Zahid said:

They're innocent - and yet you apply a racist term in the same sentence? That says alot about your character.

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And John Kerry never admitted to killing any innocents, he acknowledged that his chain of command was committing war crimes. Use your head.

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retread said:

Zahid said:

They're innocent - and yet you apply a racist term in the same sentence? That says alot about your character.

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I was using it as a form of wit. I wonder if someone would ask Kerry if he ever refered to the VC's as "Gooks" "chinks" "slopes", etc. if his answer would be honest, and if it was, if it would get the sort of reporting and coverage that it would if Bush said it. Probably not. You didn't answer my question, by the way

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And John Kerry never admitted to killing any innocents, he acknowledged that his chain of command was committing war crimes. Use your head.

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Use the two orifices that extend from your head!
"YES I COMMITED ATROCITIES..."
"I TOOK PART IN SHOOTINGS IN FREE FIRE ZONES..."
"I CONDUCTED HARASSMENT AND INTERDICTION FIRE..."
"I TOOK PART IN THE BURNING OF VILLAGES..."
"ALL OF THIS IS CONTRARY TO THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS..."
So, did he admit to actually "killing people", no he didn't. Did he admit to taking part in exercizes that did kill people? Yes, he did.Did you even LISTEN to this?

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The following transcript is taken from ABC's special June 30, 1971 broadcast of "The Dick Cavett Show," during which former Navy Lieutenant John Kerry represented Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He was opposed by fellow Navy veteran John O'Neill, representing Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace.

http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=KerryONeill

MR. KERRY: Well, I have often talked about this subject. I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free fire zones and I did take part in harassment interdiction fire. I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these, I find out later on, these acts are contrary to the Hague and Geneva Conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the applications of the Nuremberg principles, is in fact guilty.

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MR. KERRY: [Reading] "Free fire zone, in which we kill anything that moves ? man, woman or child. This practice suspends the distinction between combatant and non-combatant and contravenes Geneva Convention Article 3.1."

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There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals.
-- John Kerry, on NBC's "Meet the Press" April 18, 1971

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We established an American presence in most cases by showing the flag and firing at sampans and villages along the banks. Those were our instructions, but they seemed so out of line that we finally began to go ashore, against our orders, and investigate the villages that were supposed to be our targets. We discovered we were butchering a lot of innocent people,

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and morale became so low among the officers on those 'swift boats' that we were called back to Saigon for special instructions from Gen. Abrams. He told us we were doing the right thing. He said our efforts would help win the war in the long run. That's when I realized I could never remain silent about the realities of the war in Vietnam.

-- John Kerry in the Washington Star, June 6, 1971

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