It is your argument that turns the principle of innocent until proven guilty on its head, although you seem to primarily operate on the assumption of guilt by association. Based upon the finding that a few accounts were perhaps not credible, you are finding guilty, i.e, accusing of lying, over 100 soldiers who testified as to their own experiences. If we are to disbelieve their stories, it is incumbent on us to demonstrate their falsity. Further, if we find that a substantial portion of this limited number are in fact true, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that there is a significant likelihood that other similar incidents occurred, since these clearly are not actions most people publicly admit to. We would likely not know of My Lai except for the actions of soldiers who were not part of it. And don’t attempt to turn this into a charge that every American soldier was guilty of committing atrocities — it simply is not. But this was/is not the point — rather, the entire thrust of Kerry’s testimony was to castigate the leadership that created the conditions under which such behavior was likely to occur and did occur. He specifically did not condemn the individuals whose stories he was relating.

This is exactly the same critique that holds for Abu Ghraib — any moron with even the most limited knowledge of prisons and guard behavior should have known that in the absence of strict safeguards against abuse, such behavior is virtually assured of occurring. Numerous studies confirm this (you can look it up if you really do care). This is precisely why Rummy and Bush should be held accountable for Abu Ghraib. It is their failure to plan and execute properly that created the conditions under which the behavior could and did occur. Do I think they wanted it to happen? — No. But they either did not care enough to ensure that it didn’t happen and/or figured it would never be exposed if it did happen, or they were simply incompetent. And while this does not absolve the “bad apples” of individual responsibility, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind who is ultimately responsible.

By the way, I would be extremely wary of buying another car from a company that allowed the defects in Pintos and Crown Vics until I was convinced that they had taken responsibility for their failures and made wholesale changes that all but guaranteed that it wouldn’t happen again. And I would fire the management team that was in charge at the time.

Let me see if I got this straight. Because certain isolated atrocities did occur and were prosecuted; therefore any additional claims, no matter how outrageous, are automatically considered legit until proven false. This is an inversion of the innocent until proven guilty principals that we operate on.

Winter Soldier was predicated on the notion that where there’s smoke, there’s a fire raging beneath it. Therefore, let’s collect all the stories, make up the rest and present it as an indictment. To strengthen that thesis, Kerry said it was ALL true, because what he was there, saw it and did it himself.

Alas, the subsequent investigation debunked it all. The atrocities you covered WERE the fire and all the other claims, including Kerry’s were just smoke generated to make it appear bigger than it actually was. Look, no one is denying that atrocities were comitted. However, war crimes were NOT endemic to the US Forces.

This is the same with Abu Ghraib. Atrocities were committed by a few bad apples, and Moonbats tried to make that the smoke of a wildfire raging within the entire DOD, all the way up to Rummy and Bush.

Your arguments are the same as saying that ALL Fords are inherently dangerous because of the defects in the Pintos and Crown Vics.

Perhaps, we should use that flawed thinking to say that ALL Dems are rabid Moonbats, because of the actions of the relatively few radicals. This would be ridiculous because we know perfectly well that not all Dems are happy with the position taken by those who seized control of the DNC. Nevertheless, it is up to the membership to do something about it.

It’s one thing when some of the membership is insane–they can be discounted and mariginalized, just like Buchanon on the right. It’s another thing when some of those few are at the top and deign to speak/act for the entire party.

Your song & dance is old and I’m thru dancing.

Here’s another excerpt. Look up the references to atrocities (Son Thang and Thanh Phong,Tiger Force of the 327th Airborne Infantry in the Central Highlands in 1967, the Phoenix Program) if you really need to be convinced.

The remaining plank in Lewy’s case against the winter soldiers consists merely of noting the participation in Detroit of JFK assassination conspiracy theorist Mark Lane. And even in attempting to cast doubt on the veracity of the winter soldiers’ allegations, Lewy also wrote that “incidents similar to some of those described at the VVAW hearing undoubtedly did occur”; that policies such as the military’s emphasis on “body count” certainly “created an atmosphere conducive to atrocities”; that in 1967 Vietnam field commander General William Westmoreland had to issue orders prohibiting cutting ears or fingers off the bodies of the dead; and that the conduct of a war without fronts “created a setting especially conducive to atrocities.”

