Levin's a retard and so are the people that voted for him.

Levin couldn't care less about truth or facts, he's a ruthless power pig and will say or do anything to achieve his own political ends, regarless of the cost to the country or its people.

I hate to admit that he's one of my senators.

He is also terribly uninformed or does not want the truth to get in the way of a good story as he brought up the USAToday telephone story which has been completely debunked. What a moron.

So, Sen. Levin is a liar.

Well, he is a democrat.

What's the difference?

None.

Senator Levin ought to read "See No Evil" by former CIA operative Robert Baer---particularly the chapters about the failed coup mounted to unseat Sadaam back in March of 1995.

He explains in great detail how the United States government (gee, who was in the White House then??) and the CIA promised aid in an attempt to take over the government---and how they backed out less than 36 hours before the coup was to take place. Oh, the rebellion went ahead, and for some time was very successful, taking thousands of Iraqi Army prisoners and sending the Republican Guard running, but they ran out of steam because they had no backup. The diversion promised by the US never happened, and the Iraqi Army was free to address the uprising.

Here is a quote from the book, referring to one of the rebel generals...

"His couriers, the secret committee, the colonel had all been arrested. There was no way Sadaam was going to spare them. The general saw no point in keeping a morbid vigil in the north, waiting for an assassin's bullet.

I could tell he wanted to say more. He had put everything on the line----his country, his family, his life. He had trusted us, trusted the CIA, and we had let the coup go forward, right up until the very end when the White House pulled the plug without warning or a decent explanation."

(This is where I flashed on the Cubans left on the beaches while Kennedy ordered the fighter jets not to provide the covering fire that had been promised. What is it about Democratic presidents, anyway?)

Baer goes on to say that "Washington....left good and brave men twisting in the wind thousands of miles across the ocean..."

So who would Levin claim was running the CIA on March 4, 1995? Tenet? Goss?

But this will never be addressed, because it is proof that Clinton not only passed up a chance to neutralize Bin Laden, he blew a chance to get rid of Sadaam, without a US invasion of Iraq.

But it's all the Republicans' fault.........

Where is phase II of SSCI report? What are they hidding?

Almiranta, boy are you wrong:

4. SHIITE UPRISING (1991)

After Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War over Kuwait, coalition forces encouraged soldiers and civilians to rise up against Saddam in the south, but tens of thousands were subsequently massacred.

Brutal crackdowns were launched around the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, in the Hilla and Basra regions.

What do you think of Bush (HW) now?

If you don't keep perpetrating the lie, how will it ever become the truth? The Demorats know they have to keep spreading those lies if they want to change public opinion.

Almiranta, I guess you were referring to this (just a bad break and not the "Washington....left good and brave men twisting in the wind thousands of miles across the ocean..." as Baer insists)

The Clinton administration's CIA-developed plot collapsed because the Iraqi military exile group was infiltrated by Saddam Hussein's agents. The CIA's plotters inside the country were picked up and executed, and the project was ended.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/keyplayers/saddam021598.htm

Here is another one:

Synopsis: Chalabi and the INC organized a coup attempt in 1995 from norther Iraq, backed by the CIA. But shortly before it was launched, the CIA learned (1) that the attempt had been found out by Saddam, and (2) that Chalabi had forged a document from the U.S. asking him to get help from the Iranian government, and had shown this to Iran. The CIA then told him it would not provide support. He went ahead anyway with disaterous results.
http://zfacts.com/p/152.html

I've lost track of how many current and former intelligence and white house officials who have come forward and said the administration pressed for intell that would support it's case for war while ignoring intell that did not.

Levin is not a liar.

The reports were correct nobody forced anybody to do anything, bush and co. made up the intelligence they required to "fix" the facts of the war. Phony documents from Niger,aluminium tubes that had nothing to do with centrifuges and trash trucks they claimed were mobile weapons labs. No lies? Maybe,but a whole pile of bullsh1t. We will not forget. Peace

"I've lost track of how many ...."

