This is extremely big and timely news.
FRONTPAGE published an article today by Scott Swett, the proprietor of WinterSoldier.com and the author (along with Tim Ziegler) of “To Set The Record Straight – How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry.”
The article is entitled “Newly Discovered Army Reports Discredit ‘Winter Soldier’ Claims”, found here.
Read the article. It is devastating to both the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation (WSI), and to the IVAW and their upcoming "WSI – Iraq and Afghanistan" that they have so energetically tied, even in name, to that earlier event!
Swett has come into possession of and published on-line copies of the Army CID (Criminal Investigation Detachment) summaries of the investigations of the charges made by purported and real Army veterans and members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War at the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation.
Similar files and the findings they revealed from the Navy's NIS were written of years ago by the historian Guenter Lewy in his 1980 book ‘American in Vietnam'. While there has been indication that some others had seen those files, they have been missing from the available public record for decades.
Just yesterday I posted “A Vietnam Vet Replies to the IVAW Video”, in which I published comments and photos I received from John “Doc” Boyle. Boyle had sent them to me at the suggestion of a friend. That friend was Scott Swett. Scott and I have become acquainted via e-mail after my article last October in American Thinker, “Investigate the Winter Soldier Investigation”.
Today I find that John Boyle was instrumental in finding those files in the possession of an historian who had made copies before the record disappeared into the labyrinth of the National Archives!
Scott and John, well done!
Some at IVAW, members and even non-members operating behind the scenes, have known all along what they were and are attempting. Others have been led, and I have to add willingly, down a primrose path by the old leftist guard of the VVAW and VFP.
Last January, I posted “Winter Soldier 2008 Preview” in which I addressed comments by IVAW member Matt Howard. Howard has become adept at mouthing the empty inanities and pseudo intellectual formulations passed on to him no doubt by and through those elders. At Dandelion Salad, Howard said:
“So Iraq Veterans Against the War is taking back our history – the history that has been robbed from us. We are dispelling the myth that the Vietnam war ended when the Democrats started voting against it. Instead we are spreading the truth about how the American War in Vietnam ended. The Vietnam War ended when soldiers put down their weapons and refused to fight; when pilots dropped their bombs in the ocean.”
What struck me at the time I read that is that there are a great many serious historical works written about the Vietnam War, from a wide range of perspectives and political leanings. One can search and search in vain for any remotely serious historical analysis that will credit the ending of that war to anything as delusional as “soldiers put down their weapons…pilots dropped their bombs in the ocean…”
The only explanation for that, and other statements made and actions taken by IVAW members, including simply naming their event after and self-consciously equating it to the 1971 WSI, is that they have been fed a whole lot of outright hokum and garbage by the leftist elders recounting their halcyon glory days when they think they represented a great “resistance” movement within the ranks!
I will have more to say about this later, time permitting. For now, the IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) now has the opportunity to know exactly what horse they had determinedly hitched their wagon to for these last few months, even to naming their upcoming event after what was, as many have said, a travesty and an injustice. It is probably too late for the IVAW to change the name from “Winter Soldier Investigation – Iraq and Afghanistan” to something like “Just Us Vets Telling of Our Experiences!”
10 comments:
This is the problem as I see it:
I honestly hope WSII is the same as WSI, because this will out the frauds at a much faster rate. But looking back, CID had all this info, and it never went public. Which is why it is incumbent on us to out the assinine stories right off the bat.
I will be live blogging from WSII, and I will put up as much info as I can as it is happening. I suspect that about 10 minutes after posting, someone will debunk it, and good on them.
I think AS genuinely wants it to be more that WSI atrocity accusations. I would to, because the record of support for these stories thus far is about 2 out of 1000. BUt, as a guy who will be there, I want all the gory, nerve wracking, ludicrous bits of fantasy I have come to expect from an organization with massey et al.
TSO:
“But looking back, CID had all this info, and it never went public.”
In the FRONTPAGE article Scott had:
“It is unfortunate that the military didn’t simply release the results of the investigations as they were completed.”
To my mind, the most shameful burden for that falls on members of the United States Senate. It was the Senate that accepted the 1971 WSI testimony into the Congressional Record, with oath-free “testimony”.
