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Skeptic Ian Williams questions an earlier president.

The War Records of Bush and Kerry...

by Ian Williams 

Ian Williams is a journalist and U.N. Correspondent for The Nation and a weekly columnist for www.MaximsNews.com   Order his new book from Amazon.com, Deserter: George Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past.   See his Bio.  See his columns listed below.   IanWilliams@MaximsNews.com 

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          UNITED NATIONS -- 12 August 2004 / www.MaximsNews.com /   “I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War,” said Senator John McCain last week condemning the attack ads on Kerry’s war record.

It was a really well-nuanced put-down of the President, who may need it explained to him, since he is almost certainly one of the great un-nuanced who thinks that irony is what they used to make in the rustbelt.

The contrast is killing.

“Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” the group of veterans who allegedly paid for the TV time, seem to have some form of recovered memory syndrome, since they have chosen to speak out now some thirty-five years after the events they have clearly been festering about..

There are many strange aspects to this for non-Americans.

Why is Vietnam still an issue in an American election in 2004? 

For many voters today, it is almost as remote as the question of whether politicians in the sixties were conscientious objectors in World War I!

Then there is the stunning sound of silence.

While the war record of Kerry comes under scrutiny and slander, there is no debate whatsoever in the American media about the ethics of a war that killed millions of Vietnamese, or about the way it was fought.

There seems to be a retreat to the common ground, that tens of thousands of Americans died there tragically in a fairly futile cause.

However, there seems to be a conspiracy of silence, not to mention or debate the differences in the subtext: either their deaths were futile because they were stabbed in the back by anti-American hippies and liberals – or because an evil and unthinking government sent them there in a stupid and immoral war.

As a result, we stick to the common ground which is that the American troops in Vietnam were victims.

Even Kerry, who returned from the war repelled by what he saw, and then campaigned against it, no longer seems to question what he was doing there.

Somehow the question of whether Iraq is another Vietnam is posed in relation to its dire effects on the American soldiers, not on the civilians.

I am not sure whether any Iraqi villages have been destroyed to save them, but certainly some apartment blocks seem to have had the Vietnam treatment – and at least one wedding party.

Although the Republican party made the war its own and began to attack the integrity of those who did not serve in the “War of their generation,” notably Bill Clinton, it was in fact the Democrat John F. Kennedy who got the war rolling, his Democratic successor Lyndon Baines Johnson who pumped it up to its height – and the Republican Richard Nixon who eventually ended it and left America’s South Vietnamese allies in the lurch.

But the attacks on Kerry as McCain so subtly implies, they all inadvertently confirm one thing.

Kerry fought in Vietnam.

In contrast, not even the best investigators a dirty tricks department can buy can find one single veteran who saw George W. Bush in any military capacity whatsoever in Vietnam.

Nor during his national guard service in Alabama for twelve months from May 1972.

Indeed, there are no veterans to dispute the merit of First Lieutenant George W. Bush’s combat medals or the quality and depth of the wounds that he suffered for his Purple Hearts.

Because he was never in combat and the only battle he almost had was when he offered out his father after a drunken bout Christmas 1972.

Bush “honorably” chose the height of the Tet Offensive to engage in aggressive maneuvers  - using his family influence to get into the Texas Air National Guard specifically to avoid being drafted to go to Vietnam.

It was not that he disagreed with the war. Not at all.

He kept taking time off to go to campaign for Republican pro-war candidates around the South.

It was in the course of one of these campaigns, in Alabama that he secured a transfer to the local Air National Guard – and never turned up.

He “failed to accomplish” his flight medical there, and then did not turn up to the enquiry that should have been called about his failure, which in effect deprived the U.S. Air Force of several years expensive training as a jet pilot.

The organization that sponsored the anti-Kerry ads declares on its site that "We believe it is incumbent on ALL presidential candidates to be totally honest and forthcoming regarding personal background and policy information that would help the voting public make an informed decision when choosing the next president of the United States.”

One of the effects of recovered memory syndrome is that the memories thus conjured up do not necessarily join up.

None of these veterans seem at all exercised about the holes in Bush’s war record, let along the gaps in his public memories of this era.

In legend, the slanders of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his witch-hunt for alleged communists was stopped in its tracks by a televised question.

“Senator, Have you no shame?”

However, the dirty tricks department in the Bush Campaign, the people who impugned triple amputee Viet Vet Senator Max Cleland’s patriotism, and questioned ex-POW McCain’s integrity and now attack Kerry on behalf of a preppy war dodger implies the answer.

“No we don’t. Do you have a problem with that?”

And amazingly, at least forty per cent of America and a large proportion of the media, do not.

So now, we have a belligerent Republican administration, whose least bellicose member is the only actual Vietnam Veteran, Colin Powell, whose President, Vice President and leading hawks all dodged service in the “War of their generation” attacking Kerry’s fitness to be “commander in chief,” in the War on Terror.

Except that just like they dodged the real war and sent surrogates to fight it on their behalf, they are using proxies in this campaign as well.

In the face of this assault, it made sense, of a sort, for Kerry to surround himself with veterans and military officers at the Convention, to parade his military credentials, not least because he actually has them. 

But it does present a bizarre spectacle for outsiders. The two contenders for the leadership of the Free World and democracy are sparring about who is the best military commander with the best combat experience.

It only adds marginally to oddity that the instigator of the fight has no military credentials, went AWOL during Vietnam, and now has his country bogged down in a desert replay of that messy conflict.

However fighting on the ground of who has more medals on his chest is fighting on the Republican ground where perception is everything.

One cannot help but long for John Kerry to actually state outright what he was saying 30 years ago on his return from the war.

 “I fought in Vietnam. What we did there was wrong for the Vietnamese, and wrong for Americans. And what you have done now is wrong for Iraqis and equally wrong for Americans.”

 But he won’t, so this strange guerilla war on reputations will go on.

     Email Ian Williams:  IanWilliams@MaximsNews.com

  Just Released: 

Deserter: George Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past  

by Ian Williams

Order Now from Amazon.com       http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560256273/wwwmaximsnewc-20/103-2632401-6943852?creative=125577&camp=2321&link_code=as1

Ian Williams' Weekly Columns in MaximsNews.com

The War Records of Bush and Kerry...  12 August 2004

Where is Osama Bin Laden?  6 August 2004

Sudan, To Intervene – or not to Intervene?  27 July 2004

Mr. Sharon, Tear Down This Wall!  16 July 2004

William Safire – Warped, on Speed, or Just Running Mad Again?  13 July 2004

Bosnian U.N. Defender Locked Up  7 July 2004

The U.N., the U.S. & the I.C.C.  30 June 2004

The New York Times, William Safire and the United Nations  23 June 2004

Hastily Contrived, Verbose, and Fudged: Security Council Resolution 1546  16 June 2004

Is the U.S. Clever Enough to Rule the World?  9 June 2004

Humor the Beast: the U.S. and the ICC  2 June 2004

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?  20 May 2004

The Solution to the Iraqi Knot  12 May 2004     

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