When John Kerry Was the Soldier 'Breaking the Silence'

The storm over the veterans who expose misconduct by the Israeli army is reminiscent of Kerry's controversial testimony on the Vietnam War nearly 50 years ago.

The backlash in Israel against the organization “Breaking the Silence” with its finger pointing, vilification and heated rhetoric flying fast and furious has a familiar ring to Americans who are old enough to remember the Vietnam War.

One American for whom it should touch an extremely familiar and personal chord is Secretary of State John Kerry.

Israelis as a whole picture Kerry as a gray-haired tireless statesman in a suit jetting around the world on peace missions - and before that, remember him as a senior senator and unsuccessful candidate for the presidency in 2004, when he lost to George W. Bush.

They are unfamiliar with the young John Kerry who dramatically burst onto the national scene in the United States in 1971, as the spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), speaking openly about the feelings of “anger and betrayal” and even “revulsion” he and his fellow veterans felt about their country’s mission in Vietnam.



It is all captured on video - the lanky 27-year-old man in uniform testifying in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Kerry’s was an anti-war voice that was hard to ignore. No scruffy hippie, he was well-born and one of the best and the brightest - a Yale graduate who volunteered to serve in the U.S. Navy as a gunboat officer, winning numerous medals during his service in Vietnam, including the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for three combat wounds.

Kerry’s devastating testimony took place in April 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as part of a series of hearings by Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright to discuss and debate various legislative proposals related to the already-controversial war.

Kerry’s remarks included accounts of behavior just as shocking - in many cases, more so - than anything coming out of the Israeli veterans of “Breaking the Silence." His stories were drawn from testimony given at a three-day media event organized by VVAW in Detroit several months earlier called the "Winter Soldier Investigation" which had been designed to draw attention to what the VVAW said were “war crimes” committed by the U.S. military and their allies in the war.

Kerry opened his remarks by explaining that the group’s name “Winter Soldier” - came from a Thomas Paine quote about the Revolutionary War, referring to “sunshine patriots” who were loyal fighters only when things were going well, their cause was just and their country’s behavior was praiseworthy.

"We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out," said Kerry.

At the Detroit gathering, Kerry recounted, "very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis” and “relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.”

He continued: "They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

The powerful and most-quoted line of Kerry’s testimony is:  “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

To be sure, the political context of the struggle of Kerry and his organization was very different than the fight against the occupation that forms the background to “Breaking the Silence.”

The two political realities can’t be compared. Israelis certainly cannot relate to Kerry’s assertion that "there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America” which he used to delegitimize the U.S. presence in the Asian nation.

Whether or not one believes that they justify the occupation, the threats in the West Bank or Gaza Strip to Israel are very real, not to mention much closer to home.



But the emotional and political dynamic of elite soldiers decrying the military they served, airing their country’s dirty laundry for the world to see, and the subsequent accusations of betraying and endangering their nation is, indeed, similar to what “Breaking the Silence” is going through.

Kerry’s behavior and statements in 1971 cast a long shadow throughout the decades and followed, some would say haunted, him throughout his political career, establishing him as a hero on the American left and branding him as a traitor on the right, who charged that the Winter Soldier event and the Senate testimony were little more than a publicity stunt cynically manipulated by Kerry to advance his political aspirations.

Campaign ads sounding this theme - that Kerry dishonored his country - were used in Kerry’s ill-fated presidential campaign against Bush in tandem with charges that his war decorations were undeserved, in what ended up coining the phrase “Swiftboating” as a term for an unfair political smear campaign - Kerry’s service had been as a Swift Boat commander in Vietnam.

Kerry has another thing in common with “Breaking the Silence” soldiers in that the country’s most powerful leader considered the young veteran a thorn in his side and ordered his staff to discredit him. The famous secret White House tapes have President Nixon and his advisors denigrating Kerry calling him a “phony” and an “opportunist.” The tapes record White House aide Charles Colson promise his boss, “We’ll keep hitting him, Mr. President.”

One can only imagine what the parallel conversations regarding “Breaking the Silence” are like in the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.693061?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter



Think Netanyahu has forgotten about that.  Kerry will know that they are telling the truth.

