Senator Richard "Turbin" Durbin
accused the military of Nazi-like behavior.
AMERICA'S 5TH COLUMN

The same template used to smear and demoralize the military during the Vietnam war is reemerging to undermine America's efforts in Iraq.


Please click the play
button to watch "5th Columnists".

HOME PAGE   —   CURRENT ARTICLES   —   SPEAK UP DISCUSSION BOARD   —   SEND US YOUR COMMENTS

EMAIL THIS PAGE TO A FRIEND   —   SIGN THE PETITION TO SEE DURBIN'S EVIDENCE

SMEARING THE VIETNAM VETERAN:
You may have seen or at least heard of the infamous testimony of Senator John Kerry to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If not, you can view small snippets in the movie at the top of this article. His words set the 'Gold Standard' for smearing the military. John Kerry was speaking as a citizen and not a senator. But his intentions were purely political. The first part of his testimony had to do with the Winter Soldier Investigation. He testified that his organization, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, had investigated stories from 150 veterans who claimed wide spread war crimes that were in his own words,

"not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command"
What you may not know is that those allegations were investigated by two authors as well as the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC). The CMC reported that only one person would cooperate with the investigation. His final report said they could not verify any of the remarks made by John Kerry. B. G. Burkett, in his book "Stolen Valor" and Guenter Lewy in his book "America In Vietnam", both confirmed the Commandant's report. Mr. Burkett said that many of the witnesses at the Winter Soldier Investigation had no military records and of the ones that did, many had not gone to Vietnam. Additionally, some names were used falsely in order to claim Vietnam combat experience. When the actual veterans, whose names were used in the Winter Soldier Investigation, were found and questioned, they indicated they had never have been to the Winter Soldier Investigation.

THE FRAUD OF ANTI-WAR LEADER 'AL HUBBARD':
One very telling piece of evidence of the dishonest tactics used by anti-military zealots was the case of Al Hubbard. Mr. Hubbard was the Executive Director of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He claimed to be a decorated Air Force pilot with the rank of captain that had flown combat missions in Vietnam. He further claimed to have been wounded and disabled from his service in Vietnam. His claims turned out to be fabricated. In reality Al Hubbard was an enlisted man who left the service with the rank of Staff Sergeant (E5). His military record showed he had never served in Vietnam. He did have a disability but his medical records were not released. A reporter who investigated Hubbard's background said his disability was probably due to a sports injury he received in 1961.

THE MEDIA CONTRIBUTION:
These were not isolated incidents. From the 1960's and beyond, America's military was portrayed as misguided, depraved, murderous, drug addicted, and psychotic. Hollywood indelibly stamped the notion of the military man as a war criminal with movies such as "Platton", "Apocalypse Now", and "The Deer Hunter".

The media also played an important part in defaming our Vietnam veterans. On the very highest levels General Westmoreland sued CBS for their story, "The Uncounted Enemy". CBS claimed that Westmoreland and his staff purposefully distorted the number of enemy soldiers in Vietnam. The law suit was eventually settled out of court. In another story CNN reported on a military operation called "Operation TailWind". In the story CNN reporters said the military made a secret incursion into Laos and used sarin gas to kill American defectors. The Pentagon made a full investigation and found the story to be false. CNN made their own investigation and determined the reporting to be flawed. CNN then retracted the story, fired two producers and reprimanded Peter Arnet.

SMEARING CURRENT MILITARY:
That was during and just after the war in Vietnam. It firmly established the template. Today, opposition party politicians and their supporters in the government and the press, look for any opportunity to portray the military in the worst light possible. By raking muck and scandalizing foreign policy efforts, such as the war in Iraq, the opposition party hopes to bring enough public pressure to force a policy change. Sometimes policy change isn't the goal. Sometimes it is enough to just put the current Administration in a bad light with gut-wrenching accounts of atrocities, children's deaths, and the many horrors of war. John Roberts is the White House correspondent for CBS News. In a rare moment of candor, he admitted the reason he wanted pictures of coffins returning home from Iraq was to inflame the American public as had been done with the bodybags returning from Vietnam. Here is a clip of his remarks as reported on the Laura Ingraham Show.

The New York Times ran over 40 consecutive front-page articles on the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Gharab. That tactic was termed "Flood the Zone" and was meant to keep the negativism in the public spotlight. It's sister paper, the Boston Globe, published front page pictures of Iraqi women being sexually assaulted by American soldiers. They later had to apologize as the pictures had been 'faked' at a staged setting for a porno movie. More than one network news outlet has featured stories on the recuperating wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital.

ANTI-AMERICANISM OVERSEAS:
It isn't just American news outlets that practice these questionable tactics. Anti-American stories are regularly embellished and run in foreign newspapers. Newsweek Magazine recently had a small piece on alleged abuses at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. The report, in the issue dated May 9, said U.S. military investigators had found that American interrogators had flushed a copy of the Koran, the sacred Muslim text, down a toilet. A week later, when newspapers in Afghanistan and Pakistan picked up the item, it sparked anti-American demonstrations in the Afghan city of Jalalabad in which four protesters were killed and more than 60 injured. About a dozen more protesters were killed in the following days when the demonstrations spread across Afghanistan and to Pakistan and other countries.

THE DURBIN AFFAIR
Senator Richard Durban (D-IL) has been an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq and the President's foreign policy. On June 14, 2005, he made a speech on the floor of the Senate. The first part of the speech was about the upcoming energy bill. At the end he appended a comment about the alleged abuses at Guantánamo Bay. You can read his speech in the Congressional Record, or listen to part of his remarks in the movie clip at the top of this article. In his remarks he compared the military's treatment of detainees to the abuses by Nazis in World War II; Soviet treatment of prisoners in their Gulags; and Pol Pot's murderous reign in Cambodia. The source of these allegations was an FBI memo.

If true, these charges are very, very serious. More than one former military member are serving jail sentences for mistreating prisoners. We are demanding to see the evidence that Senator Durbin referenced during his June 14th speech. If the evidence is compelling, it should warrant a full criminal investigation under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Senator Durbin's words are as stinging as any physical attack. In fact, his speech could be compared to the slap General Patton gave a private he considered a coward.

PETITION TO SEE THE EVIDENCE:
If the allegations are untrue, the American people should know that also. Either way, it is not acceptable to let the affair go unanswered. To help get to the bottom of this we have published an on-line petition demanding that Senator Durbin release all the information he has on this case. We want the American public to see and decide for themselves if abuses are practiced. If not, just like General George Patton, Senator Durbin should be required to apologize in person and in writing to every military member at Guantánamo Bay.

You can read the petition here.

THE PUBLIC VIEW