8.24.04
Response to "War Lies"
By Sarah Stodola
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The Me Three editors usually agree on a lot. We both like beer, for example. And wine. And liquor. And even port. And even if we don’t agree, we say things like, “I can see your point, though,” or “That’s interesting, but I’m not quite convinced yet.” However, in these last weeks leading up to the presidential election in early November, it seems that we have experienced a sort of Mutual Exclusivity in Political Opinion. Therefore, although it is not typical Me Three policy to engage in on-the-record infighting, today, one editor responds to the arguments of another editor, point by point. The arguments at hand appeared yesterday, and were part of Grueter’s ongoing weekly column on the presidential election.
This rebuttal is appearing because, well, I really do believe that this is the most crucial election of my lifetime, and I can’t seem to get myself to simply pipe down and let slide some of the arguments made by Mr. Grueter, which have, week after week of late, fallen in almost polar opposition to my own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs with regard to the upcoming election. If anything, I simply hope that with the following arguments of my own, I can more clearly establish that Me Three considers itself a liberal publication and one that has no tolerance for the Bush Administration or its policies.
Click here to access Grueter's column.
To summarize, Grueter’s column yesterday focused on recent attacks made by the so-called “swift boat” veterans group on Kerry’s war record. Kerry received three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star over the course of his military career in Vietnam. Lately, these fellow veterans – and specifically a group of “Swift boat” veterans -- have been claiming in independently-funded commercials that Kerry lied about, among other things, having been in Cambodia on Christmas Night, 1968, that he falsified information on a battle report in order to ensure himself the Bronze Star, and that he clumsily self-inflicted a wound that resulted in one of his Purple Hearts. They regard the supposed truth of these assertions as evidence that Kerry is not fit to be our President. Grueter essentially wants Kerry to directly answer these accusations. He also wonders about how Kerry’s anti-war statements made in the early 1970’s might effect his ability to run the nation today.
First, a few notable omissions:
The first general omission in Mr. Grueter’s essay is the acknowledgement that Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam when he could have very easily hidden behind his Ivy League education. This in itself shows the very “character” which Grueter seems to be so concerned about. A person who was not sure he agreed with the reasons behind the Vietnam War, and yet participated in it because of his patriotism, all the while continuing to question what was going on around him, is exactly the kind of person we should feel lucky to have as a president.
The second notable omission is that the Bush camp has condemned the ads and demanded that the veterans group remove them from the airwaves. This is hardly a validation of the claims made in them. In fact, it is as close as it’s possible to get to proof that the accusations are unfounded.
Finally, many who fought with Kerry in Vietnam – even many Republicans – enthusiastically support his presidential run.
Moving on to some specifics:
Mr. Grueter wastes no time in quoting two Kerry statements, made seven years apart (the first 11 years after the night of which he speaks), about that Christmas night (in one of the quotes, it’s Christmas Eve) during which Kerry remembers being on a boat in Cambodia. Grueter reasons that because Kerry referred to Nixon being president in the 1979 quote, he must have been lying, because in fact Johnson was still president in December 1968, which proves the falsity of Kerry’s statements.
Every human over the age of 20 or so knows what it is like to struggle with the accuracy of memories. Kerry surely is no different. And to remember a night that was actually the night before or night after or ever a few days away from Christmas as Christmas itself, is in no way either a lie or a personal flaw, especially considering that during the night in question, and the nights surrounding it, Kerry found himself in a place that contained no common associations of Christmas. In a completely foreign environment, when each night is like the one before it, it must almost be expected that one will confuse the dates of certain events and facts. So maybe it wasn’t exactly Christmas night that Kerry was remembering in these quotes, but it was close enough for him to remember it that way. And maybe Nixon wasn’t exactly the president that night, either. But he was the president elect, and would be the president within a month, and it therefore seems quite likely that on that Christmas night, Kerry was feeling remorse over statements made by the soon-to-be president. Again, nothing wrong with that.
(At any rate, one should not presume to know how difficult it must be to deal with memories of fighting in a war when one has grown up in the cozy middle class of, oh, say, suburban New Hampshire, never being so much as threatened with the prospect of enlisting in the military; the military never being much more than an abstract concept, much as it must be to Bush, this assuming that Bush is able to get his head around abstract concepts.)
