Nixonian Committee to Re-elect the President.

Today's stench of lies about John Kerry is a stale remnant of the old lies about the war Kerry fought in. As the nation fights another botched war, today's purveyors of war lies are ghastly descendants of the last generation's unpunished deceivers. Indeed, John O'Neill of the outrageously named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (and every TV talk show within reach) is the very same -- the young man recruited by Charles Colson to do Richard Nixon's dirty work against the young Kerry in 1971.

How we got to this month's twisted replay of war lies can be easily outlined. Bush, who blew off the terror threat before Sept. 11 and then launched a backfiring bait-and-switch war against Iraq, campaigns as commander in chief. Kerry counter-campaigns as a man who has known actual command and knows how to choose his wars. Enter Bush's surrogate smear artists to impugn Kerry's command and everything else that touches on what he did both in the war and against it.

(snip)

Note well: These bait-and-switch artists don't dare say that Kerry's statements were false. The anti-Kerry crusaders issue classic non-denial denials. The subtext of their outrage against Kerry is simple: They are still averse to facing the awfulness of the Vietnam War. What they are really saying with their slanders is that the truth hurts.

Soldiers' testimony of atrocities follows

more…
http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/08/24/vietnam/index.html