How utterly convenient, in the face of numerous investigations in which Democrats participated which concluded exactly the opposite.

Thank God he is no longer my Senator.

As the immagration debates continue, let's remember who the real enemy is

Levin presented the USA Today story as fact and we all know it was not, that was a lie in my book.

Paul R. Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, acknowledges the U.S. intelligence agencies' mistakes in concluding that Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. But he said those misjudgments did not drive the administration's decision to invade.

"Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war," Pillar wrote in the upcoming issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. Instead, he asserted, the administration "went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."

The Downing Street memos are real. I personally believe the intelligence was manipulated. Stick your head back in the hole and say it was not. (rubes).

If the Intelligence was not manipulated (right...)
then it's obvious a statement made by a senior Bush administration official that the decision to go to war did not refer to ANY intelligence, manipulated or not.

Get a grip. Step out of the state of denial for once and for all. Yeesh...

Maroons.

Barneyg2000 . . .what's your point? Insurections and uprisings by a determined minority have been extremely successful in the past. It's unfortunate that this one wasn't but the approach was reasonable and valid. This was a Shiite failure, not an HW Bush failure.

Rplat, “Barneyg2000 . . .what's your point?”

My point is, it was Bush the elder that had the opportunity to takeout Saddam. A Republican “left good and brave men twisting in the wind thousands of miles across the ocean..." and not the Democrat Clinton.

USA Today is bound to get sued by one of those phone companies - CNN (I just happened to be flipping through the channels - and they reported that one of those companies - I think it was Bell South is demanding a retration.

Levin is an idiot. Heck though, I have two idiot senators - Frankenstein and Boxer.

I wonder come Friday evening whether USA Today will retract the story since it appears to be falling apart rapidly.

Here's a little tidbit from today's Hayden confirmation hearings...

Sen. Levin: While the intelligence community was consistently dubious about links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, Mr Feith produced an alternative analysis asserting that there was a strong connection. Were you comfortable with Mr. Feith's office approach to intelligence analysis?

Hayden: No sir, I wasn't. I wasn't aware of a lot of the activity going on when it was contemporaneous with the running up to the war, but... no sir, I wasn't comfortable.

So let's see... Levin is a liar when he suggests intelligence was manipulated... but Hayden agrees with him... Interesting...

Barney: You are showing your age or lack of hidtorical knowledge, probably both. The 1991 Gulf war was a UN sanctioned event led by the US with many nations joining.

The goal was to expel Iraqi troops frm Kuwait, nothing more. Bush 41, while he strongly wanted to topple Saddam, did not as he was honoring the UN mandate. I recall General Powell specifically stating that in many inerviews at that times when questioned by the press.

So the UN once again proved itself to be a worthless institution not capable of getting anything right and leaving a huge pool of blood for others to clean up.

OK, I quoted a CIA agent who was on the ground, working directly with Chalabi--who he admits was not always a very trustworthy guy---and who reports, in great detail, his personal eyewitness accounts of being IN THE FIELD during the coup attempt. You can fall back on some totally unrelated (1991) uprising, or some after-the-fact CYA attempts to make what the Clinton administration/Clinton CIA did seem justifiable but your sources lack the credibility or immediacy of reports from a man who immediately got in a car and drove to the site of the fighting and made numerous reports to his superiors about what HE SAW.

Cite any other source who was in the field, in the tents, at the scene, working directly with those involved, and you may have some credibility. Otherwise, you are merely spouting the lib talking points.

And BTW, Baer is not too kind to Bush, either. He appears to be merely stating his experiences and his opinions, not carrying the flag for any administration or any party. But his eyewitness account of the 1995 uprising, including meetings with Chalabi and communications with Langley, is very interesting----and proof that the CIA in the Clinton years was far more inept, and did far more damage, than it has lately.