Kerry will have a very interesting perspective on 'Breaking the Silence' and will understand the truth of what they are saying.

The following letter was sent to Foreign Affairs Nov. 23 2015, but went unpublished:
"Dear Editor:
Violeta Moura’s photo gallery and accompanying article on “Breaking the Silence” (“Israeli Soldiers Break Their Silence,” November 18) omits far too much about this essentially anti-Israel group that claims to report alleged abuses by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

“Breaking the Silence” (BTS) has been described by NGO-Monitor, an organization that tracks non-governmental organizations operating in Israel, as dedicated to providing non-Israelis with defamatory, often unsubstantiated allegations about the IDF. The group has consistently refused to provide authorities with evidence for its allegations, despite the Israeli army’s order requiring members to report any violation of regulations that results in harm to noncombatants and investigate substantial charges.

Moura rightfully notes that the group’s allegations are presented anonymously, but she repeats uncritically—in a photo essay with pictures of BTS members—its claims that the anonymity in question is for protection. While she briefly notes “accusations that the stories are fabricated,” she quickly repeats—without detail—the groups assertion it “use[s] a rigorous investigative method to corroborate all claims.” What exactly this method is neither BTS nor Moura say.
Instead of providing Israeli authorities with evidence to back charges of Israeli military abuse of non-combatants, the group conducts speaking tours before anti-Israel audiences far from the borders of the Jewish state.

“Breaking the Silence” bills itself as an Israeli non-profit. However, it receives substantial funding from European groups and governments opposed not only to Israeli policies, but in some instances to Israel itself. Some of the groups’ donors, such as Broederlijik Delen, a Belgian Christian charity, also fund openly anti-Israel organizations. Moura’s article omits this important background. These tactics raise questions about the group’s objectives, as does the source of their funding.
The group’s unsubstantiated allegations that the IDF commits crimes and regularly uses disproportionate force runs counter to expert testimony from independent military sources. After an American military delegation visited Israel following the summer 2014 Hamas-initiated war, then-chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey stated that Israel “went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties.”

Similarly, a 2015 report by the High Level International Military Group—which includes former chiefs of staff of German, Italian and Spanish militaries, among others—concluded that “Israel not only met a reasonable international standard of observance of the laws of armed conflict, but in many cases significantly exceeded that standard.” The group concluded that Israel’s adherence to the laws of war—while fighting an enemy that does not share its moral compunctions—was “scrupulous.”
Foreign Affairs readers examining the “Breaking the Silence” photo gallery would learn none of this. The essay broke the journalistic standard of fully disclosing the “who,” which could have offered answers to readers looking for the feature’s “why.”
Sincerely,
Sean Durns
Media Assistant
CAMERA—Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America"



http://blog.camera.org/archives/2015/12/foreign_affairs_goes_silent_on.html

Camera -


Jeez Didge, how much do they pay you lol

sassy wrote:Camera -


Jeez Didge, how much do they pay you lol

The difference between John Kerry and Brealing the Silence is that John Kerry could speak out in a country where he wouldn't be hunted down and targeted whereas Breaking the Silence soldiers would face the terrible wrath of the Israeli Reight wing zealots - including the government.

So to sum up sassy.s night of debating.
Spam the forum up
shy awy from any points that leace her lookinhg inept and post ianane immature commeents, due to the fact she keeps looking inept by not answering points

Irn Bru wrote:

sassy wrote:Camera -


Jeez Didge, how much do they pay you lol

The difference between John Kerry and Brealing the Silence is that John Kerry could speak out in a country where he wouldn't be hunted down and targeted whereas Breaking the Silence soldiers would face the terrible wrath of the Israeli Reight wing zealots - including the government.

Exactly, and those that are actually standing in the streets telling their stories are taking their lives in their hands.  That's courage, speaking out about atrocities no matter what.

