Critics of Senator John Kerry may be barking up the wrong tree when they attack his record in Vietnam, especially when they question whether he deserved the three Purple Hearts he was awarded. The putative Democratic presidential nominee has made his Vietnam service the centerpiece of his political biography, touting his bravery in combat and, most recently, attacking President George W. Bush, "who can't even show or prove that he showed up for duty in the National Guard." But Kerry's problem isn't whether he deserved the medals he was awarded. His vulnerability is his record after the war -- especially his involvement with the radical group Vietnam Veterans Against the War and his role as an apologist for the communists we were fighting in Vietnam.
On April 22, 1971, John Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by anti-war critic Sen. J. William Fulbright. In riveting testimony that turned Kerry into an overnight celebrity, the young Vietnam vet accused his fellow soldiers of committing war crimes in Southeast Asia. He recounted stories -- since largely discredited -- of American soldiers who "had 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 a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of Vietnam ... " A few days later, Kerry went on "Meet the Press" saying that he, personally, had "committed atrocities" in Vietnam, as well as accusing other American soldiers -- the men he now refers to as his "band of brothers" -- of doing the same.
Kerry has since tried to backtrack on what he said three decades ago, last week telling NBC's Tim Russert that he probably shouldn't have used the words "war crimes" or "genocide" to describe U.S. action in Vietnam and claiming -- falsely, since his words belie him -- that he wasn't speaking of the actions of soldiers but rather of political leaders. But he has never made any attempt to explain his defense of the communists we were fighting in Vietnam.
In his testimony, Kerry described the Vietnam War as a "civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever." That view -- which depicted Ho Chi Minh as a nationalist hero and totally ignored the Soviet Union's involvement in training and funding the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong -- was embraced by na? romantics as well as communist propagandists and apologists in the anti-war movement.