Our friend Grueter goes on to squabble with the little detail of whether or not Kerry was actually in Cambodia that night, or merely within yards of it. One must think that in the dense jungles of that part of the world, borders are not clearly delineated, complete with road markers and “Welcome to Cambodia, Enjoy Your Stay!” signs. Someone probably told Kerry that he was in Cambodia, or he otherwise had reason to believe that he was, which is no fault of his. Either way you look at it, Kerry was at the Cambodian border (in the 1979 quote, he only claims that he was five miles within Cambodia), and this is enough to make his statements valid. In all truth, if Kerry’s is a day or two off, or a mile or two off, in his recollection, the gravity of the memory diminishes not at all.
The sort of nitpicking we see in the first half of Grueter’s essay is dangerous for a couple of reasons. First, it brings the focus away from today’s real issues and places it instead on frivolous matters of debate that have absolutely no bearing on the current state of the country, nor on Kerry’s ability to lead it. Second, it displays a frightening weakness for falling for the Republicans’ blatant and cheap tricks. There’s nothing they want more, after all, than to take attention away from the fact that not only did Bush use family connections to secure a tour of duty in the National Guard, thereby avoiding time in Vietnam altogether, but that he couldn’t even muster the patriotism to show up for that harmless gig.
The Swift boat group also accuses Kerry of being undeserving of one of his Purple Hearts and his Bronze Star. How convenient for them that they are choosing points of debate that are impossible to prove after so many years. His Purple Heart is undeserved because he inflicted the wound himself? Is that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? Ditto for the accusation that he shouldn’t have received the Bronze Star because when he saved a man’s life he was not under enemy fire. That we are speaking of enemy fire instead of the bravery displayed by Kerry in risking his own life to save another’s is reprehensible.
Grueter asks, “Shouldn’t journalists be demanding Kerry answer these charges?” The answer is; Absolutely not. These are hardly “charges” anyway. At best, one might label them critiques. But to label the accusation of a possible slight inaccuracy in a memory a charge is simply absurd. Burglary, rape, and skipping out on National Guard Duty warrant charges. These accusations against Kerry warrant nothing more than a chuckle. If Kerry’s war record has been picked apart and this is all they can come up with, then it’s clearly time to put the topic to rest.
Speaking of the inaccuracy of memory, does anyone really think it’s possible for a Swift boat veteran to remember today whether or not there was enemy fire on any given day during a war he participated in over 30 years ago? Any attempt to verify this information at this point is futile. It’s one word against another and that’s all it can ever be. These men’s claims that their memories are pristine are as absurd as their expectations that Kerry’s be. So again, to indulge in this debate is to give the Republicans what they want; empty criticism of their decorated opponent. It must occur to one that they are resorting to empty criticism because they can’t come up with anything substantive.
We are late in the essay offered a quote in which Kerry said in 1971 that many in the U.S. military, himself included, committed war crimes during Vietnam. Grueter wonders if Kerry still believes today that these people are “guilty of genocidal acts committed during the war.” I haven’t heard Kerry speak to this quote specifically, but he has acknowledged that he was a particularly angry young man in those years after his return from Vietnam, and that some of his actions may have been fueled more by emotion than by rationale. One can safely assume that this quote stems from that very time in Kerry’s life, and should not be afforded much weight at this point in time, 33 years after it was spoken.
This handful of conservatives has managed to twist all facts around until they are in such a swirl that we are worrying over whether Kerry misremembered the specific date of a memory that occurred over 35 years ago, instead of recognizing just how brave and honorable those few years of his life were. We shouldn’t actually be harping on Kerry’s military record at all. Yes, it’s that solid. Instead, we should be discussing Bush’s reluctance to enter a war himself back when he had the chance, juxtaposed with his eagerness to send others into one when he had that chance. There is no finer example of hypocrisy to be found, anywhere. And to focus on a couple of arbitrary and inconsequential ambiguities in Kerry’s record in lieu of this is simply playing into the far right’s hands, while ignoring the debates that actually have the potential to effect our lives over the next four years.
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Sarah Stodola is the Managing Editor of Me Three. She can be contacted here.
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