The book also points out what seems to be universally ignored in the gloating over CIA leaks---that it is a collection of people, some qualified, some not, but often more motivated by personal gain or political manuevering than by national interest. Libs like to posture that the CIA of today is a Bush creature, so when a CIA official or employee breaks rank it is of great significance, proof that even Bush's own people are turning against him. The truth is, many in the CIA are politically motivated hacks, who never had any loyalty at all to Bush and who are no more motivated by fairness or a desire for the truth than Barmy here.

So, let's see...

The Clintons, He and She, speechify at length about the dangers of Sadaam and his WMD, and call for regime change.

John F'n Kerry speechifies at length about the dangers of Sadaam and his WMD, and calls for regime change.

Al Gore speechifies at length about the dangers of Sadaam and his WMD, and calls for regime change.

Chuckie Schumer speechifies at length about the dangers of Sadaam and his WMD, and calls for regime change.

Democrats from the House and Senate speechify at length about the dangers of Sadaam and his WMD, and call for regime change.

George W. Bush is elected to the presidency and actually pays attention to all those bright lights of the Democratic Party, those shining stars of wisdom and political insight. He listens to what they have been saying, and he actually looks into their many repeated recommendations.

And this is turned against him. When Cheney follows the advice of the Dem sages and asks about Iraq, suddenly HE is wrong, and HE is a warmonger, and HE is entering the White House with a predetermined agenda for regime change.

Ditto for Bush.

Quite a nice conundrum you all set up. If the new administration ignores the multiple demands for regime change spouted by their predecessors, they are arrogant, ignorant, or whatever. But if they listen and incorporate those pearls of wisdom, and proceed with alacrity to investigate them, they are entering the White House with agressive agendas.

And, of course, the intel YOUR people used to support their speechifying was above reproach---but the very same intel, from the very same sources, used by someone you hate, is somehow automatically morphed into "manipulated" intelligence. And not just manipulated, mind you, but manipulated for a malignant reason. Because in the POST-Clinton years, regime change suddenly became a bad thing.

I get queasy reading your rants because they are just so inherently distasteful. But you all have to be nauseated because of the twists and turns you have to do every time you have to find something good when done by your guy and bad when done by ours.

BTW, rico, the entire questioning by Levin was irrelevant. He asked if Hayden was 'comforatable' with analysis showing a relationship between Sadaam and Al-Queda. Hayden says, not really. So????

The invasion of Iraq was not---repeat, WAS NOT---based on a belief or a claim that Al-Queda was involved with 9/11, or with Iraq.

Levin's line of questioning is inherently dishonest if he was trying to imply a relationship between Iraq and Al-Queda as a justification for the invasion. It would appear from your quote that he was.

Hayden answered the question as asked. He answered a question about a specific intel analysis of a specific relationship. He did NOT say that he was uncomfortable with the analysis that led to the invasion, as analysis of an Iraq-Al-Queda relationship was IRRELEVANT to the invasion decision.

Why can't you guys keep that straight? Your high priests of deception have set up the Straw Man of an Iraq-Al Queda connection being the basis of the invasion, so you could shoot it down, but it never existed outside their, and then your, fevered minds.

Here's how it works: finger-in-the-wind-type Democrats, fearful of making waves, cave in to the Bush Administration and sign on to untrue or incomplete or irrellevant statements. Then, those same statements are thrown back in our faces as if the fact that SOME Democrats signed on to them somehow proves their truth.

You guys may be drinking in complete denial, but you are kind of crafty.

Almiranta, your beef is with the Zionists,neo-cons and armageddonists not the Democrat Party. The Zionists,neo-cons and armageddonists sold this war and those groups contain people from both political parties. But, bush took the USA to war in Iraq, so he and the Republicans own it. Peace

Just one typo, Almiranta,
You wrote, "WAS NOT---based on a belief or a claim that Al-Queda was involved with 9/11".
I think you meant to say " was not based on a belief that Iraq was involved with 9/11".

