What a sad state of affairs

[Seismic Anamoly]

MISSION: IMPLAUSIBLE

Vet: Kerry coerced me to testify of atrocities

Renounces participation in 1971 'Winter Soldier Investigation'



© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com



A combat veteran who testified to war crimes during the 1971 "Winter Soldier Investigation" has filed an affidavit claiming John Kerry and other leaders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War coerced him into making false claims.



Steve Pitkin, who was 20 at the time, says he rode from Washington, D.C., to Detroit in January 1971 with Kerry and another leader, Scott Camil, who had persuaded him to join in the probe that formed the basis of the future presidential candidate's testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee later that year.



Pitkin's renunciation of his participation in the Detroit event was reported by Scott Swett, the primary author of WinterSoldier.com, which documents Kerry's role in VVAW. Swett also is the webmaster for the website of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group of 254 veterans who contend their fomer colleague, Kerry, is unfit to be commander in chief.



On the second day of the Detroit conference, Pitkin said, he was surrounded by a group of the event's leaders, who said they needed more witnesses and wanted him to speak.



According to Swett, Pitkin protested he had nothing to say, prompting Kerry's response, "Surely you had to have seen some of the atrocities."



Swett writes:



Pitkin insisted that he hadn't, and the group's mood turned menacing. One of the other leaders leaned in and whispered, "It's a long walk back to Baltimore." Pitkin finally agreed to "testify." The Winter Soldier leaders told Pitkin exactly what they wanted – stories about rape, brutality, shooting prisoners and racism. Kerry assured him that "the American people will be grateful for what you have to say."

[HKRockChick]

www.billingsgazette.com/i...t-boat.inc



Columbus swift boat vet angry about letter

By LINDA HALSTEAD-ACHARYA

Of The Gazette Staff



COLUMBUS - Swift boat veteran Bob Anderson of Columbus is ticked.



It bothers him that Sen. John Kerry's swift boat history has become such a political hot potato. But he's even more irritated that his name was included - without his permission - on a letter used to discredit Kerry.



"I'm pretty nonpolitical," the 56-year-old Anderson said Tuesday. So, when he found out last week that his name was one of about 300 signed on a letter questioning Kerry's service, he was "flabbergasted."



"It's kind of like stealing my identity," said Anderson, who spent a year on a swift boat as an engine man and gunner.



The letter, which was posted on the Swift Boat Veter-ans for Truth Web site, claims the Demo-cratic presidential candidate has "grossly and knowingly distorted the conduct of the American soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen of that (Vietnam) war."



The letter also criticizes Kerry for trying to change his image from a critic of the war to a war hero.



"After reading the letter," Anderson said, "it kind of got under my skin. I had never come across a situation where someone used my name without my support or approval. It's not a very comforting feeling."



What's worse, he said, he disagrees with the letter.



"Had they asked me to use my name, I wouldn't have allowed them to," he said.



Anderson, a 1966 graduate of Chinook High School, describes himself as a naive Montana kid who was smacked by the reality of war soon after arriving in Vietnam in 1967.



"It's not a very pleasant way to grow up," he said.



He served on a swift boat about the same time Kerry did. However, the first time he met Kerry was during a reunion of swift boat vets in Norfolk, Va., in March 2003.



Anderson said he cannot dispute or verify Kerry's experience. In fact, he's forgotten much of his own.



"You remember the simple things," he said. "The rest is what you don't want to remember."



He does, however, support Kerry's right to state his opinion.



"We say we're protecting democracy. That's why we go to war. As Americans, we can have our opinions, right?"



Anderson can vividly recall the last day of 1969, when his boat was attacked.



"The thing I remember before we got hit was the grass dragging on the sides of the boat - the canals were so narrow," he said. "I can also remember the smell of napalm."



Anderson's boat was about the fourth boat back in a string of 10. He describes the scene as an Armageddon. Fellow swift boat sailor Bob Wedge was so badly wounded, Anderson doubted he would survive.



"That boat was like a slaughterhouse that day," he said. "He (Wedge) just about bled to death before we got a tourniquet on him and the chopper got him."



Wedge, who lost a leg, was flown home. Thirty-four years passed before the two met again. Now they find themselves on the same side of another conflict.



Wedge, 60, of Mesquite, Nev., said his name, too, was on the list - and he's mad.



"This is the fourth or fifth time someone has called me or e-mailed me in regard to signing this damn letter," he wrote in an e-mail to Anderson. "I don't agree with it and want no part of it and especially don't want my name on it."



Both men have tried to contact the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to have their names removed from the list. Neither have had any success.



"I can't seem to get a response when I reply to their e-mail," Wedge said.



"They come back undeliverable."



Anderson said he first learned about the situation last week when he received an e-mail from a third party. The e-mail, from a Tom Pyle, said Pyle had contacted a dozen men whose names showed up on the list. Of the dozen, three said they had not given permission, Anderson said.



"That leads me to believe that as many as 25 percent of the names are fictitious supporters of that group," he said.



Anderson does not know how the Swift Boat Vets for Truth got his name, but it appears exactly as it has appeared on rosters at swift boat vet reunions. He suspects the list was pulled from the Swift Boat Sailors Association, a nonpolitical, not-for-profit organization linking swift boat veterans.



Wedge said he's known about the list for several months. Unlike Anderson, he remembers receiving an e-mail asking if he wanted to sign the letter in support.



He speculates that his name was automatically added to the list when he opened the e-mail.



Both men say they are angry that Kerry's swift boat service has dominated so much of the campaign. And they say both sides are at fault.



