Here's a quote from the article:
The first cliché is that atrocities were widespread in Vietnam. But this is nonsense. Atrocities did occur in Vietnam, but they were far from widespread. Between 1965 and 1973, 201 soldiers and 77 Marines were convicted of serious crimes against the Vietnamese. Of course, the fact that many crimes, either in war or peace, go unreported, combined with the particular difficulties encountered by Americans fighting in Vietnam, suggest that more such acts were committed than reported or tried.Kerry should have checked his facts before his testimony. I wish he would apologize for repeating the words of fake Vietnam vets and thereby unwittingly slandering his fellow servicemen and women. I'm not saying he was wrong to testify, I'm saying he was wrong not to repudiate the portion of his testimony about which he had been mislead.
But even Daniel Ellsberg, a severe critic of U.S. policy in Vietnam, rejected the argument that the biggest U.S. atrocity in Vietnam, My Lai, was in any way a normal event: "My Lai was beyond the bounds of permissible behavior, and that is recognizable by virtually every soldier in Vietnam. They know it was wrong....The men who were at My Lai knew there were aspects out of the ordinary. That is why they tried to hide the event, talked about it to no one, discussed it very little even among themselves."
He should have checked his 'intelligence' better.
Of course, I am giving Kerry the benefit of the doubt by saying the witnesses mislead him. I have no proof whether Kerry lied or was lied to. I think it is important to give our political opponents the benefit of the doubt, don't you?