Tom,

"Lost track"? Are you sure it wasn't "tried to find one that hadn't been proven a liar, so decided to just say I've 'lost track'"?

Bobster,

Man, you guys get weirder by the day...those statements are from 1998....you know, back when Congress passed and President Clinton signed the law which REQUIRED us to change the regime in Iraq...

Levin needs to go - him being a US Senator is about as pathetic as the Pope being a Rabbi -- he is a disgrace to this nation!

Levin is an idiot, just like Stabenow and Conyers. When it comes to members of congress, Michigan is loaded with kooks. OTOH, normal, everyday residents of Michigan, at least those whom I've known over my long life, are decent people.

The fact is, Senator Roberts set the tone for the hearings, General Hayden was spectacular, and all the kooks could do was recycle the same old b/s.

Shitley, stevie, raper, you should all be proud of your sorry-ass party...

Mark,

I've found that even when I do provide solid evidence backing up a point of mind, you still manage to hold firm to your incorrect position (see the WMDs was the main reason for the war argument). Not worth the effort when I know before hand any amount of logic and evidence won't work.

Nice profane insult, keef.

Almiranta said: "The invasion of Iraq was not---repeat, WAS NOT---based on a belief or a claim that Al-Queda was involved with 9/11, or with Iraq."

Oh really? Are you freakin' kidding me? Without the supposed connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda, Saddam ceases to be an immediate threat. A threat, yes, but not an immediate one. Without that connection you eliminate the need to rush to war. It's not a straw man, it's an essential point.

Be that as it may, that's not the issue Levin addressed. I don't know why you thought it was. Levin's opening statement (specifically, the portion reproduced in the topic of this thread), as well as the question I mentioned that he addressed to Hayden, had to do with Hayden's ability to resist pressures that would make him less than independent and objective in the intelligence assessments his agency would provide. Note that in his opening statement Levin didn't take Bush to task, he took Tenet to task. That seems to be a distinction many here don't appreciate. But it's an important one. Tenet, as you recall, is the one who said with regart to the WMD issue, "it's a slam dunk". That's a fact that many of the lefties often forget. Bob Woodward's account of that episode is very interesting. Y'all might want to read it. It might not be entirely accurate (we'll never know that for sure), but it does give you a feel for the dynamics involved, and why someone who is able to resist pressure is essential to head the CIA.

Now allow me to add a little more context to Levin's comments and question. See, Levin is a member of the task force charged with producing Phase II of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-war intelligence. That's the one which (among other things) is supposed to address the degree to which the intelligence was influenced by the desire for certain conclusions. After more than two years that report is still pending. And apparently, the primary reason for that is the fact that the DoD's Office of Special Projects (OSP) doesn't want to relinquish the requested information. Chairman Roberts has the ability to subpoena the information, but for whatever reason he won't do it. If he had done that two years ago, this would be a non-issue.

So why is the information the OSP could provide important? Well, let me tell you. The OSP, as you may recall, was set up by Paul Wolfowitz and headed by Doug Feith -- in other words, it is "Feith's office" of which Levin spoke. One of the officers in the OSP was Larry Franklin who, along with two of his deputies, is now under indictment for passing classified info to the pro-Israeli lobby, AIPAC. The OSP was the primary conduit for information provided by Ahmad Chalabi and the rest of the INC, as well as Manucher Ghorbanifar (you may remember him from the Iran/Contra days), and the informant in German custody known as "Curveball", who was the guy that supplied the erroneous information about Iraq's mobile biological labs. If you were to pull up Colin Powell's speech at the UN and started redacting the parts that the OSP was primarily responsible for, his speech becomes a shell of what it was. And THAT'S why it's important.

