Finally! Ron Reagan Says Kerry Wasn't Lying in 1971

[Sparkly]

Finally! Reagan challenged Scarborough on the "he said all veterans were war criminals" lie.

Reagan said atrocities DID occur, and cited My Lai. (He could have cited Tiger Force, which was more protracted.)

Scarborough admits he was young during that time, yet contends "few things get me as viscerally mad in political history as that 1971 testimony."

Well then, HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THAT WAR.

[JI7]

1. it doesn't make him mad that the leaders lied about the war ?

[Cha]

2. Who gives a shit what

gets him mad?

[Sparkly]

3. You MUST read the transcript of this

The irony is thick.

Here's Buchanan lamenting the fact that no leaders were held accountable for the failure of the Vietnam war. Well HE was in Nixon's White House and John Kerry's testimony was ALL ABOUT holding the leadership accountable!!! HELLOOOO???

And then Scarborough follows with "And they spit on the veterans when they came home," as if that's what Kerry's testimony caused. That's what they want you to believe.

This is old, old recycled crap from that era and there's a whole new generation swallowing it with a modern twist. Makes me sick.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Joe is of this type

You should NEVER question your govm'ent

Now here is how sad these folks are

Lets assume that a vet comes home, disilusioned, just like John, and decides to do somethign abou it, now lets say he ends up (or she end up) in front of the Senate...

20 years from now people like Joe will claim that there were no atrocities in Iraq (never mind Abu Ghraib), I am willing to bet on this, becuase they are that void of any conscience

[DougieZero]

5. Joe Spills His Guts

"The protestors lost the war", now that's honesty... come on... that's how all republicans feel.

I think that's bullshit and the ear thing was the most common atrocity. The special forces guys would swipe and ear or 2 to scare the locals....

[Sparkly]

6. Idiots.

People that uneducated should not be given microphones. Period.

[Sparkly]

7. And why is it three against one?

Why Scarborough, Silver and Buchanan against Reagan, who can't even come out as a Democrat for crying out loud?

I can't stand it. I'm going to bed.

[VOX]

8. Ron R. has been batting 1.000 lately...

Ironic that the son of the "right wing deity" has been doing so much heavy lifting for progressives of late.

[gardenista]

12. Hell, these days it seems like he's doing *all* the mainstream media

heavy lifting!

Tweety was spotting him for a few days, but that seems to be over now!

God bless Ron Reagan. Geez, I *never* thought I'd say those words.

[seabeyond]

9. bet scarsborough hasnt listened to kerry speech either n/t

[KharmaTrain]

10. They're Rewriting History

I remember the Spring of 1971 very well. That's when the My Lai story dominated the news. The Calley trial revealed what had been a dirty secret in this country for years...American soldier not only could but were committing all sorts of attrocities in Vietnam. This was as much a shock to some...mostly "red-neck" America as we called it then...that didn't want to believe these things were possible. They were and the outrage against the war built...so much that it led to some of Nixon's dirtiest tricks to shut down the dissent.

Knowing a Nam era Green Beret who went on S & D missions, and having read the strings of many veterans here...these things happened and in many cases those who committed these crimes did so in shear frustration. This was a war where the enemy didn't wear a uniform and friendly villages during the day became VC camps at night...that kindly lady working the paddies you saw during the day, could be the one at the business end of the sniper rifle at night. Never has the term "fog of war" applied to the entire Vietnam experience, and I sense Iraq is a repeat.

The slimeboat veterans represent a group of bittered vets who were blamed...mostly by their VFW Repugnican brothers from WWII for being "losers"...and they've lived with this stigma all their lives. As an anti-war protestor, I remember how sensitive we were to all returning vets understanding the hell they had been through. They weren't baby-killers in our book...they were heroes and victims. It was the right wing that needed someone to blame the war on and these poor schmucks were the targets. How soon they forget.

It's sickening how the wounds of this war...most of those post-war treamuas being the result of Repugnican/Nixon policies...are being exploited purposely to destroy the spirit of the military and keep that vote from Kerry as well as attempting to divide and polarize the nation further as a distraction from the quamire that's happening in Iraq.

One day there will be a reckoning for those who created all this misery and angst.

[DougieZero]

14. yep

The sons of the WW2 generation didn't get their parade or much glory. Even their memorial was a downer and they threw a temper tantrum until they got a 2nd flashier one (statue) that everyone has forgotten about.

They seemed convinced (including Joe) that we were just on the verge of winning until John Kerry and Jane Fonda ruined the war.

I'm sure the draftees didn't mind.

[KharmaTrain]

17. Excellent Point

By '71 there were few in this country who looked at Vietnam as "winnable" (that ended when Cronkite questioned it following Tet in early '68)...it was just how the hell were we gonna get out; thus the term quamire. By then troop strength was under 150,000 (from a '68 peak of 500,000) and no one, except the looney wingnuts, would dare think of either escalating this war in light of what happened the previous year in Cambodia and Laos.

For those who weren't around at the time, I'd strongly suggest picking up a year book or almanac or "year in review" from those years and read Vietnam in some form of a timeline. Follow it from the summer of 1965 - Ia Drang through April 1973 when McCain and the POWs returned. Time compresses and distorts and this is being used now to rewrite history.

[Old and In the Way]

11. So Joe, I guess you think that anti-war stuff was bad?

Not enough Americans died for your tastes? What's your threshold for joining Kerry and the protestors? 100,000? 250,000? 500,000?

The war was "over" in 68 when Johnson realized the quagmire he had gotten us into and elected not to run. A shame the AWOL flyboy couldn't have the smarts and guts to do the right thing and admit he's not up to the job.

[imax2268]

13. dam I hate

not being able to see this show...I always miss the good stuff...

[flaminbats]

15. Ron Reagan for Guv in 2006...

:yourock:

[tibbir]

16. I miss seeing Ron Reagan, but you can have the rest of it.

[flaminbats]

19. thanks dude...

:wtf:

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

18. The CIA's Operation Phoenix program in Vietnam

in which 20,000 Vietnamese allegedly died at the hands of interrogators. Bart Osborne appeared before Congress in 1971 to testify about it:

"I never knew in the course of all those operations any detainee to live through his interrogation. They all died. There was never any reasonable establishment of the fact that any one of those individuals was, in fact, cooperating with the VC, but they all died and the majority were either tortured to death or things like thrown out of helicopters."

"It became a sterile depersonalized murder program... Equal to Nazi atrocities, the horrors of "Phoenix" must be studied to be believed."