Other claims put forward at the Winter Soldier Investigation–such as an allegation that the Marines made an incursion into Laos (Operation Dewey Canyon) that was illegal under U.S. law–were later shown to be true. And in the years since the winter soldiers convened in Detroit, the general premise of their gathering has been validated: American soldiers did indeed commit atrocities in Vietnam; the most famous, the My Lai massacre of March 1968, was merely the starting point. The names of villages like Son Thang and Thanh Phong, locales of other acknowledged atrocities, are now burned into the memory of historians. The actions of Tiger Force of the 327th Airborne Infantry in the Central Highlands in 1967 are still today under investigation as war crimes. (Indeed veterans of Tiger Force have acknowledged the atrocities and have appeared on television to describe their roles and remorse.) And the Phoenix Program led to thousands of deaths despite efforts by the CIA’s William Colby to impose legal strictures on program activities

Somehow that paragraph sounds eerily like the rathergate song sung blue in the face by CBS. Come on man, nice try, you just adapted their “fake but accurate” statement to fit your treatise.

So answer the question, cite just one case that exemplifies the spirit of Winter Solder. Most of us don’t have time to read the entire report, let alone the executive summary. Haha, and the moon is made of blue cheese because plenty of people have reported actually ingesting some of it.

Unless there’s something hidden on your link, your “proof” consists entirely of a statement by an unnamed member of the House of Representatives that the report was thoroughly discredited. Moreover, the “statement” appears to contradict itself since it seems to quote from the same report it says is discredited. And why is the author unidentified?

As to the Winter Soldiers investigation: Let me get your logic straight — there were a few discredited accounts, so we should therefore discard all of the other testimony, unless I can provide the proof that the actions described by veterans were verified by government/military authorities who had every reason to cover them up. Before you attack the credibility of soldiers who risked their lives, I think the burden is on you to prove they were lying. Where are your citations? Did you actually read the link I provided?

As to your prior comments regarding Al Qaeda in Iraq: I’m so relieved to know that the real reason we went into Iraq was to create thousands of new American-hating Islamists so we can fight them over there. I guess the Bush administration knew that all the new terrorists will be too busy in Iraq and won’t have the time to plot attacks in America or against our allies. I feel so much safer now. I wonder why they didn’t use that justification to sell the war in the first place. It has the advantage that at least half of it is true.

I’m sitting here listening to the Sean Hannity webcast while catching up on the rest of this post’s commentary, when the intro to Talking Heads’ Once In A Lifetime came on.

Boy, I could have fun with lyrics like:

…And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile,
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife,
And you may ask yourself-Well! How did I get here? …
And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful wife! …
Into the blue again/after the money`s gone…
Same as it ever was…

On the otherhand, their 1979 song “Life During Wartime” is Nostradamus-esque considering current affairs

“You can have // anything you want // at Alice’s rest-au-rant”

Carin: What I meant, of course, was that Pat Buchanan makes quite a bit of sense. While I can’t speak for all libertines/paleocons, I can explain what the term “neo-con” means to me. “Neo” means new, therefore we have a “new” conservatism, something different from what it was.

One cannot deny that the President and his cabinet and advisors has operated under this construct. In this sense, I agree with Mr. Buchanan; and wish for the old conservatism.

Drew: Sometime I’d like to discuss how Kennedy won the the 1960 election (can the dead vote?), not to concede your point, however.

Name one of the atrocity stories brought forth in the Winter Soldier Investigation that was held to be true after military and congressional investigators vetted them. Just one, not documented widespread atrocities in general, just one of the atrocities cited in that investigation.

Widespread atrocities? Brought out over the last thirty years? Name one LEGITIMATE source that can spell out those previously undocumented atrocities which occurred on such a widespread basis.

As far as what I said about the Florida elections, I stand by what I said rather than by the now discredited report you reference. See http://patriotparadox.mu.nu/archives/037506.php and then you can decide for yourself. Of course I know it won’t change your mind, because you are set on you own worldview, which is obviously different than mine.