Which as of yet the claims are hearsay, if people are not willing to come foirward,

I feel sick to my stomach reading that, it makes out all soldiers in the war were killing, rapist bastards ect. I saw nothing like that in 3 tours of Vietnam, I shot a dog that had rabies does that count? A few soldiers "lost it", not surprising when you had people shooting at you and Mortar bombs blowing your mates to bits,little children rolling grenades into tents. Some soldiers risked their lives trying to save children by covering them with their own bodies when shells were falling around them. WHY IS THERE NO MENTION OF THE SACRIFICE OF YOUNG SOLDIERS WHO DID NOT WANT TO BE THERE BUT HAD NO CHOICE?

nicko wrote:I feel sick to my stomach reading that,   it makes out all soldiers in the war were killing, rapist bastards ect. I saw nothing like that in 3 tours of Vietnam, I shot a dog that had rabies does that count? A few soldiers "lost it", not surprising when you had people shooting at you and Mortar bombs blowing your mates to bits,little children rolling grenades into tents. Some soldiers risked their lives trying to save children by covering them with their own bodies when shells were falling around them.   WHY IS THERE NO MENTION OF THE SACRIFICE OF YOUNG SOLDIERS WHO DID NOT WANT TO BE THERE BUT HAD NO CHOICE?  

Must've been awful Nicko X

Eddie, you can never understand the absolute terror and the horror of it.

nicko wrote:Eddie, you can never understand the absolute terror and the horror of it.

I can Nicko - I really can.  America has evidence that they won't let people see even now

The Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files is a collection of (formerly secret) documents compiled by Pentagon investigators in the early 1970s, confirming that atrocities by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War were more extensive than had been officially acknowledged.^[52][53] The documents are housed by the United States National Archives and Records Administration, and detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by United States Army investigators (not including the 1968 My Lai Massacre). (See also Winter Soldier Investigation).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes#Vietnam_War

They actually prosecuted for My Lai.

For goodness sake, so someone not witness to such horors reckons they can understand the terror and horror. Which is fundementally absurd. Unless you experince these invents in person, then you can only imagine, which is far removed from the reality. It takes looking at both sides and the wrongs by both sides in a conflict as well.

You have no idea what I have seen Didge, and you are irrelevant.

Really you were in combat in Vietnam

Behave, you are about the worst on here for any understanding of conflicts.

Do run along Didge, you're irrelevant.

Ahhh the old trying to surpress free speech, because that is what the regressives stand for

Nobody is trying to suppress your speech, you can say what you like, but it's irrelevant as you have no idea what I know as I was part of it in many ways and you were still a child.

You try to deligitmize sassy, a nazi tactic of course, which seeks toi surpress poeople.
It also proves another one fo thje many prejudices you have.
You made a reall absurd statement.
Claiming to udnerstand the horror and terror, which nicko witnessed and faced.

Nope, your first post after my reply to Nicko was doing just that, it's didn't work bless you lol

nicko wrote:Eddie, you can never understand the absolute terror and the horror of it.

sassy wrote:  I can Nicko - I really can.  America has evidence that they won't let people see even now

So Nicko rightly states eddie and just about anyone cannot understand unless they have faced this and sassy makes  the absurd claim, she understands, never ever havinng faced this

People please DON'T ARGUE over this,it was a long time ago, I do try to forget but when some dick head tries to blame the whole of my Army for the actions of a few, well, it pisses me off. By the way I was NOT in the American Army, I fought with the few Australians that were there!

nicko wrote:People please DON'T ARGUE over this,it was a long time ago, I do try to forget but when some dick head tries to blame the whole of  my Army for the actions of a few, well, it pisses me off.    By the way I was NOT in the American Army,  I fought with the few Australians that were there!  

They were very different to the Americans Nicko, as were the Kiwis.  They featured a lot in the history of the Kiwis in Vietnam that I helped write as it happened.

BTW Didge, terror comes in many forms like being beaten and assaulted by raging football thugs out of control to the extent of causing grievous bodily harm on people. Yes I can imagine how terrifying that can be.

Being close to a bomb blast and witnessing the effects of human beings being blown apart. Helping to tend the injured and the ambulance crews with blood stained victims. Yes I have witnessed and done that myself.   I've also sheltered my brother while our car was being shot at, and my Mum and Dad were carrying guns.  I've had an aircraft come in over the sea, take the tops off our coconut palms and crash just down the road.  I've stepped over dead bodies to go to work and much, much more.  You haven't a bloody clue.