"You see it every campaign, there's dirty politics on every side," Anderson said. "If the politicians spent more time on issues than on this, we'd know more about them."



Anderson cites the economy as one of the issues most important to him - that and getting the nation out of Iraq. Wedge is more focused on Social Security, Medicare reform, prescription drugs and adequate funding for education.



Anderson describes himself as an independent, saying he has voted both sides of the ticket when it comes to presidential races. Neither he nor Wedge, a registered Democrat, say they know who they will vote for this election.



"I don't know enough about Kerry to say whether I will vote for him," Anderson said. "I know enough about Bush that I won't vote for him."



Regardless of political loyalty, Anderson said he has a message he'd like to pass along.



"Don't believe everything you read. All it tells me is there is some politics going on there."

[HKRockChick]

how dyu know a gun isnt being held at his head right now?

[HKRockChick]

These are real records...



story.news.yahoo.com/news...4&ncid=716





Memos Show Bush Suspended From Flying



By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer



WASHINGTON - The White House released memos Wednesday night saying that George W. Bush was suspended from flying fighter jets for failing to meet standards of the Texas Air National Guard.



The Vietnam-era memos add new dimensions to the bare-bones explanation of Bush's aides over the years that he was suspended simply because he decided to skip his annual physical exam. The exam was scheduled during a year in which Bush left Texas, where he had been flying fighter jets, to work on a U.S. Senate campaign in Alabama.



White House communications director Dan Bartlett told CBS' "60 Minutes II," which first obtained the memos, that Bush's superiors granted permission to train in Alabama in a non-flying status and that "many of the documents you have here affirm just that."



"On this date I ordered that 1st Lt. Bush be suspended from flight status due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet annual physical examination ... as ordered," states an Aug. 1, 1972, memo by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.



In a memo a year later that uses only last names, Killian points to turmoil among Bush's superiors over how to evaluate his performance because there was no "feedback" from Guard officials in Alabama in 1972 and 1973 where Bush had been largely inactive.



"Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush," Killian wrote on Aug. 18, 1973. "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job — Harris gave me a message today from Grp (Bush's unit) regarding Bush's OETR (officer evaluation) and Staudt is pushing to sugar coat it. Bush wasn't here during rating period and I don't have any feedback from 187th in Alabama. I will not rate."



The memo concludes: "Harris took the call from Grp today. I'll backdate but won't rate. Harris agrees."



Walter B. Staudt was commander of the Texas National Guard and Lt. Col. Bobby Hodges was one of Bush's superiors who two years earlier had rated Bush an outstanding young pilot and officer and a credit to his unit. Lt. Col. William D. Harris Jr. was another superior of Bush's.



A third Killian memo makes clear that Killian was concerned from the outset over Bush's plan to go to Alabama because the military had spent a substantial sum of money turning Bush into a pilot and that his National Guard duties might suffer if he went elsewhere.



"Phone call from Bush," Killian wrote in a May 19, 1972, memo. "Discussed options of how Bush can get out of coming to drill from now through November. ... Says that he is working on another campaign for his dad. ... We talked about him getting his flight physical situation fixed ... Says he will do that in Alabama if he stays in a flight status."



The memo added that Bush "has this campaign to do and other things that will follow and may not have the time. I advised him of our investment in him and his commitment."



The White House told CBS that Bush "met his drills then when he came back" from Alabama "and that's why he received an honorable discharge."



With national security and the war on terrorism looming large on voters' minds, supporters of Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) are attacking each candidate's Vietnam War records. Republicans have accused Kerry, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, of fabricating the events which led to his five medals. Democrats point to gaps in Bush's stateside Air National Guard service in 1972 and 1973 to say Bush shirked his duty.



Asked about Killian's memo which gives two reasons for Bush's suspension, Bartlett told CBS, "That might be official language." Bartlett said "the records have been clear for years that President Bush (news - web sites) did not take a physical because he did not need to take a physical because, obviously, the choice was that he was going to be performing in a different capacity."



Asked about Killian's statement in a memo about the military's investment in Bush, Bartlett told CBS: "For anybody to try to interpret or presume they know what somebody who is now dead was thinking in any of these memos, I think is very difficult to do."



On Tuesday, the Defense Department released more than two dozen pages of records about Bush and his former Texas unit. They showed Bush flew for 336 hours in military jets after his flight training and ranked in the middle of his class.



Pentagon (news - web sites) officials said they discovered the documents released Tuesday while performing a more comprehensive search "out of an abundance of caution" in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press.



The newly released records also showed that while Bush says he was in Alabama training with another Guard unit in 1972, his home unit in Texas was participating in the air defense of the southern United States by keeping two jet fighters constantly ready for launch within five minutes' notice.

[DreamTone7]

Very little difference between Kerry and Bush. Same tactics, same methods, similar promises that for the most part will not be kept as advertised, etc, etc. It's been called "business as usual", and I see no end in sight to it. Nader, at least, is an alternative to "business as usual"...I hope. Who really knows for sure. The media certainly can't be trusted.



In the end, one of the two will probably win...and there will be a group of people jumping up and down saying "Hurray for our side!" Before this happens, I'd like to stop, think, and remember the things that make us different from the clowns that we seem to be taking up flags for. We really have more in common with each other than we do with them or their objectives. I'd like to see this change...but I am at a loss as to how it could be done.

[Seismic Anamoly]

Who's LYING??



Elementary - ALL of them!!



Race, Creed, Religion, Nationality; doesn't matter.



Always have....Always will.

[Rev9Volts]

all is fair in love and politics.... nothing like blood sports