I am disturbed and troubled by shameful mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners

WASHINGTON, April 30, 2004 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Senator John Kerry issued the following statement today:

"I am disturbed and troubled by the evidence of shameful mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. We must learn the facts and take the appropriate action. As Americans, we must stand tall for the rule of law and freedom everywhere. But we cannot let the actions of a few overshadow the tremendous good work that thousands of soldiers are doing every day in Iraq and all over the world."

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=154-04302004

Kerry: This Moment in Iraq is a Moment of Truth
Lays Out Key Steps to Win the Peace in Speech at Westminster College
April 30, 2004
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0430.html

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Vietnam Veterans Against the War Statement by John Kerry to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations- April 23, 1971

http://pages.xtn.net/~wingman/docs/kerryst.htm

(snip)

We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.

We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against "oriental human beings."

We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater. We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation by the North Vietnamese.

We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point, and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and Fire Base 6s, and so many others.

Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake.

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We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission - to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. And more.

And so when thirty 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 where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.

"We know that there is no harder truth than when an American pays the ultimate sacrifice for our country. At this moment, 722 men and women have fallen. Eulogies and rifle salutes and the last lone note of taps have echoed across our towns. The sacrifice is profound, the grief beyond measure, and the country’s gratitude is eternal."

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0430.html