Sorry but a terrorist attack, of which I was witness to at Lodon Bridge, is far removed from combat and to even claim it is similar is an insulting thinking this gives an idea what soldiers face in combat.
So in now way can you possible begin to imagine what soldiers go through and to even claim that you can is complete bollocks

Wasn't one, it was every day and in our road.

When did you witness the effects of a terrorist attack at London Bridge?

Jackanory

Again what soldiers face under fire is far removed from anything you have dealt with and again you are not in the position they are where all rules go out of the equaition, its kill or be kill, of which you have most definately not done. So when Nicko said you have no idea of understanding this, he is 100%^ correct, because being witnessw to some people dying is in no way understanding those who wnet through long conflicts.
For yoiu to even claim you have an understanding shows why you are an idiot

When did you witness the effects of a terrorist attack at London Bridge?

When the bomb went off at London bridge and I was on the lower part of the station, not the higher level
Here we go again lol

So where did it explode?

In Lond Bridge station, in the gents if I remeber

Anything else, or would you like to know what I had for breakfast that day.

So what events did you imagine you witnessed?

So I presume you were coming home from work?

And BTW  I wasn't comparing myself to nicko. I am explaining that terror comes in many forms and you haven't experienced any of it so you don't understand it - other than inflicting it lol

nicko wrote:Eddie, you can never understand the absolute terror and the horror of it.

No I can't Nicko. I can't even begin to imagine and wouldn't insult you by trying.

Why would you presume that?
You of course presume wrong, because you are lookint at this from the wrong stance as to why I was there
Even more so when I have stated something about this before.

Now what events have you witnessed?

Sorry my comment to Nicko was before I'd read the whole thread and I'm sorry for anyone else on here that's been through war, bombs or terror like that.
I'm fortunate enough to have been largely unaffected - personally, I mean x

I've already spoken about them Didge, having to be moved onto camp during the Chinese uprisings in Singapore with my Mum and Dad carrying guns, have bombs go off down the road planted by the Indonesians and the Warrant Officer who saved the life of the young Sargeant when it went off, the bombs that were planted in our sea wall yards away, the bomb going off in Singapore city while we were in the Cathay cinema and the walls rocked, the plane that came in, took off the tops of our palm trees and crashed just down the road and we raced out because I thought my Malay friends were in the shop it hit, the killings during the night by the Indonesians that left bodies outside the gates of our flats and lots, lots more.  Co-authoring with our Wing Commander the history of the NZAF in Vietnam while I was working for them, as it happened.  I'm not writing my life story for you.

So you weren't on you way home then?

I heard the explosion at Canary Wharf when the IRA planted a bomb there. Does that count?

eddie wrote:Sorry my comment to Nicko was before I'd read the whole thread and I'm sorry for anyone else on here that's been through war, bombs or terror like that.
I'm fortunate enough to have been largely unaffected - personally, I mean x

I have never been through what Nicko has, but I've seen bits of bodies where people have been blown up, it's simply vile and you can hardly register it.  No worries Eds x

No worries eddie, it is more the point it is insulting, when someone claims they understand, when they do not, as they hbave never been in combat or experinced the events of Vietnam.
Terorism is different and as you know this has directly effected my family which is far removed from combat..

I would think that being in combat yourself is different because you have to make decisions about whether to shoot people or not.

So you witnessed terrorism, not combat, like I said.
Aagin Sassy I was neither going to work or going home from work, even though  this happened in the morning.

Lets see if  you can figure this one out

Why were you there? I'll guess - you were off to join the French Foreign Legion

sassy wrote:Why were you there? I'll guess - you were off to join the French Foreign Legion

I shall leave you to figure that one out.

I have stated before about this in the past

Yes Didge, but you say so much I tend to disregard it, so don't expect me to guess, why the hell should I.  If you want to say, do so, if you don't, can't say it will bother me.  Try controlling others, you don't control me.

Well if you cannot figure out why, its not important then  is it? As it never was froim the beginning but you seem to want to know every small detail like the lame attempt to ask me if I was going home. This was more evidence of you having no interest in the debate, but some pathetic attempt thinking you would catch me out to an event I witnessed.
It shows your complete immaturity again