As far as I'm concerned, it is essential for the various intelligence agencies -- and particularly the CIA (but not exclusively) -- to be a source of independent, objective information. Without it, the decision-making by those at the top is very susceptible to error. In this particular instance, that's what the resistance is all about. It's not a left/right issue, it's a politicization/independence issue. The 9/11 Commission concluded the same thing. But what has happened? I'll tell you what, not too many of the Commission members are very happy about the way things have gone so far.

Nice profane insult, keef.

Thanks, Tommy; it's the only way I know how to deal with imbeciles such as yourself. Sorry, man, I just hate lefties...

Keefer, I called Levin an idiot before you did (haha). Anyway, its good to call a liberal nut by his true name, keeper. Don't pull any punches.

I find it really, really ironic and humerous when Republicans whine about Democratics lying when you have the worst liars in American history in the White House and they are being propped up by the (R) Congress

Heres a thought. Flush the whole lot in November. A lot of the Democrats in Congress stink also, so flush both and fill the house with new bodies.

Thanks, Tommy; it's the only way I know how to deal with imbeciles such as yourself.

The sign of a person with little intelligence, toll boy.

o, Sen. Levin is a liar.
Well, he is a democrat.
What's the difference?
None.
Posted by: Dorothy at May 18, 2006 02:32 PM

Good Lord! We're getting posts from Oz now! Dorothy: You're not in Kansas anymore.

Well, Tenet did apologize for his blunder. Saying those nuke things, then saying we shouldn't have said those nuke things is admitting and apologizing for a lie. If I tell you this diamond ring is real and you buy it, then later your find out it is fake and I say I shouldn't have told you it was real, I am admitting a lie.

And, those trailers of mass destruction? How is that not a lie? Cheney was STILL saying they were proof MONTHS after they were totally and thoroughly debunked. That's what you call "shaping intelligence."

Oh, and the "there is no doubt, Saddam has WMDs" speech Cheney gave. That day, in the audience, Zinni KNEW Cheney's briefings had expressed some doubt. Even if Cheney was 90% sure, "there is no doubt" is a lie. It is "shaping intelligence."

There is also Conclusion 27 in the report you link to that completely exoneratesand comfirms Joe Wilson's no-nuke claims:

"Conclusion 27.After reviewing all of the intelligence provided by the Intelligence
Community and additional information requested by the Committee,the Committee
believes that the judgment in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE),that Iraq was
reconstituting its nuclear program,was not supported by the intelligence.The Committee
agrees with the State Department ’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)alternative
view that the available intelligence “does not add up to a compelling case for
reconstitution.”

That is called "shaping intelligence."

Tom,

Oh, you like to think you've come up with proof in the past, but you haven't...just more out of context quotes and questionable news sources...certainly, though, you can put out a few of those people who support your position...I know you've lost track of them all, but some of them must be handy...

Mark,

The jury is in and everything is pointing to the fact that the intelligence was purposely cooked. Whistleblowers, ex-CIA, Downing Street, the list goes on.

You are just one of those that will vote and defend Bush no matter what. He could be tried and convicted of genocide and you would still believe in his innocence and vote for him. Fortunately, most Americans are capable of free and independant thought and will eventually question what they are told without just blindly accepting. Sad when they need to, but thats the reality we are in today

If Republicans were conducting any oversight at all, there would have been a full investigation. Unfortunately, its more important to Republicans to win elections than to protect the constitution and ensure that their executive is not abusing his war powers.

Sad when congress are Republicans first and Americans second.

But, like good things, all bad things must come to an end and I can hear the November flushing of the toilet called the will of the people already.

Mark, I guess profane insults don't get deleted if they're directed at a liberal, eh?

Kind of like how it's OK to slander a US troop in action if he later becomes the democratic presidential nominee.

You're a fraud.

No Tom,
I think slandering troops in action is a prerequisite to become a democrat presidential candidate.
Pot, meet kettle.

Bane,

Kerry was speaking out on behalf of troops who had been put in a situation in which morality was easily compromised. He spoke out about things he thought needed to be heard. He accused himself of the things he spoke about.

