Sunday, October 24, 2004
"Imagine Kerry saying THIS in 2004!"
Imagine Kerry saying THIS in 2004! - Nader for President 2004 - www.votenader.org
"John Kerry's Original 1971 Testimony Against the War Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
KERRY: I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it�s created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped. As a veteran and one who feels this anger, I would like to talk about it.
...In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam], nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos, by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it�s that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart. We are probably much more angry than that, and I don't want to go into the foreign policy aspects because I am outclassed here. I know that all of you talk about every possible, every possible alternative of getting out of Vietnam. We understand that. We know you have considered the seriousness of the aspects to the utmost level and I am not going to try to deal on that, but I want to relate to you the feeling that many of the men who have returned to this country express, because we are probably angriest about all that we were told about Vietnam."
....
"And so when, in 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory but mean instead the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.
Thank you.
(Applause)"
"John Kerry's Original 1971 Testimony Against the War Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
KERRY: I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it�s created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped. As a veteran and one who feels this anger, I would like to talk about it.
...In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam], nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos, by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it�s that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart. We are probably much more angry than that, and I don't want to go into the foreign policy aspects because I am outclassed here. I know that all of you talk about every possible, every possible alternative of getting out of Vietnam. We understand that. We know you have considered the seriousness of the aspects to the utmost level and I am not going to try to deal on that, but I want to relate to you the feeling that many of the men who have returned to this country express, because we are probably angriest about all that we were told about Vietnam."
....
"And so when, in 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory but mean instead the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.
Thank you.
(Applause)"
