I've worked hard to keep politics to a minimum on this blog. There are too many people who do that so much better. But every time I post something on the election campaign, I get email that inspires me to do a little more research, which inspires another post.
Today I found this essay in NRO by Mackubin Thomas Owens from way back in January. It's called "Vetting the Vet Record," and one of the interesting things about it is that it assumes as fact (the issue not yet having boiled to the surface) that Kerry earned all of his medals. It also includes the unedited version, in context, of Kerry's Winter Soldiers testimony, to which Owens responds:
This is quite a bill of particulars to lay at the feet of the U.S. military. He said in essence that his fellow veterans had committed unparalleled war crimes in Vietnam as a matter of course, indeed, that it was American policy to commit such atrocities.
In fact, the entire Winter Soldiers Investigation was a lie. It was inspired by Mark Lane's 1970 book entitled Conversations with Americans, which claimed to recount atrocity stories by Vietnam veterans. This book was panned by James Reston Jr. and Neil Sheehan, not exactly known as supporters of the Vietnam War. Sheehan in particular demonstrated that many of Lane's "eye witnesses" either had never served in Vietnam or had not done so in the capacity they claimed.
In fact, this essay quite directly addresses a number of accusations that are being bandied about today. So even if you've read it before, it's worth reading again.