It was not a slander campaign. It was an attempt to shed light on a situation in which US troops were suffering. He was not condemning himself or the troops.

What was slander were the attacks on Kerry for his actions in Vietnam. People were condemning him, calling him the worst sort of names. There was malicious intent.

What Kerry did was no way malicious.

Kerry claimed to have personally witnessed American troops that

"...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..." and accused the U.S. military of committing war crimes "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

I guess you consider an officer in the US military meeting in secret with the enemy just shedding light on the poor servicemen fighting for their lives in country.

Not a slander campaign? Did you never hear of the "Winter Soldiers"? their, and Kerry's intent was always to spread slander for their communist masters.

And when Kerry's "heroic" actions were called into question by the very men he maligned, he was the poor victim of "malicious intent"!
That's absurd!

OK Bane, either you are a liar or greatly misinformed (I'll assume the latter).

Kerry did not claim to personally witness those things. Here is the paragraph the immediately precedes the paragraph you posted from Kerry's statement...

"I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command...."

He did not claim to personally witness his acts.

Now, you also go on to say that none of these things happen.

Well, over 109 troops testified that such things happened in Detroit in 1971. I've found ONE participant who says he was asked to testify to things he didn't witness. Pay special note to the last sentence.

This is from Wikipedia:

"Veteran Steve Pitkin, who was 20 years old at the time, has claimed that he was not originally planning to testify at the WSI, but came to Detroit to support his fellow veterans and listen to live music [16]. Pitkin says he was asked by event leaders to speak on the second day of the event. On the panel Pitkin criticized the press for its coverage of the war, and detailed what he considered poor training for combat in Vietnam, and low morale he claimed to have witnessed while there [17]. Pitkin is quoted as saying he was later contacted by a reporter for Life Magazine who asked about war crimes and atrocities. "I didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear," Pitkin is quoted as saying, and nothing he claims to have said was included in the final story [18]. In August, 2004, 33 years after the Winter Soldier Investigation and during the 2004 presidential campaign season, Pitkin signed an affidavit stating "John Kerry and other leaders of that event pressured me to testify about American war crimes, despite my repeated statements that I could not honestly do so." [19]

Upon hearing of these statements by Pitkin, another participant named Scott Camil filed his own affidavit refuting Pitkins statements [20]. Pitkin has subsequently admitted his recollections were flawed, and has re-issued a second affidavit now reflecting a different date of discharge from the Army, different people traveling with him to the Winter Soldier event, and different circumstances under which he joined the VVAW [21]. On September 15, 2004, Pitkin signed a second affidavit stating that he had been instructed by organizers to "publicly state that I had witnessed incidents of rape, brutality, atrocities and racism, knowing that such statements would necessarily be untrue" [22]. However, although he introduced himself by saying, "I'll testify about the beating of civilians and enemy personnel, destruction of villages, indiscriminate use of artillery, the general racism and the attitude of the American GI toward the Vietnamese," his actual testimony contained no such statements [23].

The U.S. participation in the Vietnam conflict was the source of much deeply divided sentiment among Americans. The Winter Soldier Investigation produced a conglomerate of testimony resulting in the implication and indictment of American leadership in criminal conduct, and thereby further drove a wedge between proponents and opponents of the war. Many people viewed the Winter Soldier proceedings with a critical eye, and questions have been raised about the testimony given at the Winter Soldier Investigation. Details in the testimonies have been questioned, as have the identities of participants, since the first day of the three day investigation. It has been claimed that participants were frauds; that they were told to not cooperate with later investigators; that their testimonies were inaccurate or just plain fabricated. For more than thirty years since the WSI, individuals and organizations have sought to discredit or at least minimize the painful revelations brought forth at that event. To date, no records of fraudulent participants or fraudulent testimony have been produced."

This article helps shed some light on the false claims that "none of this stuff happened."

