The generally vitriolic anti-Bush blog Notes in Samsara (“samsara” is Sanskrit for “delusion”) cites an interesting lefty blog as a definitive source debunking the Swift Boat Vets charges against Senator Kerry. To check out its reliability, take a look at its treatment of the Cambodia charges here. You’ll find supporting evidence confined to generalities about American presence in Cambodia, and no mention of the back-tracking the Kerry campaign is doing on the story, trying to re-write history to the effect that Kerry only said he was “close” to Cambodia, not that he was there:
The Kerry campaign first asserted that the Massachusetts senator never said that he was in Cambodia, only that he was near the country. But when presented with a copy of the Congressional Record and asked about Kerry’s letter in the Boston Herald, the campaign said it would come up with an explanation. After repeated phone calls, there was still no clarification.
It’s now becoming evident that Kerry made up his Cambodia story after seeing the movie Apocalypse Now, which makes Kerry look a little Reaganesque. I wonder how many of the Reagan Democrats he can win over with this strategy?
You’re quoting a source from a) Fox News (whose parent corporation has argued in court, that it’s OK for a news organization to lie) that b) quotes discredited authors of “Unfit for Command,” who are associated with some of the more vile dirty tricksters of the Nixon administration and some of the more vile postings on the Free Republic website.
And your point is?
The burden of proof is on you to find someone other than Repub operatives to prove any of these charges.
BTW, it’s well documented that the US was in Cambodia before 1969.
Check out, e.g.:
for example
We’re clearly not arguing about whether the US had agents in Cambodia, we know they did – the question before the body is whether Kerry was one of them.
So far he’s not only failed to provide any evidence that he was, he’s even tried to back off his claim by having his campaign staff say he was “near” Cambodia on Christmas of 1968.
Ad hominem attacks on Fox News may go over well in your world, but in mine they don’t cut the mustard.
You’ve failed to provide any evidence that he wasn’t – Swift Boat Veterans for “Truth” don’t count, and neither does Fox.
Three of the crewmen on Kerry?s PCF 44 boat — Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch, and Steve Gardner — deny that they or their boat were ever in Cambodia. Impeach that, little commie.
…and Kerry campaign adviser Jeh Johnson is doing the backpedalling (on Fox News!)
From Kerry’s Fitness Report, 28 Jan 1969 (page 24 of this PDF):
Note that “performance during action” doesn’t sound like his only participation was “planning”.
Now to add that “Sea Lords Operations” involved incursions into Cambodia.
As to whether it’s implausible that a SWIFT boat might go into Cambodia and drop someone off there, note: “The fellow on the right was a freelance journalist and photographer that had caught a ride into Cambodia on a US Swift Boat. He asked to be dropped off on the shore to proceed on his own. It is hoped that he found what he was looking for and survived to tell about it.”
Sure doesn’t sound like getting a Swift boat into Cambodia was a “physical impossibility“, as Steve Gardner claimed.
In fact, the Navy said Swift boats were involved in those Cambodian incursions:
An acronym for “Southeast Asia Lake, Ocean, River, Delta Strategy”, SEALORDS started on October 18, 1968 when a Navy Swift boat (PCF) reconnoitered the entrance to the Cua Lon River on the Gulf of Thailand side of the Ca Mau Penisula. Following this mission, Swift boat crewmen conducted a series of incursions along the southern rivers and canals upsetting base camps and cutting Viet Cong supply and communication lines.
So Gardner simply lied.
The one who is “simply lying” is Raven. I followed all his/her SEALORD links and they make it clear that the project did not include incursions into Cambodia until Nixon openly ordered a major invasion of the country in May 1970 (which in turn led to the Kent State protest). By that time, Kerry was long gone from VietNam. The picture of the “freelance journalist and photographer that had caught a ride into Cambodia on a US Swift Boat” is explicitly said to be from May 1970.
I notice there’s no link for the claim that Gardner said that it “getting a Swift boat into Cambodia was a ‘physical impossibility'”, which Raven pretends to be refuting.
Dr. Weevil writes:
Somehow you missed seeing “Swift boat crewmen conducted a series of incursions” in the above October 1969 release by Admiral Zumwalt discussing the preceding year, from October 1968. And the text on the page linked above as “incursions into Cambodia“, discussing Mike Bernique’s Silver Star for taking his Swift Boat upriver and attacking Viet Cong who were in Cambodia at the time — October 1968.