It was the Senate that accepted that "testimony" in the motion by Senator Hatfield that also called for the charges to be investigated by the CID and NIV, which they were.
It was the Senate that also accepted that hearings were to be held to receive the report of those investigations.
It was not the responsibility of the military investigative agencies to make those findings public. It was the Senate’s and we can be sure of this: Senators were briefed on what had been found!
The leadership, at the least, knew. They didn’t hold those hearings, they didn’t tell the public, and they let three millions veterans be smeared.
They kept that hidden from us all. Both the Senate and House were firmly in Democratic control from January 1971 through January 1973, during the 92nd Congress.
So we go full circle:
http://keohane.blogspot.com/2008/02/appeal-to-senate-armed-service.html
You honestly trust anyone in the senate to come forward with info? Not a chance unless it supports their position. And no one will do it now either, because they'd get shallacked.
That's why its up to us.
TSO: Sorry I won't get to meet you there, had to cancel. Have fun. I'll catch as much as I can via the video feed. If you moon the camera. keep that in mind. [grin]
Denis, let me add to your atta boys for Scott et. al.
Besides IVAW another group to keep a close eye is VoteVets led by Jon Soltz. You may remember him from the Kos convention who when challenged by another veteran resorted to trying to threaten the soldier, Soltz is a CPT and the soldier in question was an NCO, and then wound up merely shouting him down and ignoring him.
Vote Vets currently has a new commercial airing taking a shot at McCain and his comment about how we may be in Iraq for a long time in the future.
Haven't forgotten them grunt, was just waiting for them to come out of the woodwork again, and I see they did today.
Expect more in the near future. They are just as shady as others of their ilk. They got burned by Josh Lansdale (I think was the dudes name) and their TV ads were rated as the least factually accurate in PA, VA and elsewhere last election cycle.
Their slightly better about not making completely assinine comments, but also much better funded.
"You honestly trust anyone in the senate to come forward with info?"
On the 1971 circus? Nope.
On the next one, though, it only takes one single Senator to get the ball rolling. Any member of the SASC can send staff or call for hearings. There are a few (prescious few!) on that committee who might, but they are there.
It's not leaving it up to them to do it. It's pushing them to.
Congressional staff tend to be heavily weighted towards lawyers, which makes sense since they work for - lawmakers.
For the SASC, some of those will have to have either JAG experience or familiarity with the UCMJ. Personally I'd love to see someone familiar with the UCMJ paying close attention.
The incident in question may have less to do with VoteVets, and more to do with the difference between NCOs and officers.
Or maybe that's just my anti-officer propaganda talking.
I'm not going to go into WSI. It's not my lane, and my lane is busy enough. Maybe after this, I'll have time to take that on.
AS? No dis-respect, there are no ill wishes of harm or anything for you from myself or others that I've noticed.
Its bad enough that WSII is already set to cooking on high heat on the front burner.....
Instead of putting more analysis into the subject & more spin on it? Isolate yourself from the going on's.
Take a look around you. When all the organizations Communist, Socialist, Fascist & Unions have gotten done with they wanted....using you & your group for the explicit purpose of advancing an agenda that in the ends discredits YOU & your honor?
Sometime there after, unless you write yourself a one way ticket out of Dodge, you just might notice that you'll have been kicked out to the curb.
Those very same people will walk right by you on a busy street or in a crowded room somewhere not once giving a hoot that you were willing to be used by them to achieve their goals.
AS must of taken a vacation from posting. In case you do come back & post or just read AS.....the sooner you wakeup & see you are being used by those on the Left that have a dire need to accomplish what their after; the better off & wiser you'll be to put some really serious turf between yourself & them.
You got less than 17 days left to decide what it is you should or shouldn't do. This coming from an old street punk.... Them kids you are "supposedly" training how to survive in combat are in for an earth shattering experience.
Look to Heaven & ask the Great Spirit for guidance. When the shit hits the fan, it's YOUR good conscience thats gonna take the hardest hit. It may not come right away, it is definitely going to be one train wreck your not gonna be able to avoid later on down the track called life.
Post a Comment