Here's a sample:

"According to the formerly classified army records, 46 soldiers who testified at the WSI (Winter Soldier Investigation) made allegations that, in the eyes of U.S. Army investigators, "merited further inquiry." As of March 1972, the army's CID noted that of the 46 allegations, "only 43 complainants have been identified" by investigators. "Only" 43 of 46? That means at least 93 percent of the veterans surveyed were real, not fake. Moreover, according to official records, CID investigators attempted to contact 41 people who testified at the Detroit session, which occurred between January 31 and February 2, 1971. Five couldn't be located, according to records. Of the remaining 36, 31 submitted to interviews—hardly the "few" asserted by SBVT. Moreover, as Gerald Nicosia has noted in his mammoth tome Home to War, "A complete transcript of the Winter Soldier testimony was sent to the Pentagon, and the military never refuted a word of it."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0438,turse,56936,1.html

Bane said: "Kerry claimed to have personally witnessed American troops that..."

Actually, he said he was told those things at the Winter Soldier meeting, not that he personally witnessed them. Factcheck.org has a very good synopsis of the facts surrounding the points you bring up. As you may recall, during the VP debate in Oct 2004, Dick Cheney recommended that site as a good source of inbiased information. And it is. I think they're a little too brief sometimes, but then I'm a glutton for information. Anyway, some of the allegations have been well documented by other sources, others were total fabrications. Still others were somewhere in between. That Factcheck article also has a link to the transcript of Kerry's 1971 congressional testimony, should you care to read it.

Kerry; "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."

I've read the transcript, he and the rest of his communist Winter Soldiers group were spreading lies with the intent of discrediting the Servicemen and the US government. Then cried foul when his testamony was called into question. I was there, he's a liar!

Once again, in the face of being proven wrong and strong facts disproving other arguments they've made, a right-minded poster on here is defiantly ignorant.

You're a joke. Bane of reality is more like it.