Admiral Zumwalt and his son wrote a shared autobiography — it’s quoted here — in which the son’s 1969 incursions into Cambodia are discussed.
Says the son: “I knew other U.S. boats had ventured into before so I wasn’t the first one to do it.”
Says the father: “… at the operating level we realized it was done with some frequency both by our boats and aviators.”
So… not “impossible”, and taking place well before “May 1970”.
Hadn’t you seen one of the major claims based on which Kerry was being called a liar? Hugh Hewitt’s interview of Steve Gardner:
Which makes that photo, even from 1970, impossible. Or makes Gardner a liar.
I haven’t missed anything you provided.
1. The statement that “Swift boat crewmen conducted a series of incursions” says nothing about crossing into Cambodia. Any unprejudiced reader of the passage would think that it most likely means incursions into Viet Cong territory. The word ‘incursion’ implies crossing some boundary or other but does not imply that the boundary is a national border, and there is nothing else in the passage implying anything so dramatic as a violation of Cambodian sovereignty.
2. You have linked twice to a text that supposedly says something about a Mike Bernique winning a Silver Star for action in Cambodia in 1969. The text you link to does not mention anyone named ‘Bernique’ and does not contain the word ‘silver’ in any context. You want to try coming up with some evidence that’s not totally bogus?
3. Finally, there’s the link to the Zumwalt memoirs. Congratulations: you’ve just proven that in any large organization the boss’s son can get away with things that ordinary flunkies would be punished for. There is absolutely no contradiction between Zumwalt Junior boasting about crossing the border more than once and the statement that “‘all the living commanders in Kerry’s chain of command … indicate that Kerry would have been seriously disciplined or court-martialed had he gone’ to Cambodia”. Yes, Zumwalt said he assumed others had done the same many times before, but that’s just an assumption, by someone now dead and conveniently unavailable for questioning. And your link provides no information as to where Zumwalt was stationed. We know that some Swift Boats were guarding the Cambodian border: those would obviously have had numerous opportunities to violate it. Other Swift Boats, including Kerry’s, were stationed away from the border, and would have found it far more difficult.
The question is whether it was possible that John Kerry, stationed where he was, could possibly have gotten away with crossing into Cambodia. You have provided no evidence that he could have, and a whole lot of people who were actually there (were you?) say he couldn’t have. Not to mention that his own crew says that he didn’t.
Try again.
1. Zumwalt was chief of naval operations. His remark about others having crossed the border included airmen and river boats — not Swift Boats — but the PLAFs used by SEALs, for example, or the PBRs used in the east (Parrot’s Beak) where the border was ill-defined and where a large area of Cambodia — shaped like a beak and protruding into Vietnam — was bound on 3 sides by naval assets in Vietnam.
2. The journalist entered during the 1970 fullblow incursion. The Swift boats stuck to the major waterways. These had been blocked previously but were opened up to take control of the Mekong and its tributaries north of the border.
3. Zumwalt junior took a risk and it paid off. Traditionally the Navy rewards success. What Zumwalt had gathered his own intel — probably got a tip from a friendly — and couldn’t convince the intel-types to act on what he had learned. That strongly implies that his actions were not that common for Swiftees. He did not make an incursion — not in the sense of an invasion and holding ground. He setup an ambush just over the line. The element of surprise was based on setting his trap many hours and shutting off his engines and waiting for something to happen. He did not do as Kerry claims to have done — stealthfully travel deep into Cambodian territory. Also, Zumwalt took his action at the peak of the rainy season (October) when the waterlevels in small canals would have been highest — and he went at dusk to take advantage of favorable tidal conditions. Kerry was in the region during the dry season. Kerry’s campaign says he did these Cambodian trips in Jan-Feb — that’s the height of the season in which waterlevels are very, very low.
It just doesn’t add-up: Swift Boat + crew not trained / equipped for special ops + regularly crossing the border for miles + dry season. Kerry has conflated his own experiences within Vietnam with those of riverine patrols along the border and special ops that monitored a 10 mile band along both sides of the border. Plus he probably is a Martin Sheen fan. 😉