The Winter Soldier Investigation was conducted by Vietnam Veterans Against the War. From 31 January to 2 February 1971, the VVAW, with financial backing from actress Jane Fonda, convened a hearing, known as the Winter Soldier Investigation, in the city of Detroit. More than 100 veterans and 16 civilians testified at this hearing about "war crimes which they either committed or witnessed"; some of them had given similar testimony at the CCI inquiry in Washington. The allegations included using prisoners for target practice and subjecting them to a variety of grisly tortures to extract information, cutting off the ears of dead VCs, throwing VC suspects out of helicopters, burning villages, gang rapes of women, packing the vagina of a North Vietnamese nurse full of grease with a grease gun, and the like. Among the persons assisting the VVAW in organizing and preparing this hearing was Mark Lane, author of a book attacking the Warren Commission probe of the Kennedy Assassination and more recently of "Conversations with Americans", a book of interviews with Vietnam veterans about war crimes. On 22 December 1970 Lane's book had received a highly critical review in the "New York Times Book Review" by Neil Sheehan, who was able to show that some of the alleged "witnesses" of Lane's war crimes had never even served in Vietnam while others had not been in the combat situations they described in horrid detail.
The results of this investigation, carried out by the Naval Investigative Service, are interesting and revealing.
Many of the veterans, though assured that they would not be questioned about atrocities they might have committed personally, refused to be interviewed. One of the active members of the VVAW told investigators that the leadership had directed the entire membership not to cooperate with military authorities. A black Marine who agreed to be interviewed was unable to provide details of the outrages he had described at the hearing, but he called the Vietnam War "one huge atrocity" and "a racist plot." He admitted that the question of atrocities had not occurred to him while he was in Vietnam, and that he had been assisted in the preparation of his testimony by a member of the Nation of Islam. But the most damaging finding consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit. One of them had never been to Detroit in all his life. He did not know, he stated, who might have used his name. Incidents similar to some of those described at the VVAW hearing undoubtedly did occur. We know that hamlets were destroyed, prisoners tortured, and corpses mutilated. Yet these incidents either (as in the destruction of hamlets) did not violate the law of war or took place in breach of existing regulations. In either case, they were not, as alleged, part of a "criminal policy." The VVAW's use of fake witnesses and the failure to cooperate with military authorities and to provide crucial details of the incidents further cast serious doubt on the professed desire to serve the causes of justice and humanity. It is more likely that this inquiry, like others earlier and later, had primarily political motives and goals.
In April 1971 several members of Congress provided a platform on Capitol Hill for the airing of atrocity allegations. Rep. Ronald V. Dellums of California chaired an ad hoc hearing which lasted four days and took testimony from Vietnam veterans. Some of the witnesses were old-timers. One Peter Norman Martinson had testified before the Russel tribunal, been an interviewee in Mark Lane's book, and appeared before the CCI inquiry. Some new witnesses sounded as if they had memorized North Vietnamese propaganda. Capt. Randy Floyd, a former marine pilot, ended his testimony by telling the committee that he was ashamed to have been "an unwitting pawn of my government's inhuman imperialistic policy in Southeast Asia... And I am revolted by my government which commits genocide because it is good business." For his testimony Floyd drew the praise of Congressman Dellums: I would like to thank you very much for the courage of your testimony and the preparation and details. We are deeply appreciative of the fact that you came forward today."
A certain amount of this guilt feeling was probably encouraged by the leaders of these groups, all staunch opponents of the war, and there is reason to think that at least some of the atrocities confessed at these rap sessions (and perhaps later repeated in public) were induced by group expectations and pressures. Some were the product of fantasy on the part of emotionally disturbed individuals. Robert Lifton, another psychiatrist involved in these sessions who believes in the frequent occurrence of atrocities, recalls the case of one veteran who after a year's attendance in the rap group could "confess that he had been much less violent in Vietnam than he had implied. He had previously given the impression that he had killed many people there, whereas in actuality, despite extensive combat experience, he could not be certain he had killed anyone. After overcoming a certain amount of death anxiety and death guilt, that is, he had much less need to call forth his inner beast to lash out at others or himself."

One of the stories told and retold was that of prisoners pushed out of helicopters in order to scare others into talking. It is, of course, possible that some American interrogators engaged in this criminal practice, though not a single instance has been confirmed. We do know of at least one case where such an occurrence was staged through the use of a dead body. An investigation by the CID identified the soldier who had taken the photograph; it also identified a second soldier who acquired the picture, made up the story of the interrogation and mailed it and the photograph to his girlfriend. She in turn gave them to her brother, who informed the Chicago Sun-Times. On 29-30 November 1969 the picture and the story appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times and the Washington Post and generated wide media interest. A lengthy investigation by the CID, which began on 8 January 1970, established that a dead NVA soldier had been picked up on 15 February 1969 after an operation in Cia Dinh province (III CIZ) and adduced other details of how the picture had been posed. The commander of the helicopter in question was reprimanded; the two crew members who had pushed the body out of the aircraft had since been discharged and therefore were beyond the Army's disciplinary jurisdiction.

You’re a pathetic piece of $hit! At least Pitkin had the honor to admit he lied.
Let me state it again because you’re too stupid to understand; WE WERE NOT WAR CRIMINALS! Get it, you f**king loser! I don’t give a fat rat’s @$$ how many communist “investigations” your sorry #$$ turns up. IT NEVER HAPPENED! Don’t ever address me again! Jerk!

First of all, Bane, I never said you or all troops were war criminals.

Second, I did not know you are a Vietnaim vet (at least that's what I infer when you say "we were not war criminals"). If so, I would have used some deference in my responses.

But, you were incorrect in stating Kerry said he witnessed those things you posted (in your first post). And there are at least 30 people who spoke at the WSI that the military took seriously and never refuted. I don't think you can say these things never happened. Nor do I want them to have happened. I'm just looking at the facts as they lay.